Korea Remixed (Spring '22)
Inspired by and for the semester-long celebration of Korea Remixed, here is a playlist of forward-thinking sounds from Korean artists. K-Pop is a global phenomenon full of great artists and music, but there are many other sonic movements within the atmosphere of Korean music, and this playlist is an attempt to highlight musicians working in other genres and styles outside of the mainstream.
If you'd like to learn more about contemporary Korean music, explore some of the resources that helped inform this playlist below:
- "'Fusion" and Questions of Korean Cultural Identity in Music" (Korean Studies)
- "The Rising Female Musicians of Seoul's Underground Scene" (i-d vice)
- "How K-pop became a global phenomenon" (Vox)
- "K-Pop Is Only Half the Story of Korean Pop Music" (Rolling Stone)
- "Not K-Pop: A Guide to the Emerging Electropop Scene in Korea" (Bandcamp Daily)
- "Eight Indie Bands To Know From Daegu, South Korea" (Bandcamp Daily)
- "10 Korean Musicians That Aren't K-Pop" (Culture Trip)
To enjoy musical selections from our archival holdings, pop over to this playlist of historical recordings provided by the Archives of Traditional Music (IU login required).
We've also highlighted a number of films, works of contemporary literature, scholarly texts on media studies, and podcasts from Korean and Korean-American thinkers and creators. You'll find these lists by clicking on the relevant tabs, in this section.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring by It's springtime in a small house floating on a small raft on a small lake, surrounded on all sides by steep walls of forest or stone, broken here and there by ravines. Old Monk lives here with his young apprentice. The lesson for Spring is about pain and guilt and conscience, Summer's the cruelty of desire, Autumn's about letting go of rage, and Winter's about penance and finding peace. And so Spring comes around again, and the cycle begins anew, as it must, and within that compass are life, faith, growth, love, jealousy, hate, cruelty, mystery, redemption ... and nature. The film functions as a kind of Zen koan, paying keen attention to the purest and most elementary things--good and bad alike--that make us human.Burning by
A South Korean man bumps into a former, but forgotten childhood classmate one day and he hits it off with the young woman. An immediate romantic tryst follows, but the young woman plans to leave for Africa in a few days. She asks her rediscovered friend to feed her cat while she is away. He does so and is eager for his new romantic interest to return. The situation quickly becomes complicated, however, when she returns from Africa with a mystery man who seems to be a dangerous trouble maker. Then when the young woman disappears, a disturbing situation unfolds.Poetry by
Mija is a beautiful woman in her sixties who moves gracefully through life, contemplating a trivial daily routine that is ill-suited to her refined persona. On a whim, Mija enrolls in a poetry class at the local cultural center and begins a personal quest to find the perfect words to describe her feelings. She appreciates the wonders of the natural world, but a school girl's suicide initiates a chain of tragic events that will change her life forever.Oldboy by
The film follows the story of Oh Dae-su, who is imprisoned in a cell which resembles a hotel room for 15 years without knowing the identity of his captor or his captor's motives. When he is finally released, Dae-su finds himself still trapped in a web of conspiracy and violence. His own quest for vengeance becomes tied in with romance when he falls in love with an attractive young sushi chef, Mi-do.House of Hummingbird by
Fourteen-year-old Eun-hee moves through life like a hummingbird searching for a taste of sweetness wherever she may find it. Ignored by her parents and abused by her brother, she finds her escape by roaming the neighborhood with her best friend, going on adventures, exploring young love, and experiencing everything that comes with growing up in a country on the brink of enormous change.The Day He Arrives by
A film director who no longer makes films, Seongjun, arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn't show up, Seongjun wanders the city aimlessly. He runs into an actress he used to know, shares a drink with some film students and against his better judgment, heads to his ex-girlfriend's apartment. The next day goes very much like the last; Seongjun meets the actress, has drinks with friends, and falls for woman who looks remarkably like his ex-girlfriend. Each new day plays out like a flimsy copy of the previous one, but only Seongjun knows why.
Bungee Jumping of their Own Two university students fall in love in 1983 but on the night the man must leave for the military, the woman disappears and they never see each other again. Seventeen years later the man is now a high school teacher, and one of his male students bears an uncanny resemblance to his old girlfriend.The Host by
In Seoul, an American army doctor forces his assistant to dump bottle after bottle of formaldehyde into the drain. The drain runs into the Han River, the major river running through the middle of Seoul. His only reason is that the bottles are covered with a layer of dust. Six years later, a food cart operator, Gang-du falls asleep every time his dad, Hie-bong, is away from the stand for more than a few minutes. Soon, his daughter, Hyun-Seo returns from school. Then a monster appears in the river and starts to attack the people lounging at its banks. Gang-du and Hyun-Seo are chased by the beast. Hie-bong tries valiantly to save his daughter, but the beast soon captures her and drags her away. They receive a call from the daughter's cell phone and try to rescue her from the large monster.
My Love, Don’t Cross that River by
Byong-man Jo and Gye-Yeul Kang have been inseparable companions for the past 76 years. Living in their small home by the river, they wear traditional Korean clothes, go shopping at the local market, have picnics with neighbors, and enjoy dance parties. Every night they go to sleep holding each other's hands. Observing this fragile couple for 15 months, director Moyoung Jin acts as a fly-on-the-wall, capturing their twilight days with tender moments that reveal simple acts of affection - from a good-natured leaf fight to a gentle caress of the cheek.
Reach for the Sky by Every year, on the 2nd Thursday of November, the entire country of South - Korea is put to the test. That day, more than half a million high school senior students take part in the National University Exam, better known as Suneung. Reach for the Sky tells the story of several South - Korean high school students, their families and teachers, as they prepare for the annual National Exam. The exam will not only determine where the high school seniors will attend university but ultimately also their status in the Korean hierarchical society.
