"The Funk Era and Beyond" is the first scholarly collection to discuss funk music in America and delve into the intricate and complex nature of the word and its accompanying genre. While pleasure and performance are often presumed to be mutually exclusive of intellectuality, funk offers immense possibilities for a new critical rubric. As these writings demonstrate, funk is reflected in myriad forms and context and has been the catalyst for stylistic innovation. Contributors employ a multitude of methodologies to examine this unique musical field's relationship to African American culture and to music, literature, and visual art as a whole.

for SATB or SSA, piano, and optional bass and drum kit ad lib.
This fantastic backing CD, recorded by a professional jazz trio, is ideal for use in both rehearsals and concerts. Compatible with the mixed-voice and upper-voice versions of A Little Jazz Mass, it is sure to inspire breathtaking performances from all choirs

In Pop Music and Hip Ennui: A Sonic Fiction of Capitalist Realism, Macon Holt provides the imaginative and analytical resources to think with contemporary pop music to investigate the ambivalences of contemporary culture and the potentials in it for change. Drawing on Kodwo Eshun's practice of Sonic Fiction and Mark Fisher's analytical framework of capitalist realism, Holt explores the multiplicities contained in contemporary pop from sensation to abstraction and from the personal to the political. Pop Music and Hip Ennui unravels the assumptions embedded in the cultural and critical analysis of popular music. In doing so, it provides new ways to understand the experience of listening to pop music and living in the sonic atmosphere it produces. This book neither excuses pop's oppressive tendencies nor dismisses the pleasures of its sensations.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the Afrobeat music maestro whose life and time provide the lens through which we can outline the postcolonial trajectory of the Nigerian state as well as the dynamics of most other African states. Through the Afrobeat music, Fela did not only challenge consecutive governments in Nigeria, but his rebellious Afrobeat lyrics facilitate a philosophical subtext that enriches the more intellectual Afrocentric discourses. Afrobeat and the philosophy of blackism that Fela enunciated place him right beside Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, and all the others who champion a black and African mode of being in the world. This book traces the emergence of Fela on the music scene, the cultural and political backgrounds that made Afrobeat possible, and the philosophical elements that not only contributed to the formation of Fela's blackism, but what constitutes Fela's philosophical sensibility too.

Born To Kwaito considers the meaning of kwaito music now. ‘Now’ not only as in ‘after 1994’ or the Truth Commission but as a place in the psyche of black people in post-apartheid South Africa.

This collection of essays tackles the changing meaning of the genre after its decline and its ever-contested relevance. Through rigorous historical analysis as well as threads of narrative journalism Born To Kwaito interrogates issues of artistic autonomy, the politics of language in the music, and whether the music is part of a strand within the larger feminist movement in South Africa. Candid and insightful interviews from the genre’s foremost innovators and torchbearers, such as Mandla Spikiri, Arthur Mafokate, Robbie Malinga and Lance Stehr, provide unique historical context to kwaito music’s greatest highs, most captivating hits and most devastating lows. Born To Kwaito offers up a history of the genre from below by having conversations not only with musicians but with fans, engineers, photographers and filmmakers who bore witness to a revolution.

Living in a place between criticism and biography, Born To Kwaito merges academic theories and rigorous journalism to offer a new understanding into how the genre influenced other art forms such as fashion, TV and film. The book also reflects on how some of the music’s best hits have found new life through the mouths of local hip-hop’s current kingmakers and opened kwaito up to a new generation.

The book does not pretend to be an exhaustive history of the genre but rather a present-active analysis of that history as it settles and finds its meaning.

