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Week 10 (Blog Post #5) - Blog Post Prompt: "Black Metal and Praise Breaks: Ecstasy, Rupture, and the Mosh Pit"

As I first walk into church the energy is calm. It's early in the morning and people might even still be waking up but I know it won’t be too long until the energy turns up. The choir hums softly, tuning up for what feels like a typical Sunday service. But I know what’s coming. There’s a shift that happens—not always predictable, but unmistakable when it hits. It starts with a single note stretched a little too long, or the drummer adding an extra kick, or a sister in the back letting out a shout. And then it explodes. The organ wails, the tambourines shake, and suddenly bodies are moving everywhere. The room becomes electric. People leap from their seats like something has grabbed them—because something has. The praise break begins, and just like that, the church transforms into a storm of spirit. 

The praise break has always been something that I was interested since I was a kid. The moment the praise break begins, I excited for the energy in the room to just be amazing. Being in the midst of something so passionate and real makes my heart race, not out of fear but out of sheer ecstasy. I lose track of where I end, and the music begins. I look around and see nurses, barbers, bus drivers, mothers who worked double shifts, teenagers dragging through the week, elders holding on through pain—but right now, none of those matters. We’re all here, defying the calm and controlled image society demands from us. In this moment, we are wayward in the Hartman sense—stepping outside the lines drawn for us. The praise break, like a spiritual mosh pit, flips respectability on its head. It's chaotic, noisy, and sweaty, yet it's also loved. This is our collective roar in a world that urges us to keep silent. It's more than just worship; it's a respite from the everyday grind and a means of reclaiming our bodies as spaces for joy, release, and freedom rather than as instruments for labor or performance.

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Week 9 Discussion Forum : Funk, Ecstasy, and the Body: Finding Liberation in Rhythm

I think that the Euphoria that is experienced through music, dance, and drugs is more so a way of people trying to escape the struggles of their day to day lives. This is what I get from what is portrayed by artists because they are always talking about something that they are going through. No matter if it is regarding work, family, gang violence, etc. But these are the struggles that are put on us because of the systemic oppression that people of color go through. The way our government works there always has to be someone at the bottom for someone else to be at the top. Since they got rid of things like segregation and slavery to make us feel like we are more equal, they found other ways to keep us at the bottom. This causes black people to be put in poverty and not be able to get good jobs and be surrounded by drugs and all these things to keep us at the bottom. So, I think that artists that we are referring to grow up in these conditions and talk about why they turned to drugs and violence, because that's what our government wants to happen. This feels like the only escape for them outside of the reality of being a black person.

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Week 9 - The Shift Toward Commercialization: The Capitalist Co-opting of Rap

Rap music in the 1990s has indeed moved from a collective struggle to personal success. Rap used to be a revolt that showed systemic neglect, poverty, and police brutality; however, with the artist like Jay-Z and Ice Cube, the genre had become a way of marketing luxurious lifestyles and personal brands. The narrative of the "hustle" had transformed from making it out the hood to "who has the most money", with the story often reinforcing the idea that success is material accumulation over social change. To a certain degree, this shift has been disrespectful of rap's origins in that it has favored aspirational ideals at the cost of the voice and agenda of the urban poor. Black entrepreneurship must of course be celebrated, but the glorification of rags-to-riches stories has a tendency to mask structural problems that persist for a great many communities. Rap has occasionally done this by endorsing very capitalist structures that it initially set out to criticize.

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These are some big artists that came out of Atlanta and made an impact in the music industry today.

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Week 8 Blog Post #4

The city that I am choosing that is culturally significant in rap music is Atlanta. I am a little biased since I am from Atlanta but there’s an infinite amount of artists that come from there and have such a unique style compared to other places. I think that artists from Atlanta made such a big impact on music today because there are so many well-known rappers that people look up to and are inspired by.

I feel like out of the three songs that were listed the one that reminded me the most about the city was “Doomsday” by MF Doom. He happens to be from New York so not from Atlanta, although that song had a similar vibe to someone that is from there and his name is Kanye West. We’ll get more into West later. In the song Doom talks about society during the time and some of the struggles people went through. He says in a line, “Femstat cats get kidnapped”, andlong with “Broken household name usually said in hostility”. Both of these lines remind me of hardships that people had to go through and how people deal with it through music. I feel like that is what a lot of artists from Atlanta tend to do since sometimes crazy things happen there.

