Echoes of Blackness: The Reimagination and Cultural Politics of Black Music in Spain
Date and Time
Location
MUSICS ABROAD
SPEAKER: Genevieve Allotey-Pappoe, Brown University
The global circulation of Black music genres such as jazz, hip-hop, and reggae, demonstrates the fluidity and capacity of music to resonate in cultural and geographic settings beyond its original context. As these Black cultural expressions are harnessed as creative resources, reinterpretations and new meanings emerge, informed by local contexts and cultural modes of listening. This paper is an investigation of Black music in Spain using sound, digital technology, and race as critical categories. This presentation explores Black sound as a sign, sound object, and aesthetic quality within Spanish popular culture as new social formations organized around cultural Blackness emerge.
About the Speaker
Genevieve Allotey-Pappoe is an Assistant Professor of Music at Brown University. She recently completed her PhD in the Department of Music at Princeton University. Genevieve has an MPhil in Ethnomusicology and a BA in Music and Sociology from the University of Ghana. Her main research interests include music of Africa and the Black diaspora. Her research is anchored by an exploration of the multiple remediations of Black music as it moves between geographical locations, offline and online communities, and across digital platforms. Her other research interests include sound studies, the music industry, music and digital technology, and the creative economy. Between 2021 and 2022, she was a visiting fellow at the Humanities Branch of the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona (IMF-CSIC). In 2023, she was awarded the Eugene K Wolf research grant by the American Musicological Society for her dissertation "Between Acousmatic Blackness and Blacksound: The Cultural Politics of Black Music in Spain" She is currently working on a project that explores Black music in Spain using sound, race, and digital technology as critical categories. Dr. Allotey-Pappoe is also a composer and the founder/host of the Black Music Nomad podcast.