Taxi Blues by Story of the daily life and hardships of a taxi driver in Seoul. Documentary film maker Chʻoeha Tong-ha spends a summer driving a taxi in Seoul and mounts a camera on the dashboard to record his encounters with his customers.
Fiction
Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist) by ISBN: 9781455563937Publication Date: 2017-02-07In this gorgeous, page-turning saga, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home they never knew. "There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones." In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history. *Includes reading group guide*
The Hole by ISBN: 9781628727807Publication Date: 2017-08-01Winner of the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award Named One of the Top 10 Thrillers to Read This Summer by Time Magazine. In this tense, gripping novel by a rising star of Korean literature, Oghi has woken from a coma after causing a devastating car accident that took his wife's life and left him paralyzed and badly disfigured. His caretaker is his mother-in-law, a widow grieving the loss of her only child. Oghi is neglected and left alone in his bed. His world shrinks to the room he lies in and his memories of his troubled relationship with his wife, a sensitive, intelligent woman who found all of her life goals thwarted except for one: cultivating the garden in front of their house. But soon Oghi notices his mother-in-law in the abandoned garden, uprooting what his wife had worked so hard to plant and obsessively digging larger and larger holes. When asked, she answers only that she is finishing what her daughter started. A bestseller in Korea, award-winning author Hye-young Pyun's The Hole is a superbly crafted and deeply unnerving novel about the horrors of isolation and neglect in all of its banal and brutal forms. As Oghi desperately searches for a way to escape, he discovers the difficult truth about his wife and the toll their life together took on her.
Mina by ISBN: 9781931883740Publication Date: 2018-10-08"Kim Sagwa is South Korea's young, brilliant, fearless writer." -- Don Mee Choi, author ofHardly War "She doesn't know what to do, and that amounts to a state of torture." Crystal toils day and night to earn top grades at her cram school. She's also endlessly texting, shopping, drinking, vexing her boyfriends, cranking up her mp3s, and fantasizing about her next slice of cheesecake. Her non- stop frenzy never quite manages the one thing that might calm her down: opening up about the pressures that are driving her to the edge. She certainly hasn't talked with her best friend, Mina, nor Mina's brother, whom she's developing a serious crush on. And Crystal's starting to lose her grip. In this shocking English debut, award-winning Korean author Kim Sagwa delivers an astonishingly complex portrait of modern-day adolescence. With pitch-perfect dialogue and a precise eye for detail, Kim creates a piercingly real teen protagonist--at once powerful, vulnerable, and utterly confused. As one bad decision leads to another, this promising life spirals to a devastating climax.
The Vegetarian by ISBN: 9780553448184Publication Date: 2016-02-02A beautiful, unsettling novel about rebellion and taboo, violence and eroticism, and the twisting metamorphosis of a soul. Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams--invasive images of blood and brutality--torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It's a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that's become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself. Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman's struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.
Please Look after Mom by ISBN: 9780307593917Publication Date: 2011-04-05A million-plus-copy best seller in Korea—a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation—this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway. Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love. You will never think of your mother the same way again after you read this book.
The White Book by ISBN: 9780525573067Publication Date: 2019-02-19From Booker Prize-winner and literary phenomenon Han Kang, a lyrical and disquieting exploration of personal grief, written through the prism of the color white While on a writer's residency, a nameless narrator wanders the twin white worlds of the blank page and snowy Warsaw. THE WHITE BOOK becomes a meditation on the color white, as well as a fictional journey inspired by an older sister who died in her mother's arms, a few hours old. The narrator grapples with the tragedy that has haunted her family, an event she colors in stark white--breast milk, swaddling bands, the baby's rice cake-colored skin--and, from here, visits all that glows in her memory: from a white dog to sugar cubes. As the writer reckons with the enormity of her sister's death, Han Kang's trademark frank and chilling prose is softened by retrospection, introspection, and a deep sense of resilience and love. THE WHITE BOOK--ultimately a letter from Kang to her sister--offers powerful philosophy and personal psychology on the tenacity and fragility of the human spirit, and our attempts to graft new life from the ashes of destruction.
Poetry
Day-Shine by ISBN: 1885445946Publication Date: 2010-03-31Powerfully inventive poems of love in contemporary life by Chong Hyon-jong, one of the most respected poets writing in Korea. The novelty of his poetic language with its narrative lyricism and provacative philosophy makes it impossible to classify Chong's poetry, and yet it is a holder of tradition which embodies the laws of life as seen by gifted poets in the zen poetic tradition of Korea. Chong Hyon-jong exposes contemporary reality, like a prophet, with profound insight.
DMZ Colony by ISBN: 9781940696966Publication Date: 2020-04-07Woven from poems, prose, photographs, and drawings, Don Mee Choi's DMZ Colony is a tour de force of personal and political reckoning set over eight acts. Evincing the power of translation as a poetic device to navigate historical and linguistic borders, it explores Edward Said's notion of "the intertwined and overlapping histories" in regards to South Korea and the United States through innovative deployments of voice, story, and poetics. Like its sister book, Hardly War, it holds history accountable, its very presence a resistance to empire and a hope in humankind.
Nonfiction
Minor Feelings by ISBN: 9781984820372Publication Date: 2020-02-25Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative--and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world. Binding these essays together is Hong's theory of "minor feelings." As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality--when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they're dissonant--and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her. With sly humor and a poet's searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche--and of a writer's search to both uncover and speak the truth.