Speaking of artists from Atlanta, I saw a few of Kanye’s songs happen to be in the playlist for the week so it sparked my interest and I decided to choose his song called, “Spaceship”. I picked this song because it has the same flow as the last one. Although the difference between this song and the other one is that West is more so talking about his dreams. He walks you through his feelings in his day to day life but his real goal is a spaceship. The final song that I am picking is called “Feelin’ It” by Jay Z. He is from New York like Mf Doom, all of these songs tend to be talking about their lives and what they’re going through and I think that is due to the time that these songs are released. They use their struggle as a way to show how far they have come and they continue to use it as motivation to keep going. I think that these artists share phenomenological Music is a direct expression of consciousness and the experience of the soul because it allows listeners to feel and see the world as the artists do through their stories. Overall I think these people are all extremely influential in the music industry and they have had such a phenomenal impact and will continue to as music goes on for generations. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2U0FFZXMN8 - “Doomsday by”: MF Doom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn77gzjBl1U - “Spaceship by”: Kanye West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MggS4f-Puc - “Feelin’ it” by: Jay Z

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Week 7 Blog Post - Is the soul without color?

Soul music has been a way for black people to be genuinely themselves in their music and not feel judged at all. It is called “soul” because of all the meaning in the stories and everything that goes into the songs. The movie, Summer of Soul, did an amazing way of showing this. The film centers soul as a spiritual essence born from lived experience, especially the historical and economic conditions of Black communities in 1969 Harlem. But as the documentary also hints, soul’s mass appeal eventually led to its commodification. As it spread across radio waves and record stores, especially to white audiences, it began to shift, detached from roots, polished for pop charts, and marketed for profit. While some see this as cultural theft, others view it as a form of liberation. An opportunity for Black artists to break barriers and expand their influence. When the soul is stripped of the social and spiritual conditions that shaped it, it risks becoming hollow. Can it exist outside of race and class? Technically yes, but something essential changes. Without that grounding, the music may still sound soulful, but it won’t mean the same. As Summer of Soul shows, what makes soul music powerful isn’t just its melody—it’s the story that goes with it.

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Here is art that Paul Lacolley made to show what a great performance that Marvin Gaye had.

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Week 6: Blog Post #3 -- Soul Studies Prompt

After reviewing all the performances I had the most interest in the one by Marvin Gaye. I thought that the way he chose to sing the “Star Spangled Banner” was unique to him, along with a perfect way to represent black culture. People usually stick to the basics when singing this song because they don’t want to disrespect the song or America. Although Gaye found a great way to add his own twist to it but still represents our country beautifully.

Gaye’s performance was a representation of pride and artistic freedom in the midst of a culture that frequently restricted or censored Black creativity. Redefining a national emblem via Black talent, it is still regarded as one of the most influential versions of the anthem. This is consistent with Sartre's idea of striving for authenticity and Buddhism's focus on spiritual freedom. The fact that their voices, histories, and identities could not only occupy but even redefine the most public of stages was a moment of deep validation for many Black people. His outstanding performance managed to take something that represents a country that has unappreciated Black people for such a long time, and changed it into something to show love for them and I think that is challenging to do and I respect him for it. 

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Week 5: Blog Post (Cosmic Utopia vs. Earthly Struggles)

For Afropessimists like Frank B. Wilderson, the cosmic utopia in Space Is the Place is a radical response to the situation of social death, in which Black life is placed beyond the category of the human and subjected to inhuman violence. Sun Ra has expressed that he believes space is like a fresh start from a world that has been so discriminative towards black people. It would be great if Ra was able to make it to space, however Elon Musk is someone who has the funds to make it there but doesn’t have a great plan for it. In fact Musk just sees space as more territory to own so he can have more power. He has been working on the colonization of Mars and making it like a tourist spot. His idea of space  revolves around technical domination and riches instead of communal self-determination.

If Sun Ra's space travel is not acknowledged as being squarely political and rooted in resistance, then there is the risk of it providing an oversight of the continued plight of people of color. His vision, instead, should be considered an act of imagination that sees freedom where there has been none, or what Fred Moten has called an "optimism of the impossible," instead of an escape. In this way, space becomes a metaphor for fugitivity, a resistant refusal of the existing social order and a fantasy of living outside of dominance logics. Jazz improvisational style reflects this, asserting Black presence by way of ongoing reinvention and rejection of limitation.

The challenge, therefore, is to embrace the cosmos as a means of imagining and implementing justice, transformation, and liberation here and now rather than as a means of escaping earthy reality.

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This is blackness under Afro Pessimism that is being reflected in jazz music. Our struggle of being black is brought to life so others can relate, or experience what we feel in a way.

