Special Section: Race and Electronic Dance Music
Guest-edited by David L. Brunsma, Nathaniel G. Chapman, and J. Slade Lellock
For almost a decade scholars from a variety of disciplines have engaged in critical inquiries into the global phenomenon that is Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and into the many questions it raises about spectacle, representation, identity, collective experience, cultural appropriation, and its many gendered, classed, and sexuality-based inequalities. However, few scholars have interrogated the racial dimensions of EDM – dimensions that we see as clearly evident. The purpose of this special section of Popular Music and Society is to provide critical, interdisciplinary inquiries that expand our understanding of how race may intersect with, organize, and structure the experience, promotion, and production of Electronic Dance Music worldwide. We intend for this special section to grapple with the realities and processes of race, racial ideology, and racisms within EDM and in the culture surrounding EDM.
In this section, we explore issues of racial dynamics from three perspectives. First, Liam Maloney explores the influence of religion and gospel on early EDM scenes. The author makes three key assertions: (1) that disco used gospel elements to create a “quasi-religious proto-PLUR” (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect) ideology that permeated dance floors during the height of disco in the 1970s; (2) that this ideology was a means of expression used by the marginalized populations in the early EDM culture; and (3) that disco, contrary to popular perception, was not an exclusively gay scene (although it was important aspect of gay liberation) – in addition, it comprised individuals from varying racial backgrounds and was an expression of those made Other by aspects of either race or sexuality. In the second article, Kaitlyne A. Motl examines how EDM festivalgoers construct symbols and narratives that reinforce EDM participation as a demographically and ideologically white terrain. In doing so, Motl analyzes the stylization of festival participants, particularly the ways in which they dress and forms of body modifications such as tattoos and piercings. Last, William Tsitsos takes a historical approach to illuminate the intersection of race and social class with the origins of techno and rap music. The author contends that techno and rap music emerged from working-class black suburban areas that were either in decay or immersed in large construction projects.