MusiQology Gives Thanks 2018!

Taking a moment to discuss figures and texts in art and culture for which we’re thankful has become a welcome tradition here at MusiQology, and we’re thrilled to present the 2018 edition of “MusiQology Gives Thanks.”

The last two years when we sat down to write about what we were thankful for, while ample examples manifested, it was hard still to express gratefulness in a world full of omnipresent personal and political dread and darkness. To be sure, there remain myriad areas of tremendous concern as many of our important institutions such as the free press and voting rights come under attack. But in the spirit of the season, we give thanks again as in years past, both for those who fight for something different and for those who give us space to be in spite of it all through their creative practice.

This year’s edition—in addition to the usual atmospheric, policy, and media from which we draw strength—focuses especially on creators for whom we’re grateful in this moment. We’re so thankful for art that makes a home and for art that continues the fight. For art that offers a thoughtful reprieve and for art that motivates us to keep going. For art for art’s sake and art for our sake. In this moment for MusiQology—a time of prolific creative energy—art is our way of giving thanks and the thing we are so deeply thankful for. The road ahead remains long but in rhythm and sound and word and heart we are sustained.

Lonnie Holley’s Mith-ic Soundscapes

No music in 2018 is moving MusiQology Managing Editor John Vilanova more lately than the work of creative artist Lonnie Holley, whose epic, sprawling recent release Mith puts to sound the long-historical trials and tribulations of black people in world history. The album’s centerpiece, “I Snuck Off the Slave Ship” describes the horror of the Middle Passage, a sonic rendering of the journey a la Charles Mingus’s “Meditations (On Integration).” And the track for the current era, “I Woke up in a Fucked-Up America,” sets the continued struggle of black folks in America within a longer trajectory.

Multimodal Scholarship

The MusiQology Podcast has been a welcome space for Dr. Guy to invite artists and creators into our orbit with thoughtful interviews that are as informative as they are convivial. We’re thankful to be at a moment in academia in which opportunities for new modes of scholarly production are supported.

Listen to the MusiQology Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

The MusiQ Department’s Inspired Moment

Another segment of the MusiQology umbrella is our label, The MusiQ Department. Headlined by the creative labor of our artists, Vince Anthony and Bridget Ramsey, alongside Dr. Guy himself, 2018 has been a year of unparalleled creative energy for us. These include new releases—a new single, “Hurricane,” from Vince Anthony (with an EP on the way) and a new EP, Jazz Nonstandards from Bridget Ramsey. That all plus their trap-jazz collaboration, Ramsey’s “The Very Thought of You” and a music video set to drop very soon are the products of a fruitful and exciting creative year.

Come see MusiQology artists in concert November 28 at Turtle Studios in Philadelphia.

Noname’s Interiority

Chicago’s Fatima Nyeema Warner, the Chicago rapper and poet better known as Noname, has been on our radar for quite some time due to her powerful musical blend of neo-soul and contemporary sound. She took it to a new level with Room 25, her album released earlier this fall, which is truthful, confessional, and authentic in a culture of social media farce and manipulation. With lines like “My pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism/In conversation with a marginal system in love with Jesus,” it might be the best, most thoughtful Thanksgiving-cooking album we’ve heard in years—as long as your family has an open mind.

Local Language and Brands to Walk the Talk

As hyper-local as cheesesteaks and the Eagles is Philly’s own word, Jawn, a catchall that can mean…well…anything. “These Jawns got all the way to this Jawn and forgot their Jawn” or the like is a fairly common saying in our home city, and MusiQology Events Coordinator Shakira King’s Jawn Apparel celebrates the word’s versatility and fun with a streetwear collection that makes us feel home.

New Canons

Two books from the MusiQology extended orbit really stimulated us this year. The first, from MusiQology advisory board member Darnell L. Moore, is titled No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America. It’s a beautiful memoir on the long, slow, arduous process of personal (black) liberation. The second, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper is a bold book of feminist criticism on culture, misogynoir, and empowerment. We’re thankful to be working in a moment when so many icons are creating such new and essential additions to the discourse.

