| Contents |
Slide: games as lessons in black musical style -- Education, liberation: learning the ropes of a musical blackness -- Mary Mack dressed in black: the earliest formation of a popular music -- Saw you with your boyfriend: music between the sexes -- Whose got next game?: women, hip-hop, and the power of language -- Double forces has got the beat: reclaiming girls' music in the sport of double-dutch -- Let a woman jump: dancing with the Double Dutch Divas. |
| Abstract |
Explores how the traditions of black music are intertwined in the games black girls grow up with. When we think of African American popular music, our first thought is probably not of double-dutch: girls bouncing between two twirling ropes, keeping time to the tick-tat under their toes. But this book argues that the games black girls play--handclapping songs, cheers, and double-dutch jump rope--both reflect and inspire the principles of black popular musicmaking. This book illustrates how black musical styles are incorporated into the earliest games African American girls learn--how, in effect, these games contain the DNA of black music. Drawing on interviews, recordings of handclapping games and cheers, and her own observation and memories of gameplaying, the author argues that black girls' games are connected to long traditions of African and African American musicmaking, and that they teach vital musical and social lessons that are carried into adulthood. In this celebration of playground poetry and childhood choreography, she uncovers the surprisingly rich contributions of girls' play to black popular culture. |
| Local note | Little-346896--305131052555Z |
| Local note | Little-346896--305131052555Z |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-210) and index. |
| Awards note | 2007 Alan Merriam Prize presented by the Society for Ethnomusicology; 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Book Award Finalist. |
| LCCN | 2005024053 |
| ISBN | 0814731198 (cloth : alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 0814731201 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 9780814731192 |
| ISBN | 9780814731208 |
