Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation

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Acknowledgments Prologue Introduction Rhythm
1. Revolutionary Mixtape
2. Grown Ass Women
3. Digging the Scene (with the Gangsta Lean)
4. Habermas in the Hood
5. Sexual Healing (the Oh My! Interlude)
6. The E-Double and the Trouble Man
7. Bellbottoms, Bluebelles, and the Funke-Ass White Girl
8. Nuyorican Nostalgia
9. Some Otha Shit And Blues
10. Radio Free Soul
11. Big Pimpin'
12. But It's Not a Rap CD
13. Three the Hard Way

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In Songs in the Key of Black Life, acclaimed cultural critic Mark Anthony Neal turns his attention to Rhythm and Blues. He argues that R&B-often dismissed as just a bunch of love songs, yet the second most popular genre in terms of sales-can tell us much about the dynamic joys, apprehensions, tensions, and contradictions of contemporary black life, if we listen closely. With a voice as heartfelt and compelling as the best music, Neal guides us through the work of classic and contemporary artists ranging from Marvin Gaye to Macy Gray. In the first section of the book, Rhythm, he uses the music of Meshell N'degeocello, Patti Labelle, Jill Scott, Alicia Keys, and others as guideposts to the major concerns of contemporary black life-issues such as gender, feminist politics, political activism, black masculinity, celebrity, and the fluidity of racial and sexual identity. The second part of the book, Blues, uses the improvisational rhythms of black music as a metaphor to examine currents in black life including the public dispute between Cornel West and Harvard President Lawrence Summers and the firing of BET's talk-show host Tavis Smiley. Songs in the Key of Black Life is a remarkable contribution to the study of black popular music, and valuable reading for anyone interested in how race is lived in America.

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Neal avoids polemics on the lyrical banality of black music or the over-hyped, oversexed videos pervading Black Entertainment Television. He redefines the terrain by advancing a discussion of artists working and succeeding within--and along the boundaries of--the existing subgenres of black popular music

Neal creates a dense, sensuous space for a critical cultured black perspective, what Soul Babies called the 'post-soul aesthetic' in black America. He illustrates his thesis through use of black vernacular forms to produce a voice that is both streetwise and scholarly ...Neal may be the first writer capable of developing groundbreaking ideas in the academy and getting a new sticker on his 'ghetto pass' in one stroke

Neal creates a dense, sensuous space for a critical cultured black perspective, what "Soul Babies" called the "post-soul aesthetic" in black America. He illustrates his thesis throught use of black vernacular forms to produce a voice that is both streetwise and scholarly ...Neal may be the first writer capable of developing groundbreaking ideas in the academy and getting a new sticker on his "ghetto pass" in one stroke

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