Black American Music and the Civilized-Uncivilized Matrix in South Africa

People of African descent in America occupy a singular position in relation to the race problems faced by Blacks in South Africa. Many Afro-Americans have had firsthand experience with the practice of race discrimination either in its blatant Jim Crow manifestations or in its more covert institutional forms. This common experience with race discrimination in South Africa and the United States makes it possible, for example, to correlate W.E.B. Dubois' description of the warring “double consciousness” of the black American made in 1903 with the expressions of frustration written by Albert Luthuli in 1962. This commonality also establishes a basis from which a meaningful assessment can be made regarding the historical role of black Americans in the race issue of South Africa.

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The Black American Reaction to Apartheid

Issue A Journal of Opinion ◽

10.1017/s0047160700007460 ◽

1974 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 25-37

Author(s):

Winston P. Nagan

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Opinion Leaders ◽

Black American ◽

Opinion Poll ◽

Social Scientists ◽

American Reaction

This article concerns the problems connected with the Black American reaction to apartheid in South Africa reaction which appears to have been largely ignored by social scientists, opinion poll samplers, opinion leaders, and even the distributors of foundation grants. A discussion such as this one is, perforce, impressionistic. Hopefully, however, it will contribute to the construction of sound hypotheses about the character of the Black American reaction to apartheid.The reader should perhaps be warned that I do not subscribe to the doctrine of intellectual neutrality. The perspectives from which I write are informed by clearly articulated value postulates or preferences.

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“A Song Calling for You”

Soul in Seoul ◽

10.14325/mississippi/9781496830098.003.0002 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 43-88

Author(s):

Crystal S. Anderson

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

American Music ◽

Music Videos ◽

Cultural Work ◽

Black American ◽

Korean Music ◽

Dynamic Image ◽

Music Production ◽

Asian Stereotypes

Korean pop groups cite the R&B tradition by emulating R&B musical and vocal elements in catchy pop songs and enhance the tradition through Korean music strategies that infuse multiple genres with R&B elements. Korean pop groups emulate the R&B tradition by citing elements of funk, club, and urban R&B. Moreover, Korean and African American producers infuse K-pop with different varieties of R&B. These artists also enhance the R&B tradition by mixing pop genres with R&B within individual songs and over the course of their careers. In music videos, they cite the choreography and styles of African American performance in ways that provide alternatives to Asian stereotypes. This intertextuality is driven by promotions that focus on image and music quality; strategies that mirror those employed by Black American music producers. The combination of dynamic image and quality music production fuels K-pop’s cultural work and global crossover, thereby making it part of a global R&B tradition.

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