Trailer: 'The Wonder Year'

The Wonder Year
A film by Kenneth Price

A year in the life of CEO, NAACP ambassador, Duke University professor, husband, father, son and Grammy Award winning producer 9th Wonder. The film follows one of soul music’s most dynamic figures from his childhood home to late nights in the studio and everywhere in between.

Featuring: Drake, DJ Premier, DJ Green Lantern, J. Cole, Murs, Phonte, Sha Money XL, Young Guru, The Alchemist & more.

Sampling Soul--Duke University Fall 2011

Black Popular Culture—Sampling Soul (AAAS 132)
Mark Anthony Neal and 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit)
Fall Semester 2011
White Lecture Hall 107
Tuesdays 6:00pm -- 8:25pm

***

Soul Music emerged in the late 1950s and became the secular soundtrack of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Artists such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown and record companies such as Motown and Stax, as well as the term Soul became symbols of black aspiration and black political engagement. In the decades since the rise of Soul, the music and its icons are continuously referenced in contemporary popular culture via movie trailers, commercials, television sitcoms and of course music. In the process Soul has become a significant and lucrative cultural archive.

Co-taught with Grammy Award winning producer 9th Wonder and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, Sampling Soul will examine how the concept of Soul has functioned as raw data for contemporary forms of cultural expression. In addition the course will consider the broader cultural implications of sampling, in the practices of parody and collage, and the legal ramifications of sampling within the context of intellectual property law. The course also offers the opportunity to rethink the concept of archival material in the digital age.

"Sampling Soul": The Mid-Term Exam

9th Wonder and I intended the course "Sampling Soul" to be accessible to a wider audience than that contained in the classroom. In that spirit, we are making the mid-term exam available to the public and encouraging readers to respond to the prompt. The best responses will be published @ NewBlackMan.

***

Sampling Soul

Mark Anthony Neal, Ph.D. (e-mail: man9@duke.edu)

9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit)

Midterm Examination

Answer the essay question as comprehensively as possible.

Response should be typed and double-spaced. (minimum 1500 words; 4-6 pages)

Throughout McLeod’s Freedoms of Expression and Schur’s Parodies of Ownership, both authors make claims about black communal practices (and examples of non-black oral cultures) that embraced informal notions of borrowing, revision, and sharing; practices which became critical to musical and performance practices amongst black performers. In his video treatment of Imani Uzuri’s “Sun Moon Child,” visual artist Pierre Bennu makes an even more explicit claim on this culture of borrowing, revision and sharing, by literally linking various performance movements across time and space (diaspora). Bennu produced his treatment using fair use doctrine, to protect his use of Uzuri’s music, as well as the imagery of noted black performers such as Nina Simone, James Brown, Alvin Ailey, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Judith Jamison, The Jackson 5, Rita Moreno and countless others. Youtube recently removed Bennu’s video, which had been posted on the site for three years, claiming that it was copyright infringement.

Sun Moon Child from pierre bennu on Vimeo.

Using Bennu’s work as a backdrop, discuss the ways that black artists have employed formal and informal modes of borrowing, revision and sharing in musical, literary and visual arts. What is hip-hop’s relationship to these practices? How has the practice of contemporary musical sampling, largely influenced by hip-hop production, altered the viability of these communal practices? Given the emergence of intellectual property law in the last decade, what are the implications for communal art practices and “black” art in general? In that Soul and Funk music have been used as raw material in hip-hop sampling practices, how has sampling impacted the legacy and commercial value of these musical genres and the artists that produce them? From the standpoint of intellectual property law, how would you defend or reject Bennu’s claim that “Sun Moon Child” is fair use?

'Sampling Illmatic' Draws 10,000 Viewers

Webcast of 'Sampling Soul' session attracts 10,000 online viewers

The World Listens In to Class

By Camille Jackson

Thursday, March 18, 2010

On Tuesday evening heads were nodding in a lecture hall on East Campus. But this time, people around the world could tune in and share the class's energy.

A special webcast of the popular spring course, “Sampling Soul,” set a record Tuesday for live streaming video at Duke with an audience of more than 10,000 viewers.

The class is co-taught by Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African American Studies, and Grammy-winning music producer, 9th Wonder. Bucknell English professor James Braxton Peterson, Duke ’93, joined them Tuesday for a discussion of rapper Nas’ 1994 album, Illmatic.

While Neal’s students filtered into Richard White Lecture Hall, students of hip hop gathered online to take in the lecture and offer real-time commentary on Twitter. Minutes before the event started, hundreds of online viewers had announced their anticipation on Twitter.

