Topics in Writing & Rhetoric: Freedom's Mixtape: DJing Contemporary African American Rhetorics

Black music in all its genres, styles and eras has always been about freedom and transformation. About both Black people and the whole society. About the US Black experience, the African continent and the diaspora. These musical forms and the social movements they reflect and help shape are therefore central to the study of African American rhetoric. From overtly translating the ideas of social movements for mass audiences, to capturing the mood of a moment or move, to reflecting and influencing the aesthetics and styles that attend public discourse, to simply being a space where debates get worked out in community, music in Black traditions are as important a space of engagement as political speeches, sermons, websites, or even #BlackTwitter. This course will use Black music and its relationship to both social movements and everyday dialogue and debate to introduce study in African American Rhetoric as a field of study.