This is how we flow : rhythm in Black cultures / edited by Angela M.S. Nelson.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Nelson, Angela M. S., 1964-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans.

Black people.

Rhythm.

American literature--African American authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--African American authors.

African American aesthetics.

Aesthetics, Black.

African American arts.

Arts, Black.

Physical Description:

vi, 160 pages : illustrations, maps, music ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Columbia, S.C. : University of South Carolina Press, [1999]

Summary:

"This Is How We Flow" provides ten pathbreaking essays in which the volume's contributors illustrate how rhythm is the foundation of all African expression -- music and dance, the visual arts, architecture, theater, literature, and film. They suggest, by example, that an African aesthetic does exist, an aesthetic that revolves around the motif of rhythm.

In essays that focus on the medium most commonly associated with the motif, Juliette Bowles discusses rhythm's place in African American music, and Mark Sumner Harvey examines its conceptualization in jazz music. William C. Banfield suggests a methodological framework for composing black music, and Angela M. S. Nelson identifies the primacy of rhythm in African American rap music.

From Martin Luther King's speeches to Claude McKay's poetry, the contributors also consider rhythm as a quality in black oratory, literature, and film. Richard Lischer offers a detailed analysis of King's speeches, Ronald Dorris elucidates rhythm's meaning in McKay's poem "Harlem Dancer, " and Darren J. M. Middleton considers the power of rhythm to move people to write and act for social justice, as in the poetry of Rastafarian dub poets. Suggesting that it is through the lens of rhythm that the meaning of black film of the 1980s and 1990s becomes clearest, D. Soyini Madison exposes rhythm as ritual, modality, and discourse in the film Daughters of the Dust.

Two contributors round out the discussion by examining expressions of rhythm in African countries. Alton B. Pollard III provides a historical-critical survey of freedom songs in South Africa from the nineteenth century through the 1990s, and Zeric Kay Smith examines "macro- and micro-rhythms" inMalian politics, lending credit to the contributors' collective conviction that rhythm organizes and frames African behavior regardless of context.

Contents:

A Rap on rhythm / Juliette Bowles

Jazz time and our time: a view from the outside in / Mark Sumner Harvey

Some aesthetic suggestions for a working theory of the "undeniable groove": how do we speak about Black rhythm, setting text, and composition? / William C. Banfield

Rhythm and rhyme in rap / Angela M. S. Nelson

The music of Martin Luther King, Jr. / Richard Lischer

Rhythm in Claude McKay's "Harlem dancer" / Ronald Dorris

Chanting down Babylon: three Rastafarian dub poets / Darren J. N. Middleton

Rhythm as modality and discourse in Daughters of the dust / D. Soyini Madison

Rhythms of resistance: the role of freedom song in South Africa / Alton B. Pollard III

The rhythm of everyday politics: public performance and political transitions in Mali / Zeric Kay Smith.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [137]-152) and index.

ISBN:

1570031908

OCLC:

40113390