By the end of the night, the number of Twitter postings for the session almost reached 500. Others emailed dozens of questions ranging from the academic to the absurd.

Neal said the webcast showed the reach university intellectual discussions can have.

“I have always envisioned the study of popular culture and music as the study of public cultures, so it just seemed a natural fit to make a course like ‘Sampling Soul’ available to a broader public,” said Neal, who moderated the discussion.

“Additionally, I take the concept of being a public intellectual seriously, and the work that Professor Peterson, 9th Wonder and myself did during the webcast is the kind of work that public intellectuals should be doing,” he said.

Many viewers wanted to know if Nas himself was watching. Others were drawn by the celebrity of 9th Wonder. The most passionate online audience members debated the merits of “Illmatic” and Nas’ lyricism on Twitter among themselves.

Using Ustream as an online host, Duke’s Office of News & Communications (ONC) has produced webcasts for the past year in the form of online “Office Hours.” The program is usually held on Friday afternoons and encourages viewers to informally submit questions on a particular topic to a featured faculty member. History professor Laurent Dubois’ Office Hours on politics and the World Cup held the previous record for viewership, with 7,900 unique visits.

Tuesday’s class was perhaps the first time a classroom discussion at Duke has been publicly webcast with interaction from viewers through social media. The event demonstrates Duke’s commitment to sharing faculty expertise with a broad audience, an idea that Duke alum Neil Williams, Duke ‘06 appreciates.

“I think these live lectures are awesome and a great way to spread knowledge and the Duke brand to the global community,” said Williams who watched the webcast and tweeted comments. “I think alums would love to see more lectures broadcast on the net, as long as the subject matter is interesting.”

Williams found out about the webcast through 9th Wonder’s Twitter page, which has 30,000 followers.

“He's a trusted name in hip-hop so it would make sense for people to tune in based on his recommendation alone,” Williams said. Both ‘Sampling Soul’ instructors have large followings on the Internet. Neal has a blog, New Black Man, and is also an active Facebook user. He uses these platforms to “help break down some of the boundaries between the so-called Ivory Tower and the rest of the world.”

Adds Neal, “I'm thankful that there are folk at Duke who see the immense possibilities of these kind of experiences.”

© 2010 Office of News & Communications

'Sampling Soul' Goes Live!

Class to focus on rapper Nas' critically acclaimed rap album 'Illmatic'

'Sampling Soul' Class Open To The Public Via Live Webcast March 16

DURHAM, N.C. -- The public will get a chance to experience the popular Duke University course “Sampling Soul” via a live webcast beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 16, at ustream.tv/dukeuniversity.

The topic of the class will be the making of the critically acclaimed hip-hop album “Illmatic” by rapper Nasir Jones, aka Nas.

The undergraduate course is co-taught by African and African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal and Grammy Award-winning music producer 9th Wonder. Each weekly class emphasizes a different aspect of sampling music, from its history to legal considerations. The “Sampling Illmatic” class will focus on the making of Nas’ 1994 album.

Viewers are encouraged to submit questions for the professors either in advance or during the session by sending an e-mail to live@duke.edu, posting a comment on the Duke University Live Ustream page on Facebook, or tweeting with the tag #dukelive. A recording of the event will be available on Duke on Demand.

“Well before the release of ‘Illmatic,’ Nas was already drawing comparisons to Rakim Allah, often regarded as hip-hop's greatest lyricist,” says Neal. “The album’s release did not disappoint. It began what has been one of the most stellar careers in hip-hop, where Nas has found the perfect balance between maintaining relevancy on the streets while offering trenchant commentary about politics, relationships and everyday black life.”

“Illmatic,” with its lyrics from the perspective of a teenager living in the projects, contains several popular singles, including “The World Is Yours,” “It Ain't Hard to Tell” and “One Love.”

Neal says “Illmatic” also struck a chord because it became the blueprint for sample-based hip-hop production throughout the 1990s, with “contributions from a who's who of producers including DJ Premiere, Pete Rock, Large Professor and Q-Tip.”

Neal contributed an essay on jazz, hip-hop and fathers to the newly released book Born To Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic (Basic Civitas, 2010). Nas’ father is jazz and blues musician Olu Dara. The volume was edited by Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai and is one of several texts used in the class.

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of four books, including “New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity” and the forthcoming “Looking for Leroy.” His essays have been anthologized in a dozen books.

