Winner of the 2007 Alan Merriam Prize presented by the Society for
Ethnomusicology
aThe Games Black Girls Play is beautifully and passionately
written. This book presents an engaging reflexive narrative that
ranges from childhood memories to involvement with
ethnomusicological scholarship. Gaunt makes a convincing argument
that the playsongs of African American girls is the foundation of
African diasporic popular music-making. In a radical
counter-history, she shows how African American girls-interlocutors
who are triply minoritized through race, gender, and age-are
producing music culture that has profound influences on popular
music and the popular imagination. She calls for an engaged
ethnomusicology and moves gracefully through an array of
anti-essentialist perspectives on race and gender. She argues that
akinetic oralitya is key to African American musicking and that the
body is always a locus of memory and communality. From somatic
historiography to serious cross-talk with girls, Gaunt offers new
methodologies for ethnomusicological work. The reader is pulled
into a world in which Black girls are masters of musical knowledge,
and in emerging from the book, we can't see the world of American
popular music in the same way. When we chant Miss Mary Mack, Mack,
Mack is dressed in black, black, black, with silver buttons,
buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back, we suddenly see
how musical play and embodied knowledge generates a world of raced
and gendered sociality. Oo-lay oo-lay! Congratulations,
Kyra!a
--President Elect Professor Deborah Wong, Society for
Ethnomusicology (October 27, 2007)
aFusing academic prose with vividly rendered memories, Gauntas
journey isrefreshing. . . . Gaunt successfully lifts ignored girls
from obscurity to center stage. . . . With The Games Black Girls
Play, Gaunt has created a necessary space for translating black
girlsa joy in a society that typically overlooks it. Hopefully,
others will take their turn and jump in to keep the games
going.a
--"Bitch"
"In thoughtful and affectionate prose, Gaunt makes plain how the
schoolyard syncopations of body and voice are both oral-kinetic
play and improvised lessons in socializing girls into the unique
social practices of black urban life. . . . The Games Black Girls
Play is a smart, delightful and witty polemic of attributions; a
cultural benchmark of the complex web of history, race and gender
to suggest a agendered musical blacknessa and an aethnographic
trutha linking the aintergenerational cultures of black musical
expressiona as embodied in the infectious playfulness of black
girls."
--"Black Issues Book Review"
"Very informative and insightful. . . . A valuable source to add
to oneas collection."
--"AllHipHop.com"
"By placing black girls at the center of her analysis, Kyra
Gaunt challenges us to be ever mindful of the importance of gender,
the body, and the everyday in our discussions of black music. "The
Games Black Girls Play" is an exciting and original work that
should forever transform the way we think about the sources of
black, indeed American, popular music. This is a bold, brilliant,
and beautifully written book."
--Farah Jasmine Griffin, Columbia University
"The Games Black Girls Play not only makes the point that black
girls matter, but that the games, thoughts, and passions of black
girls matter in a world that regularly rendersblack girls invisible
and silent. Gaunt brilliantly argues that the culture of black
girls is a critical influence on contemporary black popular
culture."
-- Mark Anthony Neal, author of" New Black Man: Rethinking Black
Masculinity"
"A particular strength of Gaunt's text is the ethnographic
dimension of her discussions. The reader is privy to the personal
musical and cultural experiences of African American females of
varying ages (including Gaunt herself)."
--"New Black Man Book Review"
aIt is written in an accessible style and the inclusion of
personal musical and cultural experiences and histories of a
variety of women, including the author, adds to the appeal. The
infectious playfulness of the topic and Gauntas own personal style
and passion shine though.a
--"Journal of Folklore Research"
When we think of African American popular music, our first
thought is probably not of double-dutch: girls bouncing between two
twirling ropes, keeping time to the tick-tat under their toes. But
this book argues that the games black girls play --handclapping
songs, cheers, and double-dutch jump rope--both reflect and inspire
the principles of black popular musicmaking.
The Games Black Girls Play illustrates how black musical styles
are incorporated into the earliest games African American girls
learn--how, in effect, these games contain the DNA of black music.
Drawing on interviews, recordings of handclapping games and cheers,
and her own observation and memories of gameplaying, Kyra D. Gaunt
argues that black girls' games are connected to long traditions of
African and African American musicmaking, and that they teach vital
musical and social lessons that are carried intoadulthood. In this
celebration of playground poetry and childhood choreography, she
uncovers the surprisingly rich contributions of girls' play to
black popular culture.
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