Rediscovering Korean Cinema by ISBN: 9780472074297Publication Date: 2019-12-30South Korean cinema is a striking example of non-Western contemporary cinematic success. Thanks to the increasing numbers of moviegoers and domestic films produced, South Korea has become one of the world's major film markets. In 2001, the South Korean film industry became the first in recent history to reclaim its domestic market from Hollywood and continues to maintain around a 50 percent market share today. High-quality South Korean films are increasingly entering global film markets and connecting with international audiences in commercial cinemas and art theatres, and at major international film festivals. Despite this growing recognition of the films themselves, Korean cinema's rich heritage has not heretofore received significant scholarly attention in English-language publications. This groundbreaking collection of thirty-five essays by a wide range of academic specialists situates current scholarship on Korean cinema within the ongoing theoretical debates in contemporary global film studies. Chapters explore key films of Korean cinema, from Sweet Dream, Madame Freedom, The Housemaid, and The March of Fools to Oldboy, The Host, and Train to Busan, as well as major directors such as Shin Sang-ok, Kim Ki-young, Im Kwon-taek, Bong Joon-ho, Hong Sang-soo, Park Chan-wook, and Lee Chang-dong. While the chapters provide in-depth analyses of particular films, together they cohere into a detailed and multidimensional presentation of Korean cinema's cumulative history and broader significance. With its historical and critical scope, abundance of new research, and detailed discussion of important individual films, Rediscovering Korean Cinema is at once an accessible classroom text and a deeply informative compendium for scholars of Korean and East Asian studies, cinema and media studies, and communications. It will also be an essential resource for film industry professionals and anyone interested in international cinema.
New Korean Cinema by ISBN: 0814740294Publication Date: 2005-09-01Korean film has been heralded as the "newest tiger" of Asian cinema. In the past year, South Korea became one of the only countries in the world in which local films outsold Hollywood films, and Korean director Park Chan-wook was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes. New Korean Cinema provides a comprehensive overview of the production, circulation, and reception of this vibrant cinema, which has begun to flourish again in the past decade, following the lifting of repressive government policies. In addition to providing a cultural, historical, and social context for understanding this burgeoning cinema, the book considers the political economy of South Korea's film industry, strategies of domestic and international distribution and marketing, and the consumption of Korean films throughout the world. The volume also includes a glossary of key terms and a bibliography of works on Korean cinema. New Korean Cinema gathers prominent critics from North America, Asia, and Europe to make sense of this exploding film industry. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the complex roles played by national and regional cinemas in a global age.
New Korean Cinema: breaking the waves by ISBN: 9781906660253Publication Date: 2010-04-26New Korean Cinema charts the dramatic transformation of South Korea's film industry from the democratization movement of the late 1980s to the 2000s new generation of directors. The author considers such issues as government censorship, the market's embrace of Hollywood films, and the social changes which led to the diversification and surprising commercial strength of contemporary Korean films. Directors such as Hong Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, and Bong Joon-ho are studied within their historical context together with a range of films including Sopyonje (1993), Peppermint Candy (1999), Oldboy (2003), and The Host (2006).
Transnational Korean Cinema: cultural politics, film genres, and digital technologies by ISBN: 9781978807884Publication Date: 2019-12-13In Transnational Korean Cinema author Dal Yong Jin explores the interactions of local and global politics, economics, and culture to contextualize the development of Korean cinema and its current place in an era of neoliberal globalization and convergent digital technologies. The book emphasizes the economic and industrial aspects of the story, looking at questions on the interaction of politics and economics, including censorship and public funding, and provides a better view of the big picture by laying bare the relationship between film industries, the global market, and government. Jin also sheds light on the operations and globalization strategies of Korean film industries alongside changing cultural policies in tandem with Hollywood's continuing influences in order to comprehend the power relations within cultural politics, nationally and globally. This is the first book to offer a full overview of the nascent development of Korean cinema.
Korean Horror Cinema by ISBN: 9780748643097Publication Date: 2013-03-14As the first detailed English-language book on the subject, Korean Horror Cinema introduces the cultural specificity of the genre to an international audience, from the iconic monsters of gothic horror, such as the wonhon (vengeful female ghost) and the gumiho (shapeshifting fox), to the avenging killers of Oldboy and Death Bell. Beginning in the 1960s with The Housemaid, it traces a path through the history of Korean horror, offering new interpretations of classic films, demarcating the shifting patterns of production and consumption across the decades, and introducing readers to films rarely seen and discussed outside of Korea. It explores the importance of folklore and myth on horror film narratives, the impact of political and social change upon the genre, and accounts for the transnational triumph of some of Korea's contemporary horror films. While covering some of the most successful recent films such as Thirst, A Tale of Two Sisters, and Phone, the collection also explores the obscure, the arcane and the little-known outside Korea, including detailed analyses of The Devil's Stairway, Woman's Wail and The Fox With Nine Tails. Its exploration and definition of the canon makes it an engaging and essential read for students and scholars in horror film studies and Korean Studies alike.
K-Pop - the International Rise of the Korean Music Industry by ISBN: 9781138775961Publication Date: 2014-09-22K-pop, described by Time Magazine in 2012 as "South Korea's greatest export", has rapidly achieved a large worldwide audience of devoted fans largely through distribution over the Internet. This book examines the phenomenon, and discusses the reasons for its success. It considers the national and transnational conditions that have played a role in K-pop's ascendancy, and explores how they relate to post-colonial modernisation, post-Cold War politics in East Asia, connections with the Korean diaspora, and the state-initiated campaign to accumulate soft power. As it is particularly concerned with fandom and cultural agency, it analyses fan practices, discourses, and underlying psychologies within their local habitus as well as in expanding topographies of online networks. Overall, the book addresses the question of how far "Asian culture" can be global in a truly meaningful way, and how popular culture from a "marginal" nation has become a global phenomenon.
Korean Contemporary Art by ISBN: 9783791351575Publication Date: 2012-03-20This unique survey examines the contemporary art scene in Korea, which is one of the most dynamic and least known areas of the contemporary art world. The works of today's Korean artists are rarely found between the pages of any general art book, yet they ahve become a major force in the global art world. Korea is rich with internationally renowned painters, photographers, and multi-media artists. This book features Korea's most talented and prolific artists and their works, from the powerful and grand-scale installations of Do Ho Suh and the eye-popping sculptures of Choi Jeong-Hwa to the minimalist performance of Kimsooja, and the intellectually challenging videos and sculptures of Michael Joo. The artists' diverse bodies of work often deal with issues relating to tradition, politics, society, alienation, identity, and popular culture. This generously illustrated and engagingly written volume offers a concise introduction to the world of contemporary Korean art.