9th Wonder, born Patrick Douthit, is a former member of the hip-hop trio Little Brother, which released albums such as “The Listening” and “The Minstrel Show.” He has produced music for Jay-Z, Destiny’s Child, Mary J. Blige and Erykah Badu among others. He also scored the music for “The Boondocks” animated television series. He was recently selected as the NAACP’s national ambassador for hip-hop relations and culture.

© 2010 Office of News & Communications

615 Chapel Drive, Box 90563, Durham, NC 27708-0563

(919) 684-2823; After-hours phone (for reporters on deadline): (919) 812-6603

Sampling Motown

Public session connects music to Civil Rights era

Motown Class Has the Nasher Museum Hopping
by Wendy Hower Livingston

Durham, NC -- A class at the Nasher Museum last night had Duke students bouncing in their seats.

They could not help themselves, especially during such classic tracks as “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye, “Superfreak” by Rick James and “I Want You Back” with a 10-year-old Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five. The music was part of "Sampling Motown: Soundtracks to the Civil Rights Era," a special public session of the "Sampling Soul" course co-taught by Grammy Award-winning DJ 9th Wonder and African and African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal.

The guest lecturer was Harry Weinger of Universal Music, who has overseen the catalogues of Motown and James Brown.

“Motown is the most recognized music brand in the world,” Weinger told the audience.

He remembers listening to Marvin Gaye in the back seat of his father’s car, craning his neck toward the speakers in the back, he said. “All these records have a timeless feel to them.”



As Weinger spoke, 9th Wonder cued up music samples to play. Students watched 9th Wonder find songs in his iTunes library through the Scratch LIVE program projected on a large screen that showed the names of the song and artist, length of the song and a visual representation of the song’s sound waves jumping in a green band across the screen.

The purpose of the class was to discuss sampling in music, learn about different careers in the music business and hear stories from the careers of all three speakers. Weinger told an anecdote about placing “the needle on the record” and Neal stopped him briefly, telling the audience, “I know that’s a strange phenomenon for some of you.”

Neal chose to hold the session at the Nasher Museum, he said, because of a connection between the class and an upcoming exhibition, “The Record: Contemporary Art & Vinyl,” opening Sept. 2. Neal contributed an essay to the catalogue that will accompany “The Record,” and 9th Wonder curated a crate of record albums that visitors will have the chance to peruse outside the exhibition.

The class was co-sponsored by Duke's Department of African & African American Studies.

9th Wonder Trades in Studio to Sample Soul at Duke

9th Wonder Trades in Studio to Sample Soul at Duke
By Ross Green
March 4, 2010

There’s a rather distinguished group on hand at the Nasher for Professor Mark Anthony Neal’s African and African-American Studies 132 lecture.

On one side of the lecture hall stage, Neal discusses the legacy of Motown music with special guest Harry Weinger, Vice President of Artist and Repertoire at Universal Music Enterprises. Pierce Freelon, son of legendary jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon and emcee of the North Carolina jazz-hip hop fusion outfit the Beast, occasionally peppers the two with questions from his seat in the audience. And 9th Wonder, the biggest name in the room, slouches in a chair opposite Neal and Weinger in front of a laptop. He provides the playlist for the evening’s event, alternating between classic Motown tracks and the hip-hop songs that have sampled them.

Nee Patrick Douthit of Winston-Salem, N.C., 9th Wonder has been a mainstay of the Triangle hip-hop scene since the early part of the decade, when his original group Little Brother released debut album The Listening in 2003. But since leaving the group in 2007, 9th has diversified his focus. He’s in the midst of producing Death of a Pop Star, a collaborative album with Mississippi rapper David Banner, and will release Fornever, his fourth album with indie hip-hop artist MURS March 30. The album’s first single “The Problem Is…” features unusually aggressive rhymes from MURS atop sparse, minimalist drums and gospel-tinged backing vocals.

“Fornever is [MURS and I’s] best record,” 9th says. “A lot of people say our best record was MURS 3:16, some people think it was MURS’ Revenge…but we did it again on this one.”

This is high praise, given the considerable critical acclaim afforded each of their first three collaborations, but 9th is setting his sights even higher. In 2009, he created two independent record labels, Jamla and The Academy, and has recruited a stable of North Carolina emcees for both. He’s also the lead composer for videogame giant EA Sports title NBA Live ’11, due in October.

“The [EA Sports] team is talking about making me an unlockable character,” 9th says with a grin.

