“I See Death Around the Corner”: Black Manhood and Vulnerability in Me Against the World

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 632-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keven James Rudrow
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Suicide Ideation ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Black Manhood ◽  
The World ◽  
Relational Network

This essay uses Tupac Shakur’s Me Against the World as a case study examining how Black male artists use hip-hop music for articulating the racialized vulnerability organizing their manhood. By thinking about how Shakur understands his Black maleness through his social relationality to the world around him, Shakur’s album creates resistive space for defining Black maleness despite how Black masculinity is often defined and imposed on Black men. Shakur’s album maps a relational network for understanding a brand of Black manhood obscured by dominant discourses about Black men and their masculinity. Specifically, Shakur’s album frames Black maleness through poverty and how it orients Black men, his perpetual susceptibility to harm and death, and suicide ideation as a response to his despair. Connecting Black maleness and vulnerability, Shakur’s album offers insight about being Black and male in a patriarchal White supremacist society.

From Jim Crow to Jay-Z

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles White
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Young Male ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
Action Films ◽  
Jay Z

This multilayered study of the representation of black masculinity in musical and cultural performance takes aim at the reduction of African American male culture to stereotypes of deviance, misogyny, and excess. Broadening the significance of hip-hop culture by linking it to other expressive forms within popular culture, the book examines how these representations have both encouraged the demonization of young black males in the United States and abroad and contributed to the construction of their identities. The book traces black male representations to chattel slavery and American minstrelsy as early examples of fetishization and commodification of black male subjectivity. Continuing with diverse discussions including black action films, heavyweight prizefighting, Elvis Presley's performance of blackness, and white rappers such as Vanilla Ice and Eminem, the book establishes a sophisticated framework for interpreting and critiquing black masculinity in hip-hop music and culture. Arguing that black music has undeniably shaped American popular culture and that hip-hop tropes have exerted a defining influence on young male aspirations and behavior, the book draws a critical link between the body, musical sound, and the construction of identity.

The Fire This Time

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles White
Keyword(s):  
Black Male ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Racial Perceptions ◽  
Hip Hop Music ◽  
Geographical Locations

This chapter focuses on comparisons between minstrelsy and constructions of black masculinity in hip-hop music and culture, particularly the context of hard and hardcore styles of rap performance. Since minstrelsy, blackness has been one of America's primary cultural exports. Furthermore, hip-hop music and culture have been integral in the construction of a new cultural complex of racial perceptions about black masculinity and the black male body. In addition, the chapter shows how black masculinity can be relocated and transposed not simply to other geographical locations, but onto other kinds of bodies in representations that reproduce and perpetuate pejorative understandings of black subjectivities.

The End of Song: Improvisation as Social Critique in Brazil

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
JAMES McNALLY
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Popular Song ◽  
Creative Project ◽  
Free Improvisation ◽  
The World ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article addresses an emerging phenomenon in which Brazilian popular musicians have begun to depart from popular song (canção popular) in favour of free improvisation in response to rising authoritarianism. As a case study, I examine the creative project Carta Branca, which brings together popular and experimental musicians from styles such as MPB and hip-hop to perform freely improvised concerts. Following a consideration of the history of Brazilian canção popular, the article discusses how contemporary popular musicians engage in free improvisation as an alternative means of musical critique. I contend that their actions constitute evidence of a broader ‘post-canção’ moment, with the potential to facilitate more flexible and collective ways of responding to Brazil's reactionary moment. The article further discusses how the musicians’ improvisational turn fosters a renewed engagement with a form of cultural improvisation tied to understandings of national identity and being in the world specific to Brazil.

Becoming a Man: A Duboisian Examination of the Experiences of Black Men Who Have Sex with Men

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra L Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Original Work ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Black Manhood ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Sex With Men ◽  
Key Aspects

Abstract W.E.B. Du Bois developed a thesis on the formation of Black manhood that includes key characteristics of this identity and dynamics that can foster or undermine its development. Yet his framework does not directly reference sexual minorities. Is Du Bois’ thesis relevant today for Black men who have sex with men (BMSM)? Do they espouse similar traits and experience similar challenges? Are their masculinity tropes nuanced based on racial, gender, and/or sexual identities? Informed by a New Millennium Du Boisian Mode of Inquiry and qualitative analyses, this study considers whether and how key aspects of Du Bois’ understanding of the formation of Black manhood are evident among 168 BMSM who reside in the South. Moving beyond a focus on HIV/AIDS for this demographic, the article notes that three themes emerge linked to embracing, essentializing, and extending Du Bois’ thesis on Black manhood that illustrate whether and how his views on Black masculinity are apparent and relevant among Black men excluded from his original work.

scholarly journals Black Masculinity and Plantation Patriarchy in Margaret Walker’s Jubilee

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Lobodziec
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Slave Labor ◽  
Margaret Walker

In <em>Jubilee</em>, Margaret Walker depicts plantation patriarchy as a racial and gendered context that coerces black men to redefine their masculine conceptualizations. The fictitious slave plantation represents the system which commodifies and divides black people “into those with skills […], field hands, ‘breeding females,’ concubines, and children” (Nichols 1972, p. 10). This portrayal of slave plantation is congruent with historically documented circumstances, when “Much of [the slave] labor was gender- or age- specific” (Ash 2010, p. 20). As far as the position of black men is concerned, ascribed a subordinate status to that of white masters, overseers, and servants, both free and enslaved black men begin to imbibe patriarchal mindset and redefine their own masculine prowess. As Margaret Walker portrays, this response to oppressive plantation patriarchy effects multifarious black male postures, ranging from resisting and self-asserting warriors to humiliated and silenced victims.