Contemporary Korean Art by ISBN: 9780816679874Publication Date: 2013-06-14Starting in the mid-1960s, a group of Korean artists began to push paint, soak canvas, drag pencils, rip paper, and otherwise manipulate the materials of painting in ways that prompted critics to describe their actions as "methods"rather than artworks. A crucial artistic movement of twentieth-century Korea, Tansaekhwa (monochromatic painting) also became one of its most famous and successful. Promoted in Seoul, Tokyo, and Paris, Tansaekhwa grew to be the international face of contemporary Korean art and a cornerstone of contemporary Asian art. In this full-color, richly illustrated account--the first of its kind in English--Joan Kee provides a fresh interpretation of the movement's emergence and meaning that sheds new light on the history of abstraction, twentieth-century Asian art, and contemporary art in general. Combining close readings, archival research, and interviews with leading Tansaekhwa artists, Kee focuses on an essential but often overlooked dimension of the movement: how artists made a case for abstraction as a way for viewers to engage productively with the world and its systems. As Kee shows, artists such as Lee Ufan, Park Seobo, Kwon Young-woo, Yun Hyongkeun, and Ha Chonghyun urgently stressed certain fundamentals, recognizing that overwhelming forces such as decolonization, authoritarianism, and the rise of a new postwar internationalism could be approached through highly individual experiences that challenged viewers to consider how they understood their world rather than why. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, decolonization, and the declaration of martial law in South Korea, these artists asked questions that continue to resonate today: In what ways can art matter to the world? How does art exert agency when its viewers live in times of explicit or implicit duress? How can specific social and political conditions inspire or influence methods and styles?
Korean American Perspectives (The Council of Korean Americans)
CKA launched the Korean American Perspectives podcast series with the purpose of exploring complex issues that shape the Korean American community and sharing inspirational life stories of Korean American leaders. In our past two seasons, we have highlighted key topics such as healthcare, civic engagement, and cultural identity, and have interviewed interesting figures from diverse backgrounds and fields within our community.
Feeling Asian (Youngmi Mayer & Brian Park)
A podcast where two Asians talk about their feelings. After a lifetime of holding in their emotions (shoutout to Korean moms!), comedians Youngmi Mayer and Brian Park are ready to let them all out. Each week, Youngmi and Brian dive into topics that range from sex/dating to umm...not sex/dating stuff, and invite their interesting friends along the way. Who knew catharsis could look so Asian?
Awaken and Align (Laura Chung)
Awaken and align the podcast provides you with guidance and support to help you awaken and align to your truth. Laura Chung, the host, realized through her own journey that living the life of your dreams means living in alignment with your highest self and activating your limitless potential.
The Sounds of Black History Month
In recognition and celebration of Black History Month in February, we have created a series of curated playlists designed to celebrate the voices, innovations, and influence of black artists and musicians across music history.
The first in our series of playlists, titled “Masterpiece,” explores a variety of genres and musical movements traditionally recognized as being driven by black artistry and innovation, genres that provide a space for the voices of black artists to be heard and celebrated. This playlist focuses on key figures in pop, jazz, soul, funk, r&b, and hip hop, spanning from the mid-20th century to the present day.
In addition to this more general playlist, we also created three other playlists that offer deep dives into genres where black voices and influence are often obscured or overlooked: including rock music, celebrating black pioneers in punk, metal, and other rock music movements; folk and country, where black contributions to the evolution of folk and country music into popular culture is centered; and electronic, where we highlight key black contributors to the evolution of electronic music in all its many sub-genres.
Provided in tandem with these playlists are library and freely available resources to aid in the further exploration and celebration of black contributions to contemporary popular music and culture.
Resources for Further Exploration
Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC at IU) - repository of materials covering a range of African American musical idioms and cultural expressions from the post-World War II era
Black Grooves - music review site hosted by the Archives of African American Music & Culture (AAAMC) at Indiana University
The Black Music History Library - a living collection of books, articles, documentaries, series, podcasts and more about the Black origins of traditional and popular music dating from the 18th century to present day.
Beyond the Playlist
As with many of these national commemorations, one month is never enough time to fully honor and celebrate the history and culture of marginalized communities, let alone heal the legacies (and ongoing reality) of harm they've experienced. We recognize that there is much more to be done, that racism and anti-blackness can't be eliminated simply through the creation of resource guides, and that the work of realizing justice won't soon be over. But nevertheless, we keep trying, contributing how we can and building upon the efforts of those who came before us, and we continue to learn from and with one another.
If you'd like to engage more deeply with Black History Month, the IU Libraries Arts & Humanities department has created a number of interrelated resources and features to provide more holistic coverage of this remembering. You'll find those, below:
- Black LGBTQ+ Poetry (Gender Studies)
- Black Philosophy & Thought (Philosophy)
- In Memoriam: bell hooks (Philosophy)
- Black American Poets and Poetry, 1770-Present (Literature)
- Black Freedom Movements in American History (History)
- Contemporary Black Playwrights You Should Know (Theatre & Drama)
- Performance and Protest: Theatre, Politics, and Activism in America (Theatre & Drama)
- Black History Month Streaming and DVD Resources (Media Services)
And for all things Black culture, you can never go wrong with the resources, services, and collections of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library.
Additionally, throughout the '21 spring semester, our department is hosting an ongoing Racial Equity & Social Justice Challenge. This program encourage participants to engage with items from our collections that will facilitate and deepen their awareness of a variety of social justice issues, and features a number of titles relevant to Black History Month. If you'd like to join us, take a look at the Challenge Guide.
For the other three playlists in our Black History Month feature we will focus on the voices and innovations of black artists in genres where they are often overlooked, or excluded. To start, we present here a curated list of Rock musicians and bands from the genre’s inception to the present day. Here, we illustrate and outline a handful of the black artists who drove the genre forward, keeping it fresh into the new decade, from rock, to punk, to metal, and back again.