His recent exploits have extended to academics as well, having taught classes at North Carolina Central University for the past three years. In addition to teaching a hip-hop history class pro bono at Barber-Scotia College in Concord, N.C. this semester, he is the co-professor, along with Neal, of African and African-American Studies 132 at Duke, entitled Sampling Soul. The project, he says, has been gestating for some time.

Read the Full Article @ The Chronicle

'Sampling Motown' @ The Nasher Museum

'Sampling Motown' Lecture Open to the Public

Harry Weinger, vice president of A&R for Universal Music Enterprises, is the guest speaker.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Harry Weinger, vice president of A&R for Universal Music Enterprises and a 30-year veteran of the entertainment industry, is the guest speaker at next week’s “Sampling Motown” class at Duke University.

Weinger’s lecture, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, in the lecture hall at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art, will focus on the music of Motown. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; the lecture is free and open to the public.A recording of the event will be available at Duke on Demand.

The spring semester course, “Sampling Soul,” is co-taught by African and African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal and Grammy Award-winning music producer 9th Wonder. Each weekly class emphasizes a different aspect of sampling, from its history to legal considerations. The “Sampling Motown” class will highlight the music of the civil rights era.

“Harry is one of the most important shepherds of the soul music tradition and we all have a greater understanding of the impact that soul music has on American culture because of Harry's thoughtful explorations of Motown's musical archive," Neal said.

Weinger has produced, mixed, written and edited liner notes for hundreds of reissues, compilations and music DVDs, notably the Motown family of classic recordings, the James Brown catalog, the Verve Music catalog, and prominent funk, soul and jazz artists.

Among several projects, Weinger has documented every Motown single released during the company’s heyday in a multi-disc box set series. He also helped organize the many events and releases surrounding Motown Records’ 50th anniversary.

The “Sampling Soul” class explores how the songs that made up the soundtrack of social movements, such as the civil rights and black power movements of the 1960s and 1970s, remain relevant in contemporary culture. Students learn how soul music is continuously referenced in popular culture via movies, commercials and television sitcoms, forming a lucrative cultural archive.

Weinger’s appearance complements an upcoming Nasher exhibition, “The Record: Contemporary Art & Vinyl,” which will explore the culture of vinyl records within the history of contemporary art. The exhibition, set to open in September, is comprised of sound, sculpture, drawing, painting, photography, video and performance.

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of four books, including “New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity” and the forthcoming “Looking for Leroy.” His essays have been anthologized in a dozen books, such as the recently released “Born To Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic,” edited by Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai.

9th Wonder, born Patrick Douthit, is a former member of the hip-hop trio Little Brother which released the critically acclaimed albums “The Listening” and “The Minstrel Show.” He has produced music for Jay-Z, Destiny’s Child, Mary J. Blige, and Erykah Badu among others. He also scored the music for “The Boondocks” animated television series. He was recently selected as the NAACP’s national ambassador for hip-hop relations and culture.

9th Wonder Speaks

9th Wonder Discusses "Sampling Soul"

"Sampling Soul": The Syllabus

Sampling Soul
Department of African & African American Studies
Duke University

Spring 2010
Tuesday 6:00pm – 8:30pm
White Lecture Hall, 107

Instructors:
9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit)
Mark Anthony Neal, Ph.D.

Teaching Assistants:
Treva Lindsey, ABD
Samantha Noel, Ph.D.

Course Description

Soul Music emerged in the late 1950s and became the secular soundtrack of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Artists such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown and record companies such as Motown and Stax, as well as the term “Soul” became symbols of black aspiration and black political engagement. In the decades since the rise of “Soul,” the music and its icons are continuously referenced in contemporary popular culture via movie trailers, commercials, television sitcoms and of course music. In the process “Soul” has become a significant and lucrative cultural archive. Co-taught with Grammy Award winning producer 9th Wonder and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, “Sampling Soul” will examine how the concept of “Soul” has functioned as raw data for contemporary forms of cultural expression. In addition the course will consider the broader cultural implications of sampling, in the practices of parody and collage, and the legal ramifications of sampling within the context of intellectual property law. The course also offers the opportunity to rethink the concept of archival material in the digital age.