Now in paperback, the national bestselling biography of American musical icon Jimi Hendrix It has been more than thirty-five years since Jimi Hendrix died, but his music and spirit are still very much alive for his fans everywhere. Charles R. Cross vividly recounts the life of Hendrix, from his difficult childhood and adolescence in Seattle through his incredible rise to celebrity in London's swinging sixties. It is the story of an outrageous life--with legendary tales of sex, drugs, and excess--while it also reveals a man who struggled to accept his role as idol and who privately craved the kind of normal family life he never had. Using never-before-seen documents and private letters, and based on hundreds of interviews with those who knew Hendrix--many of whom had never before agreed to be interviewed--Room Full of Mirrors unlocks the vast mystery of one of music's most enduring legends.

This volume analyses the work of Nick Cave, a singular, idiosyncratic and brilliant musician, specifically through his engagements with theology and the Bible. It does so not merely in terms of his written work, the novels and plays and poetry and lyrics that he continues to produce, but also the music itself. Covering more than three decades of extraordinarily diverse creativity, the book has seven chapters focusing on: the modes in which Cave engages with the Bible; the total depravity of the worlds invoked in his novels and other written work; the consistent invocation of apocalyptic themes; his restoration of death as a valid dimension of life; the twists of the love song; the role of a sensual and heretical Christ; and then a detailed, dialectical analysis of his musical forms. The book draws upon a select number of theorists who provide the methodological possibilities of digging deep into the theological nature of Cave's work, namely Ernst Bloch, who is the methodological foundation stone, as well as Theodor Adorno, Theodore Gracyk and Jacques Attali.

Popular music, today, has supposedly collapsed into a 'retromania' which, according to leading critic Simon Reynolds, has brought a 'slow and steady fading of the artistic imperative to be original.' Meanwhile, in the estimation of philosopher Alain Badiou, a significant political event will always require 'the dictatorial power of a creation ex nihilo'. Everywhere, it seems, at least amongst commentators of a certain age and type, pessimism prevails with regards to the predominant aesthetic preferences of the twenty first century: popular music, supposedly, is in a rut. Yet when, if ever, did the political engagement kindled by popular music amount to more than it does today? The sixties? The punk explosion of the late 1970s? Despite an on-going fixation upon these periods in much rock journalism and academic writing, this book demonstrates that the utilisation of popular music to promote political causes, on the one hand, and the expression of dissent through the medium of 'popular song', on the other hand, remain widely in practice today. This is not to argue, however, for complacency with regards to the need for expressions of political dissent through popular culture. Rather, the book looks carefully at actual usages of popular music in political processes, as well as expressions of political feeling through song, and argues that there is much to encourage us to think that the demand for radical change remains in circulation. The question is, though, how necessary is it for politically-motivated popular music to offer aesthetic novelty?

Electronic dance music was once the utopian frontier of pop culture. But three decades after the acid house 'summer of love', it has gone from subculture to the global mainstream. Does it still have the same power to inspire?

From the pleasure palaces of Ibiza and Las Vegas to 'new frontiers' like Shanghai and Dubai, raving is now a multi-million-dollar business. But there are still hardcore believers upholding its DIY ethos - the techno idealists of Berlin and Detroit and the queer subcults of New York, the post-apartheid party people of South Africa and the outlaw techno travellers of France.

In Rave On, Matthew Collin travels the world to experience these unique scenes first-hand, talk to the key players and hear the story of how dance culture went global - and find out if its maverick spirit can survive its own success.

Is there such a thing today as music that's meaningfully new? In our contemporary era of remixing and retro styles, cynics and romantics alike cry "It's all been done before" while record labels and media outlets proclaim that everything is new. Coded into our daily conversations about popular music, newness as an artistic and cultural value is too often taken for granted. Nothing Has Been Done Before instigates a fresh debate about newness in American pop, rock 'n' roll, rap, folk, and R&B made since the turn of the millennium. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that combines music criticism, philosophy, and the literary essay, Robert Loss follows the stories of a diverse cast of musicians who seek the new by wrestling with the past, navigating the market, and speaking politically. The transgressions of Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft". The pop spectacle of Katy Perry's 2015 Super Bowl halftime show. Protest songs against the war in Iraq. Nothing Has Been Done Before argues that performance heard in a historical context always creates a possibility for newness, whether it's Kendrick Lamar's multi-layered To Pimp a Butterfly, the Afrofuturist visions of Janelle Monae, or even a Guided By Voices tribute concert in a local dive bar. Provocative and engaging, Nothing Has Been Done Before challenges nothing less than how we hear and think about popular music-its power and its potential.

This book bridges a gap in existing scholarship by foregrounding the contribution of women to the nineteenth-century Lied. Building on the pioneering work of scholars in recent years, it consolidates recent research on women's achievements in the genre, and develops an alternative narrative of the Lied that embraces an understanding of the contributions of women, and of the contexts of their engagement with German song and related genres. Lieder composers including Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Josephine Lang are considered with a stimulating variety of analytical approaches. In addition to the focus on composers associated with history and theory of the Lied, the various chapters explore the cultural and sociological background to the Lied's musical environment, as well as engaging with gender studies and discussing performance and pedagogical contexts. The range of subject matter reflects the interdisciplinary nature of current research in the field, and the energy it generates among scholars and performers. Women and the Nineteenth-Century Lied aims to widen readers' perception of the genre and help promote awareness of women's contribution to nineteenth-century musical life through critical appraisal of the cultural context of the Lied, encouraging acquaintance with the voices of women composers, and the variety of their contributions to the repertoire.

From Prince's superstardom to studio seclusion, this second book in the Prince Studio Sessions series chronicles the tumultuous years immediately following the Purple Rain era. Duane Tudahl takes us back into the world of Prince's musical masterpieces and personal battles, weaving together the voices of those who knew Prince best during this period. As Prince's relationship with his band, the Revolution, and his fiancee, Susan Melvoin, crumbled, he threw himself into creative catharsis, recording and releasing multiples studio albums and side projects. Prince and the Parade and Sign "O" the Times Era Studio Sessions provides a definitive chronicle of more than 260 recording sessions and two tours during 1985 and 1986. These years were full of struggle, but as millions of fans know, Prince would emerge from this darkness to show that the fire of true genius cannot be extinguished.

Psychedelic music is a fascinating yet under-researched field of study. This thought-provoking collection offers a broad introduction to the fi eld of psychedelic music studies, bringing together scholarly work on psychedelic music in genres like rock, folk, electronic dance music and pop. Through an expanded purview on psychedelic music, an emerging trend in research, the collection affords students and academics alike an introduction to a rich, multi-faceted field. The contributing authors explore a range of different facets of musical psychedelia: its transgressive and transcendent aspects, its foregrounding of timbre and texture, the way it changes our perception of time, its influence on “non-psychedelic” music, key composition and production techniques that composers and musicians use in its creation, how it is mediated by different places and spaces, and the interplay between psychedelic visual and sonic aesthetics. This interdisciplinary work reveals both commonalities in musical psychedelic experiences and the contestation inherent in a fi eld of study that juxtaposes music of different genres and eras with a variety of theoretical approaches and methodologies. In broadening the scope of psychedelic music research, the collection not only makes for varied and absorbing reading on the subject level but also stimulates reflexive thought about interdisciplinary research.

Chronicles the work of Norberto Tavares, a Cabo Verdean musician and humanitarian who served as the conscience of his island nation during the transition from Portuguese colony to democratic republic. Based on twenty years of collaborative fieldwork, Songs for Cabo Verde: Norberto Tavares's Musical Visions for a New Republic focuses on the musician Norberto Tavares but also tells a larger story about postcolonial nation building, musical activism, and diaspora life within the Lusophone sphere. It follows the parallel trajectories of Cabo Verdean independence and Tavares's musical career over four decades (1975-2010). Tavares lived and worked in Cabo Verde, Portugal, and the United States, where he died in New Bedford, Massachusetts at age fifty-four. Tavares's music serves as a lens through which we can view Cabo Verde's transition from a Portuguese colony to an independent, democratic nation, one that was shaped in part through the musician's persistent humanitarian messages.

Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright (b. 1973) is famous around the world for his multi-faceted musical style, shown through both his recorded output and his engaging live performances. In this book, Katherine Williams combines his aspects of his life story with scholarly readings drawn from several methodologies. Popular music studies, opera, queer studies, music and geography, the sound-box: all combine to give a rich biographical and interpretative overview of Wainwright's life and music. Williams brings together close musical analysis with such varied disciplinary perspectives with a tone that is both in-depth and scholarly, and accessible. The book is a must-read for fans, students and scholars alike.

Why do rap MCs present their studio recorded lyrics as "live and direct"? Why do they so insistently define abilities or actions, theirs or someone else's, against a pre-existing signifier? This book examines the compositional practice of rap lyricists and offers compelling answers to these questions. Through a 40 year-span analysis of the music, it argues that whether through the privileging of chanted call-and-response phrases or through rhetorical strategies meant to assist in getting one's listening audience open, the focus of the first rap MCs on community building and successful performer-audience cooperation has remained prevalent on rap records with lyrics and production techniques encouraging the listener to become physically and emotionally involved in recorded performances. Relating rap's rhetorical strategy of posing inferences through intertextuality to early call-and-response routines and crowd-controlling techniques, this study emphasizes how the dynamic and collective elements from the stage performances and battles of the formative years of rap have remained relevant in the creative process behind this music. It contends that the customary use of identifiable references and similes by rap lyricists works as a fluid interchange designed to keep the listener involved in the performance. Like call-and-response in live performances, it involves a dynamic form of communication and places MCs in a position where they activate the shared knowledge of their audience, making sure that they "know what they mean," thus transforming their mediated lyrics into a collective and engaging performance.

'I was raised with an artist's mentality; my first 25 years were spent as somebody who wanted to live among graphics and artwork and illustration, and then for the next 30 years it was all music. Recently, I've reverted into the arts, combining all these elements in my work, still trying to change the world. This is truly what I want to do. My deepest thanks to Genesis for giving me a place to be able to display all of this through my artwork.' - Chuck D In his first fine art book, Livin' Loud, Public Enemy founder, hip-hop pioneer and revolutionary activist, Chuck D, presents a body of artworks which continue to address the social and politically conscious issues of his lyrics. In Livin' Loud, Chuck D's artworks reveal his visual dexterity as he explores a diverse range of subjects paying homage to his musical influences and peers from James Brown and Woody Guthrie to Def Jam labelmates Run-DMC and Beastie Boys; a host of the most influential hip-hop artists from Ice Cube to Run the Jewels; his twin passions of baseball and basketball; creating a collection of landscapes on tour with Prophets of Rage, and a range of sociopolitical pieces that explore the issues continuing to shape our culture. Chuck D has been creating musical and cultural observations that challenge public opinion since 1985 and his visual compositions continue to interpret and question the world around us. Chuck D's written commentary traces his musical and artistic trajectory from his early roots and the central figures that critically shaped him and his voice, the formation of Public Enemy through to their Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame induction, his time with Prophets of Rage through to current day world affairs. With a foreword by Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, Chuck D's art debut Livin' Loud is a visual experience of over 250 artworks, each piece reflective of the man behind the music.

A revised and updated version of the artist's collected lyrics An American original, Patti Smith is a multi-disciplined artist and performer. Her work is rooted in poetry, which infused her 1975 landmark album, Horses. A declaration of existence, Horses was described as 'three chords merged with the power of the word'; it was graced with the now iconic portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe, the subject of her award-winning memoir Just Kids. Initially published in 1998, Patti Smith's Complete Lyrics was a testimony to her uncompromising poetic power. Now, on the fortieth anniversary of the release of Smith's groundbreaking album, Collected Lyrics has been revised and expanded with more than thirty-five additional songs, including her first, 'Work Song', written for Janis Joplin in 1970, and her most current, 'Writer's Song', to be recorded in 2015. The collection is liberally illustrated with original manuscripts of lyrics from Smith's extensive archive. Patti Smith's work continues to retain its relevance, whether controversial, political, romantic or spiritual. Collected Lyrics offers forty-five years of song, an enduring commemoration of Smith's unique contribution to the canon of rock and roll.