Playlist Resources & Further Reading
- "Who Belongs Here? The Complicated Position of Rock Fans of Color and The #BLM Movement" (Paste)
- "Let There Be (Black) Rock" (Abundant Living newsletter)
- "Queer, Black & Blue: Sister Rosetta Tharpe is Muva of Them All" (Afropunk)
- "‘We Don’t Need Another Black Woman in Rock ‘n’ Roll’: How Betty Davis Challenged the Music Industry" (Hazlitt)
- "From Chuck Berry to Tom Morello: A Conversation About Black Guitarists" (Los Angeleno)
- "Why Can't Black Kids Play Heavy Metal?" (The Root)
- "Heavy Metal Feminism" (Hazlitt)
- "The Unbearable Whiteness of Indie" (Pitchfork)
Continuing in our celebration of contributions and innovations by black artists to genres wherein their voices are often forgotten or overlooked, we present a curated playlist of black songs that have influenced and driven the sounds of folk and country music for over a hundred years.
Playlist Resources & Further Reading
- “The Roots of Cowboy Music: The Search For A Black Self In The American West” (MTV)
- “Country Music Is Nothing Without Black Artists” (Zora)
- “Rewriting Country Music’s Racist History” (Rolling Stone)
- “The Long Ride To 'Old Town Road': Black Artists And Their Contributions To Country Music” (NPR, podcast)
- Gandy Dancers (1994, Folkstreams) - Short documentary on the musical traditions and recollections of eight retired African-American railroad track laborers whose occupational folk songs were once heard on railroads that crisscross the South.
Our final playlist in our Black History Month series explores the contributions and innovations made by black musicians in the rapidly evolving electronic music genre. While much debate exists over the true beginnings of music made entirely with electronic instruments, one thing that is certain is black artists have been at the forefront of exploring the capabilities of electronic compositions, pushing the types of music that can be created entirely with synthetic instruments to new heights with each decade.
Playlist Resources & Further Reading
- Dweller Electronics Library List of articles, interviews and documentaries about techno and its history, from a black perspective
- Black to Techno (2019) Short documentary tracing the lineage of techno via its birthplace in Detroit and later innovation in Berlin
- "In the Mix: Hearing the Souls of Black Folk" (American Studies)
- "Is This the Future? Black Music and Technology Discourse" (Science Fiction Studies)
- "Confessions of a DJ" (n+1)
- "The Divine Creation of Chicago House" (cuepoint)
- "Black Women Helped Build House Music. Their Credit Is Often Left off Records." (Zoya)
- “Detroit is Techno City, and techno is Black” (Metro Times)
- "2010-19: Reflections Of A Black Woman In Dance Music" (Resident Advisor)
- "The Sound of a Movement: 18 Creatives on the Black Queer Future of Dance Music" (them)
African American Music by ISBN: 9780415881814Publication Date: 2014-09-25American Music: An Introduction, Second Edition is a collection of seventeen essays surveying major African American musical genres, both sacred and secular, from slavery to the present. With contributions by leading scholars in the field, the work brings together analyses of African American music based on ethnographic fieldwork, which privileges the voices of the music-makers themselves, woven into a richly textured mosaic of history and culture. At the same time, it incorporates musical treatments that bring clarity to the structural, melodic, and rhythmic characteristics that both distinguish and unify African American music. The second edition has been substantially revised and updated, and includes new essays on African and African American musical continuities, African-derived instrument construction and performance practice, techno, and quartet traditions. Musical transcriptions, photographs, illustrations, and a new audio CD bring the music to life.
Representing Black Music Culture: then, now, and when again? by ISBN: 9780810877863Publication Date: 2011-10-07In this collection of essays, interviews, and profiles, William C. Banfield reflects on his life as a musician and educator, weaving together pieces of cultural criticism and artistry and paying homage to Black music of the last forty years and beyond. The essays and interviews in Representing Black Music Culture: Then, Now, and When Again? are enhanced by seven years of daily diary entries that reflect on some of the country's most respected Black composers, recording artists, authors, and cultural icons, including Ornette Coleman, Bobby McFerrin, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Gordon Parks, the Marsalis brothers, Maya Angelou, Patrice Rushen, Billy Taylor, Herbie Hancock, and Quincy Jones. Although many of the individuals Banfield lauds are well known to most readers, he also turns his attention to musicians and artists whose work, while perhaps unheralded by the world at large, is no less deserving of praise and respect for their contributions. In addition, this volume is filled with candid photographs of many artists participating in expressive culture, whether on stage, on tour, in clubs, in rehearsal, or teaching class. This unique book will be of interest to scholars and students, as well as general readers interested in absorbing and appreciating Black culture. Book jacket.
Black Diamond Queens: African American women and rock and roll by ISBN: 9781478010197Publication Date: 2020-10-30African American women have played a pivotal part in rock and roll--from laying its foundations and singing chart-topping hits to influencing some of the genre's most iconic acts. Despite this, black women's importance to the music's history has been diminished by narratives of rock as a mostly white male enterprise. In Black Diamond Queens, Maureen Mahon draws on recordings, press coverage, archival materials, and interviews to document the history of African American women in rock and roll between the 1950s and the 1980s. Mahon details the musical contributions and cultural impact of Big Mama Thornton, LaVern Baker, Betty Davis, Tina Turner, Merry Clayton, Labelle, the Shirelles, and others, demonstrating how dominant views of gender, race, sexuality, and genre affected their careers. By uncovering this hidden history of black women in rock and roll, Mahon reveals a powerful sonic legacy that continues to reverberate into the twenty-first century.
