Description
Book SynopsisHonorable Mention, 2024 Alan Merriam Prize, given by the Society for EthnomusicologyWhat does sovereignty sound like?Sonic Sovereignty considers how contemporary Indigenous musicians champion self-determination through musical expression in Canada and the United States. The framework of sonic sovereignty connects self-definition, collective determination, and Indigenous land rematriation to the immediate and long-lasting effects of expressive culture. Liz Przybylski covers online and offline media spaces, following musicians and producers as they, and their music, circulate across broadcast and online networks. Przybylski documents and reflects on shifts in both the music industry and political landscape over the course of a decade: as the ways in which people listen to, consume, and interact with popular music have radically changed, extensive public conversations have flourished around contemporary Indigenous culture, settler responsibility, Indigenous leadership, and decolonial f
Trade ReviewExtends our understanding of music across landscapes where belonging and self-determination are enacted daily. Through hybrid ethnographic and participatory research, Liz Przybylski examines the infrastructure of settler media terrains and, more importantly, Indigenous artists’ ruptures of it. Her examination of the online-offline divide, practices of distribution, and regulatory environments of broadcast systems are coupled with the power of Indigenous artists who encourage us to go beyond hearing. Through deft close readings of artists’ practices, she introduces us to the possibilities of relational listening. -- Mishuana Goeman, author of Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations
Excavates Indigenous rap’s role in moving us in decolonial directions. Liz Przybylski teases out the confluence of mainstream forces that (re)produce silences while spotlighting artists’ refusals, prompting new expressions of audibility.
Sonic Sovereignty gifts us with insight into the intimacies of listening and the political possibility of learning to listen differently. -- Imani Kai Johnson, author of Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers: The Life of Africanist Aesthetics in Global Hip Hop
