On Rhetoric and Black Music
Earl H. Brooks
Wayne State University Press
On Rhetoric and Black Music examines how Black music functions as rhetoric, considering its subject not merely reflective of but central to African American public discourse.
Author, musician, and scholar Earl H. Brooks argues that there would have been no Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Movement, or Black Arts Movement as we know these phenomena without Black music. Through rhetorical studies, archival research, and musical analysis, Brooks establishes the "sonic lexicon of Black music," defined by a distinct constellation of sonic and auditory features that bridge cultural, linguistic, and political spheres with music.