Right to Rock: the Black Rock Coalition and the cultural politics of race by ISBN: 0822333058Publication Date: 2004-06-23The original architects of rock 'n' roll were black musicians including Little Richard, Etta James, and Chuck Berry. Jimi Hendrix electrified rock with his explosive guitar in the late 1960s. Yet by the 1980s, rock music produced by African Americans no longer seemed to be "authentically black." Particularly within the music industry, the prevailing view was that no one--not black audiences, not white audiences, and not black musicians--had an interest in black rock. In 1985 New York-based black musicians and writers formed the Black Rock Coalition (brc) to challenge that notion and create outlets for black rock music. A second branch of the coalition started in Los Angeles in 1989. Under the auspices of the brc, musicians organized performances and produced recordings and radio and television shows featuring black rock. The first book to focus on the brc, Right to Rock is, like the coalition itself, about the connections between race and music, identity and authenticity, art and politics, and power and change. Maureen Mahon observed and participated in brc activities in New York and Los Angeles, and she conducted interviews with more than two dozen brc members. In Right to Rock she offers an in-depth account of how, for nearly twenty years, members of the brc have broadened understandings of black identity and black culture through rock music.
What Are You Doing Here?: a black woman's life and liberation in heavy metal Author by ISBN: 9781935950059Publication Date: 2013-01-08Laina Dawes is not always the only black woman at metal shows and she's not always the only headbanger among her black female friends. In her first book, the Canadian critic and music fan questions herself, her hardcore heroes and dozens of black punk, metal and hard-rock fans to answer a knee-jerk question she's heard a hundred times in the small clubs where her favourite bands play: What are you doing here?' She investigates how black female musicians and fans navigate the metal, hardcore and punk music genres that are regularly thought of as inclusive spaces.'
Country Soul: making music and making race in the American South by ISBN: 9781469622439Publication Date: 2015-03-23In the sound of the 1960s and 1970s, nothing symbolized the rift between black and white America better than the seemingly divided genres of country and soul. Yet the music emerged from the same songwriters, musicians, and producers in the recording studios of Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama--what Charles L. Hughes calls the "country-soul triangle." In legendary studios like Stax and FAME, integrated groups of musicians like Booker T. and the MGs and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section produced music that both challenged and reconfirmed racial divisions in the United States. Working with artists from Aretha Franklin to Willie Nelson, these musicians became crucial contributors to the era's popular music and internationally recognized symbols of American racial politics in the turbulent years of civil rights protests, Black Power, and white backlash. Hughes offers a provocative reinterpretation of this key moment in American popular music and challenges the conventional wisdom about the racial politics of southern studios and the music that emerged from them. Drawing on interviews and rarely used archives, Hughes brings to life the daily world of session musicians, producers, and songwriters at the heart of the country and soul scenes. In doing so, he shows how the country-soul triangle gave birth to new ways of thinking about music, race, labor, and the South in this pivotal period.
Hidden in the Mix: the African American presence in country music by ISBN: 9780822351498Publication Date: 2013-07-10Country music's debt to African American music has long been recognized. Black musicians have helped to shape the styles of many of the most important performers in the country canon. The partnership between Lesley Riddle and A. P. Carter produced much of the Carter Family's repertoire; the street musician Tee Tot Payne taught a young Hank Williams Sr.; the guitar playing of Arnold Schultz influenced western Kentuckians, including Bill Monroe and Ike Everly. Yet attention to how these and other African Americans enriched the music played by whites has obscured the achievements of black country-music performers and the enjoyment of black listeners. The contributors to Hidden in the Mix examine how country music became "white," how that fictive racialization has been maintained, and how African American artists and fans have used country music to elaborate their own identities. They investigate topics as diverse as the role of race in shaping old-time record catalogues, the transracial West of the hick-hopper Cowboy Troy, and the place of U.S. country music in postcolonial debates about race and resistance. Revealing how music mediates both the ideology and the lived experience of race, Hidden in the Mix challenges the status of country music as "the white man's blues." Contributors. Michael Awkward, Erika Brady, Barbara Ching, Adam Gussow, Patrick Huber, Charles Hughes, Jeffrey A. Keith, Kip Lornell, Diane Pecknold, David Sanjek, Tony Thomas, Jerry Wever
Uproot: travels in twenty-first-century music and digital culture by ISBN: 9780374533427Publication Date: 2016-08-16In 2001 Jace Clayton was an unknown DJ who recorded a three-turntable, sixty-minute mix and put it online to share with friends. Within weeks, Gold Teeth Thief became an international calling card, whisking Clayton away to play a nightclub in Zagreb, a gallery in Osaka, a former brothel in Sao Paolo, and the American Museum of Natural History. Just as the music world made its fitful, uncertain transition from analog to digital, Clayton found himself on the front lines of creative upheavals ofart production in the twenty-first century globalized world. Uproot is a guided tour of this newly-opened cultural space. With humor, insight, and expertise, Clayton illuminates the connections between a Congolese hotel band and the indie-rock scene, Mexican rodeo teens and Israeli techno, and Whitney Houston and the robotic voices is rural Moroccan song, and offers an unparalleled understanding of music in the digital age.
More Brilliant Than the Sun: adventures in sonic fiction by ISBN: 0704380250Publication Date: 1999The classic work on the music of Afrofuturism, from jazz to jungle
More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction is one of the most extraordinary books on music ever written. Part manifesto for a militant posthumanism, part journey through the unacknowledged traditions of diasporic science fiction, this book finds the future shock in Afrofuturist sounds from jazz, dub and techno to funk, hip hop and jungle. By exploring the music of such musical luminaries as Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Lee Perry, Dr Octagon, Parliament and Underground Resistance, theorist and artist Kodwo Eshun mobilises their concepts in order to open the possibilities of sonic fiction: the hitherto unexplored intersections between science fiction and organised sound. Situated between electronic music history, media theory, science fiction and Afrodiasporic studies, More Brilliant than the Sun is one of the key works to stake a claim for the generative possibilities of Afrofuturism.
