Black Noise from the Break: Ma and Pa’s Black Radical Lyricism
Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 track “We Cry Together” is, if nothing else, a masterful piece of wordplay and rhythm. Lamar manages to create a lyrical conversation that sounds both dialectical and diametric. Both the song and album are a definitive break from his earlier tenor that struck a mass appeal. A p...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Humanities |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/12/2/35 |
| _version_ | 1797605201454039040 |
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| author | Julia Reade |
| author_facet | Julia Reade |
| author_sort | Julia Reade |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 track “We Cry Together” is, if nothing else, a masterful piece of wordplay and rhythm. Lamar manages to create a lyrical conversation that sounds both dialectical and diametric. Both the song and album are a definitive break from his earlier tenor that struck a mass appeal. A private conversation between two people, “We Cry Together”, insofar as it captures the intimate interiority of a couple, is also a break within the album itself. Textual renderings of Black performances cut away in ways similar to Lamar’s song or the soloist in a jazz ensemble, their breaks signifying sound. Invoking as aural praxis the language of jazz musicology and Black lyrical theory of Fred Moten, this article closely reads chapter four in George Lamming’s <i>In the Castle of My Skin</i> as one such special representation of textual aurality. First, it identifies multiple manifestations of “the break” before probing the deeply conflicted concept of Black noise as the racialized, resistant, resilient, and resonant octave of radical Black performance. A lyrical improvisation of a Black noise defiant in its indeterminacy, Ma and Pa’s duet cuts away from Castle’s polyphonic ensemble, creating the break within a break, within a break. Lingering in the cut, listening as Fred Moten, Douglas Kearney, Ren Ellis Neyra, and Zadie Smith encourage, the article arrives at a euphonic reproduction as induction into a legacy of synesthetic, lyrical, radical Black noise. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T04:57:44Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-162d6d0ef60c42d88cfb07aaf42f71e4 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-0787 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T04:57:44Z |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Humanities |
| spelling | doaj.art-162d6d0ef60c42d88cfb07aaf42f71e42023-11-17T19:30:09ZengMDPI AGHumanities2076-07872023-04-011223510.3390/h12020035Black Noise from the Break: Ma and Pa’s Black Radical LyricismJulia Reade0Department of English and Philosophy, Murray State University, Murray, KY 42071, USAKendrick Lamar’s 2022 track “We Cry Together” is, if nothing else, a masterful piece of wordplay and rhythm. Lamar manages to create a lyrical conversation that sounds both dialectical and diametric. Both the song and album are a definitive break from his earlier tenor that struck a mass appeal. A private conversation between two people, “We Cry Together”, insofar as it captures the intimate interiority of a couple, is also a break within the album itself. Textual renderings of Black performances cut away in ways similar to Lamar’s song or the soloist in a jazz ensemble, their breaks signifying sound. Invoking as aural praxis the language of jazz musicology and Black lyrical theory of Fred Moten, this article closely reads chapter four in George Lamming’s <i>In the Castle of My Skin</i> as one such special representation of textual aurality. First, it identifies multiple manifestations of “the break” before probing the deeply conflicted concept of Black noise as the racialized, resistant, resilient, and resonant octave of radical Black performance. A lyrical improvisation of a Black noise defiant in its indeterminacy, Ma and Pa’s duet cuts away from Castle’s polyphonic ensemble, creating the break within a break, within a break. Lingering in the cut, listening as Fred Moten, Douglas Kearney, Ren Ellis Neyra, and Zadie Smith encourage, the article arrives at a euphonic reproduction as induction into a legacy of synesthetic, lyrical, radical Black noise.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/12/2/35soundBlack studiesmusicologyblack noiseCaribbean literaturehip hop |
| spellingShingle | Julia Reade Black Noise from the Break: Ma and Pa’s Black Radical Lyricism Humanities sound Black studies musicology black noise Caribbean literature hip hop |
| title | Black Noise from the Break: Ma and Pa’s Black Radical Lyricism |
| title_full | Black Noise from the Break: Ma and Pa’s Black Radical Lyricism |
| title_fullStr | Black Noise from the Break: Ma and Pa’s Black Radical Lyricism |
| title_full_unstemmed | Black Noise from the Break: Ma and Pa’s Black Radical Lyricism |
| title_short | Black Noise from the Break: Ma and Pa’s Black Radical Lyricism |
| title_sort | black noise from the break ma and pa s black radical lyricism |
| topic | sound Black studies musicology black noise Caribbean literature hip hop |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/12/2/35 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT juliareade blacknoisefromthebreakmaandpasblackradicallyricism |