scholarly journals Romancing Beale Street

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 178-190
Author(s):  
Robert J. Corber
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Black Male ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Television Show ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Visual Style

The author reviews Barry Jenkins’s 2018 film adaptation of Baldwin’s novel, If Beale Street Could Talk, finding that Jenkins’s lush, painterly, and dreamlike visual style successfully translates Baldwin’s cadenced prose into cinematic language. But in interpreting the novel as the “perfect fusion” of the anger of Baldwin’s essays and the sensuality of his fiction, Jenkins overlooks the novel’s most significant aspect, its gender politics. Baldwin began working on If Beale Street Could Talk shortly after being interviewed by Black Arts poet Nikki Giovanni for the PBS television show, Soul!. Giovanni’s rejection of Baldwin’s claims that for black men to overcome the injuries of white supremacy they needed to fulfill the breadwinner role prompted him to rethink his understanding of African American manhood and deeply influenced his representation of the novel’s black male characters. The novel aims to disarticulate black masculinity from patriarchy. Jenkins’s misunderstanding of this aspect of the novel surfaces in his treatment of the character of Frank, who in the novel serves as an example of the destructiveness of patriarchal masculinity, and in his rewriting of the novel’s ending.

scholarly journals Always the Bridesmaid and Never the Bride: Coaching in College Sports

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-47
Author(s):  
Angela Hattery ◽  
Marissa Kiss ◽  
Earl Smith
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
White Women ◽  
White Men ◽  
Track And Field ◽  
College Sports ◽  
Black Athletes ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Assistant Coach

It has been well documented that Title IX opened up doors of opportunity for women to participate in sports at all levels. Similarly, players including Jackie Robinson and Sam “Bam” Cunningham paved the way for Black athletes to compete at all levels of sports.  It is equally well documented that the world of college sports is, by and large, the world of white men.  This paper examines the status of two “underrepresented groups” in college coaching and administration: women and Black men. Using Virginia as a case study, with references to NCAA data for comparison, our analysis reveals that despite increased participation for both women and Blacks, and the overall dominance of Black athletes in some sports, including basketball and track and field, in those same sports the majority of Black men and women are stalled at the ranks of assistant coach, never able to lead a team on their own, and never commanding the kinds of salaries associated with head coaches. Finally, the data in our case study demonstrate that football impacts opportunities for white women and Black men inversely.  Cautiously we conclude in this research note by revealing that football increases some opportunities for Black men and suppresses some opportunities for white women.

scholarly journals Black Masculinity and Plantation Patriarchy in Margaret Walker’s Jubilee

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Lobodziec
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Slave Labor ◽  
Margaret Walker

In <em>Jubilee</em>, Margaret Walker depicts plantation patriarchy as a racial and gendered context that coerces black men to redefine their masculine conceptualizations. The fictitious slave plantation represents the system which commodifies and divides black people “into those with skills […], field hands, ‘breeding females,’ concubines, and children” (Nichols 1972, p. 10). This portrayal of slave plantation is congruent with historically documented circumstances, when “Much of [the slave] labor was gender- or age- specific” (Ash 2010, p. 20). As far as the position of black men is concerned, ascribed a subordinate status to that of white masters, overseers, and servants, both free and enslaved black men begin to imbibe patriarchal mindset and redefine their own masculine prowess. As Margaret Walker portrays, this response to oppressive plantation patriarchy effects multifarious black male postures, ranging from resisting and self-asserting warriors to humiliated and silenced victims.

scholarly journals FASHION AND COMMODIFICATION: AN ANALYSIS ON THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON OF SUPREME

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 153
Author(s):  
Winda Eka Pahla Ayuningtyas ◽  
Galant Nanta Adhitya
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Global Information ◽  
Case Study Method ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
The World ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Limited Edition

Globalization is the global information spread and people interconnectivity. It is driven by technological developments in transportation and communication, removing cultural boundaries among nations. Cultural differences are increasingly less tangible and visible in all cultural products, including in fashion. Due to globalization, fashion brands that originate in a certain country can open stores across multiple continents. The invention of the Internet further widens their accessibility by consumers in any part of the world. However, globalization also brings an affordability gap between the upper and the lower classes. Nonetheless, fashion brands can also take advantage of this economic difference in appealing to their consumers. One of those brands is Supreme. Founded in 1994, it became the most sought-after hypebeast brand among street-fashion enthusiasts worldwide. How do they do it in less than 30 years is interesting to analyze. To answer this objective, this article is conducted from the cultural studies standpoint and the case study method. There are three formulas of positioning it adopts in order to grow globally: (1) the commodification African-American community, (2) the use of celebrity endorsement, and (3) the hype of limited-edition releases. Supreme sells oversized streetwear, heavily influenced by Hip-hop culture, a music genre rooted in the lives of African Americans. The brand makes use of celebrities, especially rappers, to endorse its clothes and accessories. It also continually makes headlines by releasing limited-edition products as well as collaborating with well-known figures and brands.

scholarly journals The Modern Athlete, Hip-Hop, and Popular Perceptions of Black Masculinity

AmeriQuests ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thabiti L. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Cultural Consumption ◽  
Sport Culture ◽  
American Society

The essay explores how black masculinity is situated in modern popular culture) as violent and hyper-masculine, American nightmares. It also examines the racial and power dynamics at play that allow such reifications of the notion that black men as “dangerous” in arenas of mass/popular cultural consumption in American society—namely sport culture and hip hop.

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