Diggin’ You Like Those Ol’ Soul Records: Meshell Ndegeocello and the Expanding Definition of Funk in Postsoul America
2013; American studies; Volume: 52; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/ams.2013.0109
ISSN2153-6856
Autores Tópico(s)Theater, Performance, and Music History
ResumoToday's absolutist varieties of Black Nationalism have run into trouble when faced with need to make sense of increasingly distinct forms of black culture produced from various diaspora populations. . . . The unashamedly hybrid character of these black cultures continually confounds any simplistic (essentialist or antiessentialist) understanding of relationship between racial identity and racial nonidentity, between folk cultural authenticity and pop cultural betrayal.Paul Gilroy1Funk, from its beginnings as terminology used to describe a specific genre of black music, has been equated with following things: blackness, mascu- linity, personal and collective freedom, and groove. Even as genre and terminology gave way to new forms of expression, performance aesthetic developed by myriad bands throughout 1960s and 1970s remained an im- portant part of post-1970s black popular culture. In early 1990s, rhythm and blues (RB one part Nina Simone, schooling one about life, love, hardship, and struggle in post-Civil Rights Movement America; and one part Sarah Vaughn, experimenting with numerous timbral colors of her voice. One critic called her a jazzy Odetta with gangster rapper inflections, insinuat- ing that her raw and organic sound and instrumental performances linked her with singer/guitarist who inspired an evolution in racial and cultural consciousness of blacks during height of freedom movement of 1960s and 1970s and explicit in-your-face aesthetic of gangsta rap.2 Oth- ers referred to her as the female Prince, noting strong similarities between two musicians.3 Indeed, both wrote, produced, and played majority of instruments heard on their debut albums. The level of genre-bending musical experimentation in which both have engaged at times has also placed them on periphery of black music trends and black radio formatting. Their respective public images and stage personas reflect how both have challenged mainstream readings of sexuality and gender by creating ambiguity through androgynous dress and lyrics that convey at times spectrum of love relationships. Regard- less of these readings, it was clear that Ndegeocello's entrance and presence on mainstream stage of 1990s popular music challenged perceptions and definitions of performance (musical and otherwise), gender identity, and con- ceptions of blackness as America awaited newness of next century. But what helped propel Prince to new levels of popularity among alternative audiences seemingly stifled career of Ndegeocello.Plantation Lullabies advanced a style that consisted of live instrumenta- tion coupled with street-smart lyrics reflective of influence of 1960s poets Giovanni, Sanchez, and Scott-Heron and a vocal style that harkened back to 1970s soul singers like Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack. However, less than two years after its release, confluence of style heard on album was illustrative of neosoul or alternative R&B style that some positioned as representative of postsoul generation's return to old-school per- formance aesthetics of previous decades. Despite being initially linked with this style and its resulting milieu, by 1997 and 1998, when Erykah Badu's al- bum Baduizm and Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, respectively, dropped, Ndegeocello was noticeably absent from discussions about how genre of neosoul was birthing a more conscious female voice and perspective in postfunk black popular music. …
Referência(s)