House Music the Real Story by ISBN: 9781604740011Publication Date: 2007-11-01Jesse Saunders story is one of the most important in the history of popular culture. From his hometown of Chicago, Jesse created the first original House music record and launched the House music movement across the land. Eventually, his style of music would come to sell millions of records and CDs, take over the popular consciousness of millions of kids across the earth and cement the electronic revolution in music. Written with author James Cummins, this autobiography tells the story of how it all happened. From the streets of Chicago to the biggest music labels in Los Angeles, California, it follows Jesse Saunders as he recreates the musical landscape of America. Touching on the celebrity culture of the 1980s and 90s and into the twenty-first century, you will read many shocking things about some of your favorite artists. Jesse Saunders is an artist whose influence on modern music will never be forgotten.
America's Blues by
Publication Date: 2015This program explores the impact the blues has had American society, culture, and the entertainment industry. Despite influencing nearly every form of American music, literature, television, film, and other art forms, its contributions often go unrecognized. Historians, performers, and artists discuss the origin of the blues and how it has evolved. Blues today only accounts for a small part of the music market, but it developed its own tourism industry and remains strong in pockets of the U.S. and Europe.
Bad Brains, Live at CBGB 1982 by Publication Date: 2006Live at CBGB 1982 is a live album and DVD capturing hardcore punk/reggae group Bad Brains in concert at the historic New York City club CBGB in December 1982. The show features several tracks from the first three Bad Brains albums - Black Dots, Bad Brains, and the soon-to-be-released Rock for Light. The album also contains previously unreleased material, such as the reggae tunes "King of Glory" and "I And I Rasta."
A Band Called Death by Publication Date: 2012A Band Called Death is the story of three musician brothers, born to a Baptist preacher and his wife in 1950s Detroit. In their teenage years, the three brothers (to five other siblings) emerge as, first, a budding rock/funk band, heavily influenced by Motown & Parliament, ultimately evolving into pioneers of punk music, Death. Influenced by music by Alice Cooper and The Who, the group was heavily steered by the guidance and decisions of visionary eldest brother and guitarist, David Hackney. The film follows the re-discovery of the group through record collectors leading to an eventual release of Death's album ...For the Whole World to See by the Drag City record label and the group's eventual reunion and touring with a new guitarist.
The believers: the world’s first transgender gospel choir by Publication Date: 2006Built around the lives of 15 founding members of the world's first transgender gospel choir, the film portrays the choir's dilemma-- how to reconcile their gender identity with the widespread belief that changing one's gender goes against the word of God. Filmed over three years, the film takes us from the Transcendence Gospel Choir's shaky beginnings, when the heartwarmingly chaotic, cacophonous group is unable to agree on much of anything, arguing over appropriate wardrobe and learning to sing with transitioning voices, through their transformation into a polished, award-winning choir and close-knit family.Betty: They Say I'm Different by
Publication Date: 2017Funk Queen Betty Davis changed the landscape for female artists in America. Betty Mabry Davis is a global icon whose mysterious life story has until now, never been told. Creatively blending documentary, animation and nonfiction techniques, this movie traces the path of Betty's life, how she grew from humble upbringings to become a fully self-realized black female pioneer the world failed to understand or appreciate, revealing the mystery of her 35-year disappearance and her battle with mental illness and poverty. After years of trying, the elusive Betty, forever the free-spirited Black Power Goddess, finally allowed the filmmakers to creatively tell her story based on their conversations.
The Black power mixtape: 1967-1975 by Call Number: E185.615 .B5468 2011Publication Date: 2011The Black power mixtape: 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement -- Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them -- the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews. Thirty years later, this lush collection was found languishing in the basement of Swedish Television
Charley Pride, I’m Just Me by Publication Date: 2019American Masters – Charley Pride: I’m Just Me traces the improbable journey of Charley Pride, from his humble beginnings as a sharecropper’s son on a cotton farm in segregated Sledge, Mississippi to his career as a Negro American League baseball player and his meteoric rise as a trailblazing country music superstar. The new documentary reveals how Pride’s love for music led him from the Delta to a larger, grander world. In the 1940s, radio transcended racial barriers, making it possible for Pride to grow up listening to and imitating Grand Ole Opry stars like Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff.
Purple Rain by Call Number: PN1997 .P9789 1997Publication Date: 1997Prince stars as "The Kid," a Minneapolis club musician, who struggles with both a tumultuous home life and his own smoldering anger while taking refuge in his music and his steamy love for sultry Apollonia Kotero. Semi-autobiographical.
What happened, Miss Simone? by Call Number: ML420.S5635 W53 2016Publication Date: 2016The documentary chronicles the life of American singer Nina Simone, who became a civil rights activist and moved to Liberia following the turbulence of the 1960s. The documentary combines previously unreleased archival footage and interviews with Simone's daughter and friends.
Indigenous Heritage & History Month - Indigenous Peoples' Playlist
In recognition of this month's celebration of indigenous history and culture, we present this curated playlist of Indigenous artists from the 20th and 21st centuries. Collected here are artists representing their heritage and identity in musical stylings varying from traditional to contemporary, spanning a spectrum of hip hop, metal, country, and experimental. Listen and explore a sampling of the vast contributions to modern American music by Indigenous peoples.
This list only serves as a diving point into the vast contributions to American and international popular music made by Indigenous artists. Join us in celebrating and exploring these genre defining (and defying) artists. Below the playlist, you'll find a comprehensive discussion of the context and history of the music we've highlighted, as well as a selection of resources for further reading on Indigenous music.
Beyond the Playlist
If you'd like to engage more deeply with the experience of Indigenous people within the context of Turtle Island, we've also curated a list of books, movies, databases, and podcasts to support further curiosity and learning. You can also find that list by clicking on the Indigenous Heritage & History Month box on the left-hand side of this page, in the navigation menu.
Additionally, as part of this celebration and remembering, there is also an introduction to Two-Spirit identity and the LGBTQIA Indigenous experience on the Gender Studies Research Guide and an overview of Indigenous Philosophy on the Philosophy Research Guide.