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Week 4: Blog Post #2 -- Dead People, Dead Jazz Prompt

I think that the idea of social death was demonstrated very well in Henry Dumas's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken”. He did this by exposing the exclusion and invisibility of Black characters who do not fit into the predominant social systems. In the larger social context, people in the "circle" of Blackness are systematically cut off from power, recognition, and relational identity. This serves as a potent metaphor for non relationality in the story. White individuals encounter a form of social death when they approach this area, demonstrating how exclusion defines Black existence in America. Jazz is a once-dominant art genre rooted in Black innovation but has been largely abandoned or absorbed by mainstream culture. This can be a good understanding for what the true meaning of social death really is. Jazz is socially erased, pushed to the margins where its true meaning and vitality are no longer able to be comprehended  to capitalist or white cultural logic, much like the Black existence it springs from.

When you think in the perspective of Afro Pessimism, Miles Davis's famous statement that "jazz is dead" acquires a deeper philosophical significance. The concept that jazz is culturally "dead" in the eyes of a system that only appreciates it when it is deprived of its origins is consistent with Frank Wilderson's idea of a permanent social death for Black life, even though it continues to thrive in underground societies and radical improvisations. This disempowerment that has happened in the Jazz community reflects the broader societal refusal to fully acknowledge Black humanity and cultural control that is over us. The Jazz community's disempowerment is a reflection of society's larger unwillingness to accept Black humanity and the cultural dominance that Blacks hold. However, jazz may also be rejecting its participation in the very mechanisms that aim for profiting it through this erasure. Its "death" turns into a kind of resistance—an uncooperative quiet, a conscious break from appropriation and consuming processes. The ontological state of Blackness under Afro Pessimism is thus reflected in jazz: unassimilated, unacknowledged, but nevertheless fundamental.

A counterargument is provided by Fred Moten's Black Optimism, which says that jazz's defiance of traditional music is an indication of its longevity rather than its demise. Its persistence in public areas and experimental forms suggests a different way of being that is not acknowledged by capitalism. This relates to Dumas's concept of the unbroken circle which states that jazz persists in Black areas of passion and resistance despite appearing isolated from the dominant culture. Its “death” becomes a transformation, resisting commodification and affirming a new cultural life that critiques capitalism and celebrates Black creativity’s resilience.

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Week 3 -- Review and Reflect

Title of Blog Post 1: Trying to Stay Hopeful in a Chaotic World

Feedback: I thought that Dino's response was very well written. He made all three of his songs relate to people's personal issues, which strongly connects to Zora Neale Hurston’s concept of cultural memory and identity. Hurston emphasized the importance of storytelling and music as tools for preserving the lived experiences of Black communities, especially through folklore and oral tradition. This idea fits perfectly with Dino’s final song choice, "Someday We'll All Be Free" by Donny Hathaway, where Hathaway sings about his struggles with schizophrenia—a deeply personal and often stigmatized experience. By choosing this song, Dino taps into a tradition of using music to archive personal and collective trauma, turning it into a source of strength and remembrance. Another song that could connect to this theme from the playlist is "When the Welfare Turns Its Back on You" by Albert Collins. This song explores economic hardship and emotional struggle, showing how the blues preserves not just the artist’s pain but the broader, shared memory of Black resilience and survival. Dino’s choices reflect the very idea that Hurston championed: music as a vessel for identity, history, and cultural continuity.

Title of Blog Post 2: Mud on My Shoes, Smoke in My Chest: How Blues Walks Beside My Troubles

Daniel used Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain" to convey his feelings of loneliness.  Daniel connected the song's portrayal of unreachable love and emotional distance to his own feelings.  This relates to the Blues Aesthetic, which both expresses and transforms sorrow into a means of critique and survival.  According to academics like Tricia Rose and Amiri Baraka, the blues embodies both power and grief, exposing suffering without giving way to it.  Bessie Smith's "Downhearted Blues," which expresses disillusionment in love, is a song that is comparable to Johnson's eerie melancholy in that it demonstrates perseverance.

