Music/Society Modern Wrld (W7)
piggy_cute
IntersectionalFutures.pptxIntersectional Futures: Music and Quare Feminism
Let’s Flip It!, Murchinson reading
Quare studies - “addresses the concerns and needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people across issues of race, gender, class, and other subject positions.” (Johnson)
In short, it addresses intersectional issues across multiple gender identities
Murchinson (author), uses Labelle “You Turn Me On”, and Janelle Monae “Q.U.E.E.N.” as case studies to explore how pop music addresses issues of Black queer (quare) identity politics
The author frames her discussion, stating that both artists fall under the movement of Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism
An artistic, social, and political movement (and genre) that focuses on the intersection of Blackness (identity) and speculative themes of sci-fi (futurism) – Black science fiction
It offers a space for the Black imagination to explore issues of freedom, power, ambiguity, identity, culture, etc.
Music: Sun Ra (top pic; jazz musician, 1950s -1970s; ‘father of Afrofuturism’), “Space is the Place”; George Clinton (bottom pic) “Mothership Connection”, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Herbie Hancock “Rockit” Lee Scratch Perry…Janelle Monae
Literature: Octavia Butler; Samuel Delany
Comics/Film: Black Panther; Watchmen
Labelle
During 1970s, embraces queer Afrofuturism (quare music)
“You Turn Me On” (1974)
Post-soul – whereas soul music (1950s and 60s), promoted ‘respectability’, conventional/ conservative gender and sexuality norms; post-soul expresses more progressive attitudes towards gender and sexuality
Ambiguity in song – no gender specified; no relationship status specified
1974 Performance – at approx. 35:00
Combines references of ecstatic worship (Black Pentecostal church), with erotic pleasure – crossing ‘taboo’ secular sexuality with sacred practices
Offers a vision of Black femininity that is progressive and transgressive, breaking social norms and expectations by imagining new future possibilities
Offers a ‘utopian vision of Black sexuality’ (85)
Janelle Monae
Monae self-identifies as queer
Uses character of Cindi Mayweather in a future world to critique a dystopia where free expression of a diversity of love is outlawed; i.e., Monae is promoting ideas of sexual and gender freedom/liberation through her Afrofuturist (theatrical) music
“Cindi” – promotes self-acceptance; Cindi longs for another world where she can freely express her sexuality
Metropolis (reference to Fritz Lang film, and Philip K Dick sci-fi); “Many Moons” overlapping critiques of fashion industry, capitalism, slavery, racism
Uses forbidden android/human love in story as metaphor for the oppression of queer love in modern world
“Q.U.E.E.N.” refusal to conform to society’s notions of Black heteronormative feminine sexuality
Course Conclusions
Music has been a powerful tool for building social movements
Music helps build solidarity, togetherness, unity through shared experiences of listening, singing, dancing, participating
Music can express political views that are sometimes otherwise censored, by coding them in metaphor, ambiguity, double-meaning
Music is always a product, expression, and reflection of its time and place as well as its social and political context