Our playlist moves throughout various points in North American musical history, with artists dating back to the early 20th century. In the early decades of jazz, Mildred Bailey (Cour de’Alene) emerged as a household name. Bailey started her singing career at 17 and went on to perform genre staples of the jazz giants of her time. In the late 1920s, blues music was being recorded and released to great popularity, and among the artists of this blues explosion was Charlie Patton (Choctaw). Hailed as the father of Delta Blues, Patton, of mixed (Black, white, and Indigenous) ancestry, pioneered the driving rhythms and impassioned vocals that became representative of blues music in the delta region and would lay the foundational groundwork for rock n roll musicians to come.
Moving into the 1960s, Indigenous artists had an undeniable impact on popular music despite a lack of commercial success. Buffy Sainte-Marie, born on the Piapot 75 reserve and adopted by a Mi’kmaq family as an infant, gained notoriety in the New York folk scene for her impassioned and fiercely political compositions and performances. She penned hit anthems of the 1960s counterculture scene, including “Unknown Soldier” and “Cod’ine,” though she is seldom given credit where it is due. Further south along the east coast, rock n roll pioneer Link Wray (Cherokee and Shawnee) emerged with the single “Rumble” in 1958. Wray, born in North Carolina,, would change rock n roll forever with his signature heavy and distorted guitar tones, paving the way for punk and metal musicians to follow. Collected here is an example of Wray’s country and Americana roots from his self-titled 1971 album, a pioneering work of the home-recording movement that would carry into the 21st century.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Indigenous artists had a profound influence on popular American genres. Often forgotten in the shadow of his contemporaries like Eric Clapton and George Harrison, Jesse Ed Davis (Comanche, Seminole, Muskogee, and Kiowa) was a highly acclaimed guitar player. Born in Oklahoma, Davis played with hugely popular artists of his time, featuring alongside names like John Lennon, Taj Mahal, Jackson Browne, and Leonard Cohen. On the west coast, brothers Pat and Candido Vasquez-Vegas (Yaqui, Shoshone, and Mexican) formed the all Native American rock group Redbone. The brothers penned radio-rock staples for the 1970s with hits like “The Witch Queen of New Orleans” and the ever-lasting “Come and Get Your Love.” Across the nation at this time, acts were popping up on reservations and in indigenous communities, exemplified here by the band Sugluk with their song “Ajuinnarasuarsunga,” a fusion of rock n roll song structure and first nations language.
Moving into the 1980s, singer-songwriter Archie James Cavanaugh (Tlingit) released his yacht rock classic “Black and White Raven.” Born in Alaska, Cavanaugh traveled the west coast assembling a band that included members of Redbone to release his often overlooked album, its fusion of disco and soft rock represented here on “Take it Easy.” In country music, First Nations culture is frequently referenced but seldom represented justly. This was not the case in the music of Buddy Red Bow (Lakota). Red Bow dedicated his career to singing of the plight of Indigenous peoples and the injustices wrought by white colonists. The music of Indigenous artists was also significant in rising genres of the decade like new age. Joanne Shenandoah (Oneida and Onondaga) would become an influential figure in this genre and would go on to set the record for Native American Music Awards won by a single artist.
Moving into the 21st century to the present, Indigenous artists still hold an influential place in modern American genres, driving them forward with ingenuity and expert artistry. Artist Martha Redbone continues in the tradition of rhythm n blues and soul music, fusing these sounds with traditional indigenous music drawn from her heritage of Choctaw, Cherokee, and African American. Artist Samantha Crain melds folk rock, indie rock, and americana with indigenous influence reflective of her Choctaw heritage. Inuk artist Beatrice Deer makes indie rock that is consistently inventive and exciting, earning her the Best Inut/Cultural Album award for her 2005 effort “Just Bea.” In the vein of indie rock, Silver Jackson makes music in numerous groups, performing under this name as well as his Tlingit name. Groups like Cemican and Nechochwen fuse First Nations history and political outcry over unjust treatment of Indigenous peoples with the harsh and aggressive sounds of metal, driving the genre forward still in the 21st century. Doom metal group Divide and Dissolve (Black, Tsalagi, Maori) fuse classical music with doom metal and lyrical outcry over injustices wrought against indigenous peoples to create uniquely political music for the 21st century. Artist Black Belt Eagle Scout furthers the mix of traditional indigenous influence with alternative rock, creating post rock informed by her Swinomish heritage. Artist Tanya Tagaq (Inuk) create music unlike anything heard before, fusing traditional throat singing with ambient soundscapes derived from noise and drone music. In hip hop, First Nations artists bring exciting changes and new voices to the cultural forefront, as is the case with Angel Haze (Cherokee), who raps of their experiences as an individual identifying as pansexual and agender in the hip hop world, as well as celebrating their mixed Indigenous heritage. Groups like A Tribe Called Red fuse electronic genres like dubstep and house with hip hop and traditional First Nations music to create a sound wholly their own in the massive EDM music market.
Library & Scholarly Sources
- Indigenous pop: Native American music from jazz to hip hop (IUCAT - Book)
- Rumble: the Indians who rocked the world (IUCAT - Documentary)
- "The Nammys Versus the Grammys: Celebrity, Technology, and the Creation of an Indigenous Music Recording Industry in North America" (The World of Music Journal)
- "A Tribe Called Red’s Halluci Nation: Sonifying embodied global allegiances, decolonization, and indigenous activism" (Intersections)
Popular Sources
- Rumble On: Native American Musicians You Should Know (PBS)
- 8 Artists Exploding the Concept of Native American Music (Paste Magazine)
- Review of 'Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985' (Pitchfork)
- "Taking it Easy": On Archie James Cavanaugh (Numero Group)
- The Evolution Of Angel Haze (BuzzFeed)
- Remembering Buddy Red Bow (Indianz)
- 6 Indigenous Metal Bands You Need To Know About (Metal Injection)