Books

Parodies of Ownership: Hip-Hop Aesthetics and Intellectual Property Law
~ Richard L. Schur

Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop
~ Joseph G. Schloss

Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic
~ edited by Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai

Freedom of Expression: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property
~ Kembrew McLeod

The James Brown Reader: Fifty Years of Writing About the Godfather of Soul
~ edited by Nelson George and Alan Leeds

Soul: Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure
~ edited by Richard Green and Monique Guillory

On Michael Jackson
~ Margo Jefferson

What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture
~ Mark Anthony Neal


Course Overview

Week 1—Sampling Sampling
The Art and Aesthetics of Sampling
January 19, 2010

Introduction to sampling as a practice. Is sampling a recent phenomenon? What are the historical and artistic context for sampling practices. How do terms like appropriation, borrowing, parody, pastiche, collage and “theft” factor into our understandings of sampling practices. How has sampling practices impacted contemporary art?

Week 2—Sampling Soul
The Cultural and Historical Legacy of Soul
January 26, 2010

Soul Music emerged in the late 1950s, combining the drive of rhythm and blues, with the flourishes of the black gospel tradition. This week we will look at the musical foundations of Soul music and its impact on American culture.

Readings: Neal, What the Music Said (Intro: 1-24, Chap 1: 25-54); Soul: Black Power, Politics and Pleasure (Davis, “Afro-Images,” 23-31; Serlin, “From Sesame Street to Schoolhouse Rock,” 105-120; Wald, “Soul’s Revival,” 139-158)

Week 3—Sampling Blackness
Black Culture as Intellectual Property
February 2, 2010

Though various forms of black culture have circulated freely in the United States and across the globe, they have often done so as the property of corporate entities. What is the relationship between black bodies as chattel and black culture as property? What happens when the cultural expressions of a formerly enslaved peoples becomes intellectual property?

Readings: Schur, Parodies of Ownership

Week 4—Sampling Intellectual Property
Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property
February 9, 2010
Guest Lecturer:
James Boyle
William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke University

The practice of sample based hip-hop have brought the subject of intellectual property law to the forefront of discussion about contemporary art. What exactly is intellectual property and what are the implications of current intellectual property law as it pertains to contemporary artists--particularly those who work outside of the mainstream—and concerns about artistic freedom?

Readings: McLeod, Freedom of Expression (Chap. 2: “Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport,” 62-113; Chap 3: “Illegal Art,” 114-170); Boyle, The Public Domain (Chap. 6 “I Got a Mashup” free download @ http://yupnet.org/boyle/archives/130)

Week 5—Sampling Beats
Sample-Based Hip-Hop
February 16, 2010

Is sampling beats “stealing” music and evidence of a lazy, uncreative impulse in contemporary art? In Making Beats, ethnomusicologist Joe Schloss argues that sample-based hip-hop is a legitimate art form unto itself.

Readings: Schloss, Making Beats: The Art of Sample Based Hip-Hop

Screening: Copyright Criminals (dir. Benjamin Franzen, 2009)

Week 6—Sampling Motown
Soundtrack to the Civil Rights Era
February 23, 2010
Special Session @ The Nasher Museum of Art
Guest Lecturer: Harry Weinger, VP of A&R, Universal Music

When Berry Gordy founded the Motown recording label in January of 1959, he had no idea that his little Detroit-based operation would become both of symbol black pride and of the possibilities of racial integration during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Mark Anthony Neal and 9th Wonder will be joined by Harry Weinger, VP of A&R at Universal Music, who in his capacity has overseen the catalogues of Motown and James Brown. The session will examine why Motown’s music struck such a chord and discuss future projects such as a box set release of unreleased and live recordings by Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five from the 1970s.

Week 7—Sampling Illmatic
The Making of Nas’ Illmatic (1994)
March 2, 2010

When Illmatic, the debut recording from Queens, NY rapper Nas (Nasir Jones) was released in 1994, it had an immediate impact on the hip-hop industry. With contributions from DJ Premier, Large Professor and Pete Rock, among others, the recording was a sonic achievement that raised the bar for hip-hop production.

Readings: Dyson and Daulazai, ed., Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic

Week 8—Sampling Soul Divas
Black Femininity as Intellectual Property
March 16, 2010

This week we will focus on “gendering” soul. We will explore a black women’s tradition within soul aesthetics and cultural forms. Using gender, class, and sexuality as critical lenses, we will examine the interplay of gender and sexual politics, black musical traditions, and sampling. We will also consider the relationship between soul expressions and black womanhood.

Readings: “‘All That You Can't Leave Behind’: Black Female Soul Singing and the Politics of Surrogation in the Age of Catastrophe” by Daphne Brooks, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 8.1 (2008) 180-204; “Toni Braxton, Disney, and Thermodynamics by Jason King, TDR Fall 2002, Vol. 46, No. 3 (T175), Pages 54-81.

Week 9—Sampling James Brown
James Brown and the Birth of Funk
March 23, 2010

With the release of “Cold Sweat” (1967), James Brown spearheaded a rhythmic revolution in pop music, creating a style known as “Funk.” With an emphasis on an accented first beat (“on the one’), Brown’s innovative relationship to syncopation was quickly appropriated by the burgeoning hip-hop movement; Brown remains one of the most sampled artist in pop music history.

Readings: The James Brown Reader, ed. George and Leeds, (Part 1: 1960s, 7-54; Part 2: 1970s, 57-141; Part V: 2000-2007, 235-265, 265-293)

Week 10—Sampling Queer
Queer Sounds, Queer Samples
March 30, 2010

Although African American musical forms like hip hop are now accepted forms of mainstream popular music, not all of the music produced within these genres are accepted. Sampling Queer offers a critical way of thinking about how various sonic tropes that are sampled are often rendered queer by virtue of not adhering to conventional understandings of soul, hip hop, and R&B.

Readings: “Feeling like a woman, looking like a man, sounding like a no-no”: Grace Jones and the performance of Strange in the Post-Soul Moment, ”Francesca Royster, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, Volume 19, Number 1, March 2009 , pp. 77-94(18); “Any Love: Silence, Theft, and Rumor in the Work of Luther Vandross,” Jason King , Callaloo, Vol. 23, No. 1, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender: Literature and Culture (Winter, 2000), pp. 422-447

Week 11—Sampling Geography
The Geographies of Soul
April 6, 2010

Though Soul Music is often referred to as a Southern phenomenon, the genre quickly spread throughout the nation, with many regions presenting their own unique spin on Soul, with Memphis, Philadelphia and Chicago leading the way.

Readings: Neal, What the Music Said (Chap 2: 55-84, Chap 3: 85-100, Chap 4: 101-124);

Screening: Still Bill (dir. Damani Baker, Alex Vlack, 2009)

Week 12—Sampling Diaspora
Black Diaspora as Intellectual Property
April 13, 2010

This week’s meeting will challenge our understanding of soul by considering various cultural forms from the Black Diaspora. We will explore the practice of recording artists sampling musical traditions from the Diaspora. In an effort to broaden our notion of how soul is expressed, we will also look at how visual artists represent ‘Diasporic’ soul.

Readings: "Power Music, Electric Revival: Fela Kuti and the Influence of His Afrobeat on Hip Hop and Dance music," Joseph Patel in Trevor Schoonmaker, (ed.), Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 25-35; "The Black Atlantic in the Twentifirst Century: Artistic Passages, Circulations, Revisions," Peter Erickson, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, no. 24 (Mar-Jun 2009), 56-70.

Week 13—Sampling Michael Jackson
The Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson as Commodity
April 20, 2010

The Jackson Five’s first four single release for Motown records in 1969-1970 all went to the top of the pop charts, as the groups first national tour set sells records for the day. Already understood as the “leader” of his family group, when Michael Jackson released his first solo album, Got to Be There (1971), it provided just a glimpse at the genius that would become the most important musical icon of the late 20th Century.

Readings: Jefferson, On Michael Jackson

Week 14—Sampling Black Venus
The Artistic Legacy of the Hottentot Venus
April 27, 2010

The performances of artists such as Josephine Baker and Beyonce Knowles-Carter resonate within a particular black women’s performative tradition. This tradition builds upon the idea/iconography/trope of a “Black Venus.” This week we will hone in on black women popular culture artists who “sample” the “Black Venus” through remaking, refashioning, and reconfiguring prevailing racial, gender, and sexual ideologies.

Readings: “Recasting ‘Black Venus’ in the new African Diaspora,” Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe, Women's Studies International Forum , Volume 27, Issue 4, October-November 2004, Pages 397-412; “The "Batty" Politic: Toward an Aesthetic of the Black Female Body,” Janell Hobson, Hypatia, Vol. 18, No. 4, Women, Art, and Aesthetics (Autumn - Winter, 2003), pp. 87-105
Discussion Question (#10)

Maestro Knows: 9th Wonder

Maestro Knows - Episode 1 (9th Wonder) from Maestro Knows on Vimeo.

An intimate view of 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit), my co-conspirator in "Sampling Soul," the course we will be offering @ Duke University in the Spring of 2010. Check the flip of the MJ sample midway.