In my skin: racial education and post abyssal thinking of black aesthetics

This work, which is a fragment of a research that has been discussed in lectures and presented separately in other journals and books, examines through the lens of critical racial literacy, the discrimination, tension, and racism experienced by Afro-Brazilian persons due to the aesthetics of their phenotypic traits. The theoretical framework draws on Critical Race Theory (LADSON-BILLINGS, 1998; FERREIRA, 2014) and Epistemologies of the South (SANTOS, 2014) which provided the basis for data analysis. The methodology for data gathering was autobiographical narratives provided by the informants, who were selected due to their experiences of the subject. The primary research instrument was an online questionnaire, voluntarily and anonymously, answered by the participants. The results show that black people in Brazil face issues of race and racism in their own homes, at schools and universities as students, as well as in their working environments. The discussion is pertinent to the field of Applied Linguistics and Education as it highlights the paramount importance of developing a critical racial literacy at schools, which can address these issues and overcome racism from a variety of perspectives.

THE ANATOMY OF DIGITAL CLOUT(CHASING): BLACK AESTHETICS, ONLINE VISIBILITY AND RELATIONAL LABOR AMONG DIY HIP-HOP MUSICIANS ON CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE

Prior literature has suggested that it is through popular music that the social, professional and technological aspirations of Black youth often come together. Nowhere is this more evident than in the context of Hip-Hop music, where Black youth inventiveness with digital tools is celebrated and valued far more than any other genre of media entertainment. Though many scholars have theorized on the centrality of authenticity and masculinity to the communication of Hip-Hop artists in digital spaces, little academic work has paid very little attention to artist perspective of how this relational labor and visibility strategy helps them cultivate viable careers as influencers. Using interviews with artists, artist managers and independent label executives, I detail the career potentials for Hip-Hop artists engaging in social media self-branding strategies. I explore the content and character of their work on social media toward acquiring “clout”- a digital form of influence rooted in Hip-Hop that allows marginalized youth to leverage digital tools in build social status, maintain authenticity, cultivate connections with fans, connect to friends and other cultural producers. In this study, I detail examples of three relational strategies that our respondents utilized to acquire “digital clout:” a) Corralling b) Capping and, c) Co-Signing. To conclude, I argue Chicago’s Hip-Hop scene provides an example of why formal institutions need to rethink how race, class, gender and geography influence the digital practices of young people and how their practices add significantly to the understanding of the cultural and communicative diversity arising from globalizing social media.

Black Gathering

In Black Gathering Sarah Jane Cervenak engages with Black artists and writers who create alternative spaces for Black people to gather free from interruption or regulation. Drawing together Black feminist theory, critical theories of ecology and ecoaesthetics, and Black aesthetics, Cervenak shows how novelists, poets, and visual artists such as Gayl Jones, Toni Morrison, Clementine Hunter, Samiya Bashir, and Leonardo Drew advance an ecological imagination that unsettles Western philosophical ideas of the earth as given to humans. In their aestheticization and conceptualization of gathering, these artists investigate the relationships among art, the environment, home, and forms of Black togetherness. Cervenak argues that by offering a formal and conceptual praxis of gathering, Black artists imagine liberation and alternative ways of being in the world that exist beyond those Enlightenment philosophies that presume Black people and earth as given to enclosure and ownership.

BALLET FOLCLÓRICO MERCEDES BAPTISTA: ENTRE BRASILIDADE E NEGRITUDE NO RIO DE JANEIRO DAS DÉCADAS DE 1950 E 1960 / Mercedes Baptista Folk Ballet: between Brazilianess and Blackness in Rio de Janeiro during the 1950’s and 1960’s

Abordagem histórico-crítica sobre a emergência de uma dança negra cênica no Rio de Janeiro, nas décadas de 1950 e 1960, consolidada pela bailarina e coreógrafa Mercedes Baptista mediante a articulação das técnicas do balé clássico, das danças modernas e de consistente pesquisa acerca das danças afro-brasileiras e dos pés de dança do candomblé. Levando em conta as possibilidades de abertura e transformação dos códigos próprios do que hoje é uma das vertentes de maior peso do que se entende por danças afro, que permitiram a criação de novas poéticas e metodologias, o texto aponta para a existência de uma estética negra que se construiu no campo das artes cênicas no contexto da diáspora negra.Palavras-chave: Mercedes Baptista; História da dança; Danças negras. AbstractThis text takes a historical and critical approach to the emergence of Black concert dance in Rio de Janeiro between the 1950s and 1960s. This movement found its consolidation through the ballet dancer and choreographer Mercedes Baptista’s articulations between classical ballet, modern dances, as well as her consistent research regarding secular and religious Afro-Brazilian dances. By considering the possibilities of openings and transformations within the codes of Danças Afro that allow for the creation of new poetics and methodologies, the text also seeks to base the existence of a Black aesthetics in the performance arts within the context of the black diaspora.Keywords: Mercedes Baptista; Dance history; Black dance.

"River Run" (Nancy Maker Brown Song) Revisioned and Reimagined

Video Description (on YouTube): "River Run." Revisioned and Reimagined. 2021. Words, music, arrangement by kei slaughter. Originally written in 2019 while participating in the Acoustic Guitar Project - where artists are given one guitar, for one week, to write one song. This intimate performance is a reimagined and revisioned version, weaving deconstructed elements of the original work, with improvised vocalizations, body percussion, and flute loops, and live vocal and flute performance. "River Run" is dedicated to my maternal great great great great grandmother, Nancy Maker Brown. For me, this (re)mix is an exploration and expression of Black aesthetics - imagining and conjuring new sound worlds through my queer, gender expansive Black body while engaging with ancestral memory. The stripped back elements of breath, tone, and voice, were intentionally used to ground me in my musical-cultural origins, back to a kind of roots music. Thus, embodying the West African concept of Sankofa, as I look back to the past, I also look ahead towards futurity, reflected through the use of live looping, layering, and circular storytelling. Closed captions available.

Black Aesthetics

Editorial for Special Issue

Black Time in the Age of COVID

Both telematic performances and COVID suffer from latency. In telematic performance, it is the lag between a musical gesture you make, and the time that others in the network receive it. In COVID, it is lags between contact and showing symptoms, and between pubic health policy decisions and their effects. I argue that we need to embrace latency as an improvisational partner both in our telematic performances, and in our health care policies. I argue that Black aesthetics and Black approaches to sound and improvisation have long embraced latency, and that we need to become what is sometime called Afro-logical improvisers both in our networked performances and in our COVID related health policies.