"Mek some noise" : gospel music and the ethics of style in Trinidad / Timothy Rommen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rommen, Timothy.

Series:

Music of the African diaspora ; 11.

Music of the African diaspora ; 11

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gospel music--Trinidad and Tobago--Trinidad--History and criticism.

Gospel music.

Trinidad and Tobago--Trinidad.

Physical Description:

xii, 217 pages : illustrations, music ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

Make some noise

Place of Publication:

Berkleley : University of California Press ; Chicago : Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, [2007]

Summary:

"Mek Some Noise," Timothy Rommen's highly personal ethnographic study of Caribbean gospel music, engages with the musical world of contemporary Christians in Trinidad and Tobago at the nexus where music and religion meet. In Trinidad and Tobago, Full Gospel Pentecostal churches are negotiating a wide range of musical styles, many of which are more closely associated in the minds of outsiders with dance halls and the revels of carnival than with worship. Rommen focuses on four main styles: gospelypso, North American gospel, dancehall, and jamoo ("Jehovah's music"). He explores the powerful role that music plays in the lives of Full Gospel believers and the ways in which music helps to convince and to actualize belief.

Rommen sets his investigation against a concisely drawn, richly historical narrative. He writes about music and its power to persuade, and he gives deep consideration to the idea of people making music in order to say something. Using a wealth of materials previously ignored by scholars, Rommen arrives at a new theoretical approach that he calls the ethics of style, which situates this group of believers both in their faith and in a Trinidadian context. The result is an extended meditation on the convictions, or ethical concerns, that lie behind the creation and reception of style in Full Gospel Trinidad.

Contents:

Music, memory, and identity in full gospel Trinidad

The ethics of style

Nationalism and the soul : gospelypso as independence

Transnational dreams, global desires : North America as sound

Regionalisms : performances beyond a boundary

Jehova's music : jammin' at the margins of Trinidadian gospel music

Reenvisioning ethics, revisiting style.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-211) and index.

ISBN:

9780520250673

0520250672

9780520250680

0520250680

OCLC:

70668833

Online:

Publisher description