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Bet My Soul on Rock 'n' Roll: Diary of a Black Punk Icon by Jean Beauvoir with John Ostrosky (review)

2023; Music Library Association; Volume: 80; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/not.2023.a905338

1534-150X

Laina Dawes,

Music History and Culture

Reviewed by: Bet My Soul on Rock 'n' Roll: Diary of a Black Punk Icon by Jean Beauvoir with John Ostrosky Laina Dawes Bet My Soul on Rock 'n' Roll: Diary of a Black Punk Icon. By Jean Beauvoir with John Ostrosky. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2022. [xiii, 271 p. ISBN 9781641604765 (hardcover), $27.99; also available as ebook (ISBN and price vary).] Illustrations. Bet My Soul on Rock 'n' Roll: Diary of a Black Punk Icon. By Jean Beauvoir with John Ostrosky. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2022. [xiii, 271 p. ISBN 9781641604765 (hardcover), $27.99; also available as ebook (ISBN and price vary).] Illustrations. In his essay "A Fly in Buttermilk," James Baldwin writes about the desegregation of public schools in the southern United States in the 1960s and the complex relationship between African Americans and Whites: "It is not an easy thing to be forced to re-examine a way of life and to speculate, in a personal way, on the general injustice" (Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son [New York: Vintage International, 1993], 97). In this he suggests that integration, while important in the advancement of education, only masks the underlying conflict between Blacks and Whites that, within that era, neither side wanted to improve. For Black parents, integration into all-White schools meant the opportunity for a better education, but they were worried about miscegenation and whether the racism from integrating would lead to long-lasting trauma for [End Page 173] their children. White parents within that era had similar worries, in addition to how education for Blacks would limit their domination over them. A similar challenge for Black rock musicians lies within the predominantly White music industry, where racial divides are embedded. Reading singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jean Beauvoir's memoir, Bet My Soul on Rock 'n' Roll: Diary of a Black Punk Icon, raises the question, does playing what is often considered a White-centric musical form mean Black musicians have to sacrifice a part of their Blackness in order to succeed? Racial divisions within the music industry have recategorized rock from the offshoot of innovative Black music making into more Blackcentric genres, such as soul or rhythm and blues (Maureen Mahon, The Right to Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and Cultural Politics of Race [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004]). This has delegitimized the value of Black rock musicians, creating the assumption that rock is a predominantly White genre based on White innate talent or skill. Blacks fortunate enough to obtain a small semblance of success in this industry have a decision to make: whether they choose to be a musician who happens to be Black like Beauvoir, or to be a self-identified Black musician who addresses these racial divisions head on. Beauvoir writes his book from the former perspective, which is better suited for those who are more interested in yet another story about sex, partying, and the wealth that comes with stardom (or the mirage of stardom) and less about offering much-needed accounts of Black experiences in rock music, which could provoke much-needed conversations about the precarious relationship between musical preference and racial identity. While parents' disapproval of their children's musical ambitions is a relatively common trope in music memoirs, Beauvoir struggled between being raised in a Haitian family and being born into US culture, which intensified his decision to differentiate himself. In the chapter "Growing Up," Beauvoir is caught between his parents' aspirations and his own, shaped by his formative years in Chicago and later in Queens, New York. Beauvoir was attracted to the same elements of burgeoning popular-culture materialism in the 1970s (such as rock, money, and girls) as other boys his age, but his highly educated, Haitian-born father was doubtful that he could earn a living as a musician, and he kicked Beauvoir out of his house at fifteen. His Haitian background plays prominently in this book. While this heritage informs the reader of his impressive family lineage, it is also positioned in a manner to suggest that he is trying to separate himself from the African American experience—or the negative connotations that surround it. "Most...