Women of Color Aesthetics

We at MusiQology identify as a proud feminist organization, and the traveling exhibition We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85, which featured MusiQology family members Kellie Jones and Lisa Jones Brown alongside a host of other important black feminist artists and critics, indexed the specific political, social, cultural, and aesthetic priorities of women of color often sadly overlooked during the period of second-wave feminism. The exhibition recently ended its run in Boston, but when it pops up near you next, seek it out.

Smino’s Subtle Artistic Control

The “trap” has become an enthralling setting and sonic site for contemporary popular hip-hop, where groups like Migos top the charts. The concern, though, is what often happens in the American consumption apparatus: White-run labels get a hold of black culture, trends, and performance, and flatten and bastardize them, appropriating-as-caricature the nuance and complexity of culture itself. Smino’s sound—influenced by the trap but smartly rather than unsubtly—is approachable and unique…and it’s been blowing our minds.

The Clark Sisters.

A staple of Dr. Guy’s in-class pedagogy is the gospel supergroup The Clark Sisters, whose use of Afrodiasporic musical tropes and esteemed place in black musical and religious circles cannot be overstated even now. With the recent news of a long-overdue, star-studded biopic on the horizon, the group—still not given their proper due—will be a mainstay here in the coming months. We’re thankful for their past, present, and future impact on black American music and our own spirits.

Small Steps Forward in Civil Rights

After the galling stain of racist voter suppression efforts in Florida, Georgia, and other parts of the country, the tremendous importance of the vote is clearer than ever. A small but notable victory in Florida—Amendment 4 to the state Constitution, which automatically restores voting rights to previously convicted felons—is a small step towards more equitable and appropriate access to the ballot.

Ari Lennox’s Assured, Old-School Vocals

Washington D.C.-based singer Ari Lennox is probably best known for singing on recordings by her label head J. Cole, but the guitar parts wrapping around consistent thrumming foot-stomps of “Whipped Cream,” plus the singer’s warm vocal are a winning combination. If this is what the new generation of R&B/soul music is going to sound like, we’re here for it.

The Philadelphia Arts Activism Community

Launching our community arts programming initiative, MusiQology Rx, has proven true again both the administrative and lived reality of the “it takes a village” truism. As we continue our grassroots and building work towards our goal—a Germantown-based, arts-focused community space for Philly youth, we are thankful for the supportive community in Philadelphia, for the programming we’ve done to this point, and for the future opportunities in our foreview.

Charles White’s Images of Dignity

“Art must be an integral part of the struggle,” Charles White, whose retrospective exhibition runs through January 13, 2019, at New York’s MoMA, once said. “It can’t simply mirror what’s taking place. … It must ally itself with the forces of liberation.” Dr. Guy wanted to make special mention of the exhibition, the first major one of its kind devoted to White in more than 30 years. MoMA’s programming around it (including a stellar Spotify playlist) is excellent; try to make time to see it before it closes. Here’s more media, a conversation with legend Harry Belafonte.

For past “MusiQology Gives Thanks,” see the 2016 edition and 2017 edition here.

Beyoncé.

Recognizing the avant-garde vanguard is certainly part of our yearlong goal, but it’s also worth recognizing the public faces of black popular culture. From Everything is Love to the On the Run II tour backing her collaboration with her husband, Jay Z, Beyoncé Knowles remains an icon who needs no introduction—and whose “Beychella” performance—a dynamic feminist celebration of black musical tradition, remains as epic as it was six months ago.

Lonnie Holley’s Spirit

Bookending this piece with Lonnie Holley felt somewhat indulgent but appropriate for a simple reason—the coda of Mith, “Sometimes I Wanna Dance,” sums up the feelings of this moment in 5 minutes of pure brilliance. Sometimes we have to fight for rights and dreams continually deferred. Sometimes we have to scream and cry and mourn and rage. Sometimes we have to work—to stay alive and to provide for ourselves and the people we love. But life is about more than that, and sometimes, even when the road is long and hard, we want. We want to live and to love and to let music grab us at the base of our spinal columns, pulling us to move in harmony with it and those pulled in the same way around us and those whose spirits dance with us even if their bodies are elsewhere. Sometimes we want to dance, and sometimes we get to. And we’re damn thankful for that.