Description
Book SynopsisAlexander Ghedi Weheliye traces R&B music’s continued relevance for Black life since the late 1970s, showing how it remains a thriving venue for the continued expression of Black thought and life and a primary archive of the contemporary moment.
Trade Review“This cutting-edge book demonstrates the work of a thinker who has devoted a great deal of research and care to the study of the sonic, historiographic, and aesthetic consequences of Blackness. Alexander Ghedi Weheliye’s concentration on the rich concurrences of Blackness and R&B is a true blessing. Deftly mapping out new avenues of critical pursuit devoted to the art of Blackness,
Feenin is a stunning work.” -- Michael Boyce Gillespie, author of * Film Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of Black Film *
“
Feenin is less a collection of essays and more a playlist of Alexander Ghedi Weheliye’s greatest hits. It assembles a series of captivating essays that register the complex sonic frequencies of Black life with resounding effect. The ‘tracks’ gathered here demonstrate the force of Weheliye’s incisive theorizing and its profound contribution to sounding the rhythm, vibes, and groove of Black studies in the ‘forceful fullness of the Now.’” -- Tina M. Campt, Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities, Princeton University
Table of ContentsTrack 0.0 Good Days: R&B Music and Critical Fabulation in the Frequencies of Now 1
Track 1.0 Engendering
Phonographies: Sonic Technologies of Blackness /
A Response to Tavia Nyong’o 23
Track 2.0 “Feenin": Posthuman Voices in R&B Music 37
Track 3.0 Rhythms of Relation: Black Popular Music and Mobile Technologies 75
Interlude 1. Calling My Phone 98
Track 4.0 My Volk to Come: Specters of Peoplehood in Diaspora Discourse and Afro-German Popular Music 100
Track 5.0 “White Brothers with No Soul": UnTuning the Historiography of Berlin Techno /
Interview with Annie Goh 121
Interlude 2. Don't Take It Away 135
Track 6.0 New Waves, Shifting Terrains: Prince’s and David Bowie’s Transatlantic Crossovers 140
Interlude 3.
#BeyondDeepBrandyAlbumCuts 153
Track 7.0 “Sounding That Precarious Existence": On R&B Music, Technology, and Blackness /
An Interview with Nehal El-Hadi 158
Track 8.0 “Scream My Name Like a Protest": R&B Music as BlackFem Technology of Humanity in the Age of #Blacklivesmatter 178
Interlude 4. Songify Your Life 198
Track 9.0 808s and Heartbreak / Alexander Ghedi Weheliye and Katherine McKittrick 201
Track 10.0 Wayward Shuddering, Beautiful Tremors (AGW's Quiet Storm Remix) 237
Sources 245
Index 275
