THEME 3
“What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue?”: The Blues Tradition
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In this class, we are making an earnest attempt to see and make historical connections outside of a western, linear framework that says: we started here, learned a lot, improved, and now we are chronologically someplace completely different. This just doesn’t work for Black rhetoric, especially when we can trace daily expressions back centuries. We must chronicle time differently. It’s all about the re-mix now.
We are cross-pollinating three areas: 1) the Blues tradition, namely the first Black form of popular, secular music in the U.S. that grew from African American spirituals and work songs invented during slavery; 2) Imani Perry’s book, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, and its connections of Black arts, survival, and genius through to the color blue; and 3) how the re-mix of the Blues tells a musical and cultural history. |
The components of theme 3:
