Has the Hip-Hop Generation Squandered Black Music’s Legacy? On the November 21st Left of Black

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by Bill Banfield, the author of RepresentingBlack Music Culture: Then, Now, and When Again?  Banfield is a  composer, recording artist, musical director, scholar and the Professor in the Music and Societies program at the Berklee School of Music. The Detroit native talks about growing up in the city that bred the Motown sound, and highlights the significance of his relationships with communities of artists including composer T.J. Anderson.  Neal and Banfield also contemplate why younger generations are not knowledgeable of great music in history.  

Later Neal is joined by Nicole Fleetwood , Professor of American Studies at Rutgers University and  the author of Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality,and Blackness. Fleetwood and Neal discuss the promises and pitfalls of black iconic images, the photography of  Charles “Teenie” Harris, and the role that her grandmother played in having her consider how “blackness” is seen. Lastly, Fleetwood discusses the importance of a realist aesthetic in black art.

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Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke’s Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive. 

Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack
Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan
Follow Bill Banfield on Twitter: @BillBanfield

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