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Music Helps Mental Health

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Week 2: Blog Post #1 -- Syncopation and the Downbeat

It's My Reflection in the Mirror

Music has always been my refuge, articulating feelings I often struggle to express. The blues, in particular, resonate deeply, channeling raw emotion and universal truths. The playlist "Something Blue Has Made Me Black" introduced me to three profound tracks that hit me in ways I wasn’t expecting. These songs became my mirror, exposing struggles I carry with me daily: financial hardships, mental health battles, and the complex weight of unresolved love. Here are the songs that spoke to me:

“I’d Rather Go Blind” by Etta James

“I Can’t Quit You Baby” by Willie Dixon

“Born Under a Bad Sign” by Albert King

Mental Health = Public Health: Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind”

Etta James’ rendition of “I’d Rather Go Blind” is a haunting cry, a reflection of the pain I’ve often felt when confronting mental health struggles, especially those moments when you’re trying to hold it together but can’t. The lyrics “I would rather go blind, than to see you walk away from me” echo my silent battles, where mental anguish feels as paralyzing as love lost. The power of James’ voice, filled with pain and raw emotion, makes this song more than just a love song; it’s a universal plea for understanding, an unspoken cry for help. In the context of Black communities, mental health struggles are often dismissed or ignored, but this song amplifies the internal suffering. The aching plea for connection, and the helplessness in knowing that things are slipping away, mirrors the struggles many of us face when mental health isn't prioritized. What I hear in this song is not just loss it’s the weight of the unsaid, the things we carry in silence. In the blues, just as in my own life, there's no promise of immediate healing, but a powerful acknowledgment of the struggle. 

Class Struggle: Willie Dixon’s “I Can’t Quit You Baby”

Willie Dixon’s “I Can’t Quit You Baby” strikes at the heart of financial struggles and systemic barriers. Though the song is about love, the desperation in Dixon’s voice feels like an echo of the poverty and exhaustion I’ve witnessed growing up. “I can’t quit you baby” isn’t just about a lover it’s about being trapped in a cycle that you can’t escape, no matter how hard you try. In my life, this song feels like a parallel to the daily grind of working hard but still struggling to make ends meet. It’s about trying to hold onto something, to survive, when everything around you seems determined to pull you down. The rhythm of the song, slow and deliberate, mimics the heavy weight of financial instability. The feeling of being stuck in a cycle doing everything right but still not getting anywhere pounds like the steady beat in this song. The blues don’t shout about systemic inequalities or injustices directly, but it speaks to the heart of those who have to fight harder just to stand still. “I Can’t Quit You Baby” is a plea for help that many of us can relate to in the context of class struggle. 

Love Strife: Albert King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign”

Albert King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign” is a song that speaks directly to the struggle of love and fate. The lyrics “Born under a bad sign, been down since I begin to crawl” encapsulate the feeling of being cursed by life’s circumstances. The metaphor of being “born under a bad sign” feels like a constant reminder of the weight we carry when it comes to relationships. It's the feeling of being doomed from the start, no matter how hard you try, especially when you're up against generational trauma, societal expectations, and the deep scars that love can leave behind. In the context of love, this song speaks to the internal conflict of wanting to be vulnerable while also guarding yourself from inevitable heartbreak. It’s the weight of history the emotional baggage we carry from past relationships, compounded by the challenges that life hands us. The steady, heavy rhythm of King’s guitar mimics the struggles of trying to find stability in love while knowing it’s often out of your reach. The blues, in this case, isn’t just about one relationship it’s about the recurring cycle of trying to love despite the odds.

 

These songs don’t just reflect personal pain; they give voice to a collective experience of resilience and struggle. The blues validate our suffering while reminding us that we’re not alone. They speak to the cultural memory of Black people, offering solace and strength, and help me navigate life’s challenges with an understanding that’s been passed down through generations. 

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Week 1: Blues Journal

Lately, life has felt like a constant grind where I’m trying to keep up with everything, but it’s wearing me down. The three biggest struggles I’m dealing with right now are basketball, school, and just being exhausted. Trying to figure out my next step in basketball whether I should keep playing in college or chase something bigger has me constantly thinking about my future and whether I’m making the right choice. The song “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” by Bessie Smith speaks to that feeling of uncertainty and how quickly support can fade when you’re not on top. School is also a major weight on me right now. There’s so much pressure to stay on top of assignments, deadlines, and expectations. “Trouble in Mind” by Nina Simone captures that perfectly it expresses exhaustion and pressure, but also carries a quiet strength, which reminds me to push through. Lastly, the exhaustion I feel every day has been the hardest part. Whether it's physical from training or mental from trying to keep everything together, it feels like I’m always running on empty. “Tired of Being Alone” by Al Green speaks to that longing—for rest, peace, and support—like someone who’s constantly fighting but just needs a break. These songs don’t just echo how I feel—they remind me that I’m not alone in feeling this way, and that there’s still strength in the struggle.