African-American music

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Review of two books by Frank Kofsky on the root of jazz and the Black struggle
By Sam Manuel, The Militant, 2 February 1998. Both books are indispensable contributions to understanding jazz and its relation to the struggle for Black freedom. They are timely contributions to the renewed interest in Coltrane and the political ferment in urban Black working-class communities across this country in the 1960s that made Contrane’s music possible.
The Political Economy of Black Music
By Norman Kelley, in Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, Summer 1999. Rap, like most black music, is under the corporate control of whites and purchased mostly by white youths. No better example of how black artists are colonized by white recording companies—aided and abetted by blacks—than the case of Tupac Shakur.
Quote of the Day: Odetta
Odetta, extract from an interview in Radiance, Winter 1999. Authenticity overwhelmed by inaccessability.
Motown meets Marxism in a searching new study of Detroit roots
By Carleton S. Gholz, 16 February 2000. Review of Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit, by Suzanne E. Smith. Bok neither concentrates exclusively on the stories of Motown’s protagonists nor relegates its interest in Motown to a simple fascination with pop trivia.
Powerful voice for Black liberation
By Monica Moorehead, Workers World, 8 May 2003. The whole world is mourning the tragic loss of African American vocalist and pianist Nina Simone. Simone eventually left the US following the government’s racist repression of the Black liberation movement. She was the victim of greedy record companies, unscrupulous agents and the Internal Revenue Service.
Jazz, African American Nationality, and the Myth of the Nation-State
By John H. McClendon III, Socialism and Democracy, Vol. 23, no.3, December 2006. The dialectic of national oppression, class exploitation and racism remains the context for Jazz as well as other types of African American music.