Location
Dayton, OH
Start Date
12-9-2018 4:15 PM
Description
This essay proposes a framework called the “sounds of black America” to argue that the social and cultural interactions unique to a specific locality results in a particular approach to funk as sound organization. Drawing on George Lipsitz’s concept of the “Black Spatial Imaginary” and using the music of the Ohio Players as a case study, I demonstrate how the music programs in Dayton-area schools can help us understand the particular approach to funk that came out of Dayton in the late 1960s through the 1970s.
Event Type
Paper
Included in
The Sounds of Black America: Funk and Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, OH
This essay proposes a framework called the “sounds of black America” to argue that the social and cultural interactions unique to a specific locality results in a particular approach to funk as sound organization. Drawing on George Lipsitz’s concept of the “Black Spatial Imaginary” and using the music of the Ohio Players as a case study, I demonstrate how the music programs in Dayton-area schools can help us understand the particular approach to funk that came out of Dayton in the late 1960s through the 1970s.
Comments
Matthew Valnes is an Instructor at Duke University. His publications on funk have appeared in African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal and the Journal of Popular Music Studies. His current project is a book entitled We Want the Funk: Geography, Gender, and Technology in Post-Civil Rights Era Black Popular Music.