GWSS #3

Name: Chenyu L.

One quote from Kevin Young's "FInal Chorus: Planet Rock, The End of the Record" that really strikes me is:

The blues are a folk form that regularly reaches the heights of epic... With hip-hop, this veering between folk and epic is instantaneous, from line to line...

I cannot agree more with this quote. It answers the question that I had in my mind for long regarding how and why "black music" while evolving from the tears and pains, are so high-end, luxurious sometimes. It is just the nature of this type of music: veering between the folk and epic and overwhelming its audience through that. The audience can read of multiple messages in the songs, which provides the artists broader fields to play with the sounds, to work on different ways to carry out whatever they have to say about their music, either protest or love. Lemonade is a perfect example created by Beyoncé. Daphne A Brooks calls it "the most elaborate and aesthetically innovative in that it calls on audiences to passionately engage and grapple with pop spectacle." She brings about a brand new way to speak her words. In other words, Beyoncé writes an epic with many small folk scenes. When I watch Lemonade, I did not think only about Beyoncé, one of the greatest stars of the generation. Because I was given the chance to visually see her album, I saw a microcosm of the society there. I can find myself a spot in the movie, or I can see myself being a part of it. That is how folk it is. But other than that, it is truly a masterpiece and a pioneered work. So I call it epic. It is powerful; it burns; it did not simply come and go, it leaves a mark on you when you are exposed to it.

Songs:
Back To Black - Amy Winehouse
Amy is not an African American artist, but she is one of those who I see as the best to bring about the soul of blues and Jazz. Back To Black is about heartbreak and sorrow, and you can tell she has put all her feelings into it. This is how jazz originated. It grows from pain and mistreatment. It tells the story itself.

Woman Is The N of The World - John Lennon & Yoko Ono
The lyrics say everything. John Lennon and Yoko Ono literally spoke out the reality that women were facing in society at the time. The song satirizes, criticizes, and protests, using the most sensitive word to shout out for the most sensitive issue. It is a very bold work.

Work Cited:

• Kevin Young, “Final Chorus: Planet Rock, The End of the Record.” The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness. (Graywolf Press, 2012) (PDF)
• Daphne Brooks, "How #BlackLivesMatter Started a Musical Revolution," The Guardian, March 13, 2016