In Portraying Performer Image in Record Album Cover Art, Ken Bielen explains how album cover art authenticates recording artists by using elements that authenticate the performer in the particular genre. He considers albums issued from the 1950s to the 1980s, the golden era of record album cover art. The whole album package is studied including the front and back covers, the inside cover, the inner sleeve, and the text (liner notes) on the album jacket. Performers in rock and roll, folk and folk rock, soul and disco, psychedelic, Americana nostalgia, and singer-songwriter genres are included in this study of hundreds of record album covers.

This interdisciplinary volume explores the girl's voice and the construction of girlhood in contemporary popular music, visiting girls as musicians, activists, and performers through topics that range from female vocal development during adolescence to girls' online media culture. While girls' voices are more prominent than ever in popular music culture, the specific sonic character of the young female voice is routinely denied authority. Decades old cliches of girls as frivolous, silly, and deserving of contempt prevail in mainstream popular image and sound. Nevertheless, girls find ways to raise their voices and make themselves heard. This volume explores the contemporary girl's voice to illuminate the way ideals of girlhood are historically specific, and the way adults frame and construct girlhood to both valorize and vilify girls and women. Interrogating popular music, childhood, and gender, it analyzes the history of the all-girl band from the Runaways to the present; the changing anatomy of a girl's voice throughout adolescence; girl's participatory culture via youtube and rock camps, and representations of the girl's voice in other media like audiobooks, film, and television. Essays consider girl performers like Jackie Evancho and Lorde, and all-girl bands like Sleater Kinney, The Slits and Warpaint, as well as performative 'girlishness' in the voices of female vocalists like Joni Mitchell, Beyonce, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Kathleen Hanna, and Rebecca Black. Participating in girl studies within and beyond the field of music, this book unites scholarly perspectives from disciplines such as musicology, ethnomusicology, comparative literature, women's and gender studies, media studies, and education to investigate the importance of girls' voices in popular music, and to help unravel the complexities bound up in music and girlhood in the contemporary contexts of North America and the United Kingdom.

The Beatles and Duke Ellington's Orchestra stand as the two greatest examples of collaboration in music history. Thomas Brothers delivers a portrait of the creative process at work, demonstrating that the cooperative method at the foundation of these two artist-groups was the primary reason for their unmatched musical success. While clarifying the historical record of who wrote what, with whom and how, Brothers brings the past to life with photos, anecdotes and more than thirty years of musical knowledge, and analysis of songs from "Strawberry Fields Forever" to "Chelsea Bridge". Help! describes in rich detail the music and mastery of two cultural leaders whose popularity has never dimmed, and the process of collaboration that allowed them to achieve an artistic vision greater than the sum of their parts.

Grime music has been central to British youth culture since the beginning of the 21st century. Performed by MCs and DJs, it is an Afrodiasporic form that developed on street corners, on pirate radio and at raves. Level Up: Live Performance and Creative Process in Grime Music offers the first long-form ethnographic study of grime practice; it questions how and why artists do what they do; and it asks what this can tell us about creative process and improvisation more widely. Based on research conducted from 2015 to 2020 in London's grime scene-facilitated by the author's long-standing role as a DJ and broadcaster-this book explores the form's emergence before taking a magnifying glass to the contemporary scene and its performance protocol, exploring the practice of key artists and their crews living and working in the city. The resultant model of creative interaction provides a comprehensive mapping of collective social learning in London's informal cityscape, offering new ways to conceptualise improvisatory practice within ensembles.