Waubonsee Community College

The grey album, on the blackness of blackness, Kevin Young

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The grey album

bibliography

740628824

Kevin Young

on the blackness of blackness

"Taking its title from Danger Mouse's pioneering mash-up of Jay-Z's The Black Album and the Beatles' The White Album, Kevin Young's encyclopedic book combines essay, cultural criticism, and lyrical chorus to illustrate the African American tradition of lying--telling tales, fibbing, improvising, jazzing up, "storying." What emerges is a persuasive argument for the many ways that African American culture is American culture, and for the centrality of art--and artfulness--to our daily lives. Moving from gospel to soul, funk to freestyle, Young shifts through the shadows, the bootleg, the remix--all the grey areas of our history, literature, and music."--P. [4] of cover

Overture -- bk. 1. Elsewhere. The shadow book -- How not to be a slave : on the Black art of escape -- Chorus one : steal away : slavery and its discontents -- bk. 2. Strange fruit. Broken tongue : Paul Laurence Dunbar, his descendants, and the dance of dialect -- Chorus two : it don't mean a thing : the blues mask of modernism -- "If you can't read, run anyhow!" : Langston Hughes and the poetics of refusal -- bk. 3. Heaven is Negro. Chorus three : ugly beauty : postmodernism and all that jazz -- Broken giraffe : Bob Kaufman, the song, and the silence -- Chorus four : moanin' : soul music and the power of pleasure -- bk. 4. Cosmic slop. Interstellar space : toward a post-soul poetics -- Final chorus : Planet Rock : the end of the record: The third coming ; 100 guns ; 36 chambers ; 99 problems -- Deadism

On the blackness of blackness