Of Black Men and Song: Dwight Trible

from CRITICAL NOIR @ Vibe.com

of (Black) Men and Song (ver. 1.0)
by Mark Anthony Neal

I dream men like Dwight Trible--these singers black, these singers men--even as they tug at those baritone and tenor strings that so embody the very idea of some pristine, immaculate dark masculinity. Their willingness to explore the full range of their expressiveness--emotiveness gone awry--simply undermines the comfort that the deepness of their voices presupposes. And it's not like this is a new phenomenon--figures like Jimmy Scott, Ronnie Dyson, Eddie Kendricks, and Rahsaan Patterson are standard bearers of sort for this thing, but because they live(d) in a register up-above, it has always been easy to dismiss their presence--and their art--as being less than something fully masculine (as if there was such a thing). And this is where men like Trible and Jose James (like Bey and Johnny Hartman) who force us to re-imagine our investments in masculinities that don't bend and don't break.

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