Talkin’ Bout a Revolution(ary): The Music and Politics of Tracy Chapman

ABSTRACT

The field of folklore in general, but specifically, Africana folklore studies can be enriched by greater analyses of Black female contributions. In this article, I position folk music as the primary interest and chosen location to acknowledge Black women’s participation from beyond the margins. My inquiry reveals folk music as a lens into the myriad ways Black women have translated vernacular traditions to deconstruct the master narrative and interrogate societal norms. Specifically, this article examines how Tracy Chapman appropriated the folk esthetic as a strategic discursive space for politically conscious creative expression.

KEYWORDS:

• folklore
• folk music
• Tracy Chapman
• vernacular traditions

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Professor Sw. Anand Prahlad also recognizes the problem of the male bias within Africana folklore studies and highlights the absent feminist or womanist study of black folklore. In “Africana Folklore: History and Challenges,” he points out that “folklorists in Africana studies have not engaged the ideas of feminism or womanism that have enjoyed such a commanding presence in other fields such as literary analysis.” Notable feminist examinations of Black women’s folk performance have been undertaken. Harrison’s Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s and Angela Y. Davis’s own Blues Legacies and Black Feminism are examples of innovative scholarship in this area. My study is a part of this ongoing work.

2. Notable exceptions to collective efforts of musicians to engage in consciousness-raising events include Live Aid, a multi-venue rock music concert held on 13 July 1985; Farm Aid, a benefit concert held on 22 September 1985initiated to raise money for family farmers in the United States; the 1985 recording of “We Are the World” written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie as part of famine-relief efforts to support Ethiopia, which suffered drought in 1984 and 1985.

3. In 1953, folk historian Greenway contested the belief by some writers that we no longer have a traditional agricultural folk. He argued that “a new folk, the industrial community, is taking its place.” He further explains, “The modern folk is most often the unskilled worker, less often the skilled worker in industrial occupations (9). According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, African Americans comprise a disproportionate number of low to unskilled laborers comparable to their counterparts.

4. Chapman’s biographical material was gathered from the following sources: Stengel, Farley and Whiteley\

5. Although hyper-violent and misogynistic, the most controversial song on the album, “Fuck the Police” spoke out against police brutality in urban communities. The song gained significance during the 1991 police beating of Rodney King and the subsequent tense-filled LA Riots in 1992.

6. Past and ongoing scholarship continues to highlight folk music produced by African American women. Cohen’s Rainbow Quest: Folk Music and American Society, 1940–1970 identifies somewhat inclusive of African American folk music as a major medium of struggle for Civil Rights, and he recognizes artists Odetta and Bernice Johnson Reagon’s contribution to folk music. Bernice Johnson, Reagon has greatly contributed to the scholarship with works such as If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition. Notably, Zack’s Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest affirms this folk heroine’s status as the mother of the 1960s folk movement.

7. On mainstream beauty standards, 1995 notes, “A world that can recognize the darker-skinned Michael Jordan as a symbol of black beauty scorns and devalues the beauty of Tracy Chapman” (128).

8. The two references are a play on the Mark Twain’s classic tale, The Prince and the Pauper (1882).

9. For a detailed study on the origins of “the welfare queen,” see Levin’s The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rasheedah A. Jenkins

Rasheedah A. Jenkins is a Baton Rouge native and holds a Ph.D. in English from Louisiana State University. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Southern University and A&M College. Her research and teaching interests include African American Literature and Popular Culture.