The six years I spent teaching public high school were not a detour from my education but an expressway to its heart. My former students still inspire me, especially Toussaint Bailey, Stephen Brockington, Sara Caro, Kristy Dougherty, J. R. Hale, Sarah Hill, Lakeisha Horne, Don Sargent, Tonya Sherfey, Sett Quinata, and the badass Odie Anaya.
These ideas were nurtured and shaped by my PhD study in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. I am grateful Viet Nguyen, George Sanchez, and Cynthia Young saw potential in my earliest work. Thank you also to USC faculty members who encouraged my research and showed me wonderful examples of professordom: Sarah Banet-Weiser, Alice Gambrell, Ruthie Gilmore, Bill Handley, Lanita Jacobs, Josh Kun, Teresa McKenna, Karen Pinkus, Laura Pulido, David Román, Leland Saito, and Bruce Smith. Sharon Sekhon, now director of the Studio for Southern California History, gave heartfelt support. A timely visit by George Lipsitz convinced me I could feed myself writing about music. Kitty Lai, Sonia Rodriguez, and Sandra Hopwood kept my act together!
I remain especially indebted to Carla Kaplan, Joanna Demers, Judith Jackson Fossett, and Fred Moten. Carla’s impeccable research acumen, tough-as-nails love, and insistence on my absolute best motivated me when I needed it most. Joanna’s work on electronic music and our walk-and-talks about the nature of “noise” charged me to listen differently. Judith had unwavering faith in me when my way was cloudy and will forever be my finest interlocutor; I am grateful for those nights at her table, drinking tea, listening to Stevie Wonder, and talking over her meticulous green-inked comments. Fittingly, words only inadequately describe my gratitude for Fred’s kind and prodigious example; his virtuoso riffs on blackness, sound, music, art, the academy, and politics rock my world then, now, and always.
I have sincere gratitude, love, and respect for the first three USC ASE graduate cohorts (2001–2003), with special shouts to Wendy Cheng, Michan Connor, Carolyn Dunn, Laura Sachiko Fujikawa, Jesús J. Hernández, Emily Hobson, Imani Kai Johnson, Viet Le, Sionne Neely, Daniel Wei Hosang, Nisha Kunte, Lata Murti, Phuong Nguyen, Luis Carlos Rodriguez, Ully Ryder, Anton Smith, Micaela Smith, Karen Yonemoto, and of course PhDivas Laura Barraclough, Ava Chin, Fiorella Cotrina, Michelle Commander, Araceli Esparza, Perla Guerrero, Nicole Hodges-Persley, Marci McMahon, and Cam Vu. Special amorcito to Hillary Jenks and reina alejandra prado—I love how our friendship continues to deepen. Much gratitude also to comrades across campus: Ruth Blandon, Zoë Corwin, Bridget Hoida, Shakira Holt, Gustavo Licón, Lalo Licón, Patricia Literte, Brooke Carlson, Memo Arce, and Andy Hakim. I remain so thankful for the attentive eye of my dear friend and writing partner Priscilla Peña Ovalle. None of this would have been possible without you, homegirl!
Chapters 1 and 5 began as public talks at the University of Rochester while I was a Predoctoral Fellow at the Frederick Douglass Institute of African and African American Studies (2005–2006). I am especially indebted to my mentor Jeff Tucker, Aubrey Anable, Dinah Holtzman, Cilas Kemendijo, Gloria Kim, Stephanie Li, the late Jesse Moore, Ghislaine Radegonde-Eison, A. Joan Saab, and to Anthea Butler for being absolutely EVERYTHING, still! A heartfelt thank you to Shaila Mehra and to stellar fellows Niambi Carter and Millery Polyné, who not only listened to, read, and shaped countless drafts but also became dear friends.
Thank you to Binghamton University, especially Provost Don Nieman, the Harpur Dean’s office, and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. My departmental colleagues’ enthusiasm and faith in my scholarship, teaching, and blogging heartened me through challenging times. Thanks to David Bartine, Jaimee Colbert, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Thomas Glave, Aja Martinez, Bill Spanos, Susan Strehle, Libby Tucker, Al Tricomi, and Lisa Yun. My work especially benefitted from the rigorous attention of Donette Francis, Praseeda Gopinath, Joe Keith, and Monika Mehta. I also appreciate the cross-campus support of Nancy Applebaum, Ana Maria Candela, John Cheng, Ariana Gerstein, Robert Ji-Song Ku, Sean Massey, Monteith McCollum, Gladys Jimenez-Munoz, Andreas Pape, Emily Pape, Josh Price, Kelvin Santiago-Valles, Paul Schleuse, Pamela Smart, Wendy Stewart, Nancy Um, Brian Wall, and Michael West.
And of course my graduate students are THE REAL MVPS. ’Nuff respect to Tara Betts and Osvaldo Oyola for always asking the hard questions and being down to geek out on music. To Airek Beauchamp for lovely-yet-rigorous “Theory on Rollerskates” sessions. To Maria Chaves for meticulous research assistance, especially regarding decolonization as verb. Christie Zwahlen attuned my ear toward civic engagement. Wanda Alarcon’s work reminds us that DJs save our beautifully complex lives. Natalia Triana-Angel’s ability to hear history in music is next level. Thank you also to Barry Jackson for faith and enthusiasm! Several talented undergraduates journeyed with me on this and other projects I’m sure they had initially thought were crazy. Thanks especially to Marva Forsyth, Julian Harrison, Caleb Knapp, Jah-Sonnah MacAlister, Daniel Moore, Felicia Parrish, Michele Quiles, Seneca Sanders, Danny Santos, Dhruv Sehgal, Ashley Verbert, Charles Weiselberg, and Kymel Yard.
Former students, now colleagues/siblings, Liana Silva, Aaron Trammell, and I form like Voltron to make the Sounding Out! hive mind—the best team I have ever worked with. Thank you both for unswervingly being there with the quickness—always pushing me to my best and pulling for this project every step of the way, intellectually, emotionally, logistically, and with humor.
I wrote much of this manuscript as a Society for the Humanities Fellow at the A. D. White House at Cornell University. Much respect to director Tim Murray, administrative assistant Mary Ahl, and events coordinator Emily Parsons. For generative conversations, fine critiques, and basement jam sessions, I thank 2011–2012 fellows Eliot Bates, Miloje Despic, Nina Eidsheim, Sarah Ensor, Michael Jonik, Nicolas Knouf, Roger Moseley, Jamie Nisbet, and Jonathan Skinner, with special love to Marcus Boon, Duane Corpis, Ziad Fahmy, Brían Hanrahan, Damien Keane, Eric Lott, Tom McEnaney, Trevor Pinch, and Jeanette Jouili (and the Jouili-Kpai family). You guys rock.
Both sound studies and my own research are intellectually sustained and spiritually nourished by a community of talented scholars including Dolores Inés Casillas, Regina Bradley, Neil Verma, Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, Alexandra Vasquez, Tavia Nyong’o, Deb Vargas, Deb Paredes, Roshi Kheshti, Shana Redmond, Norma Coates, Marisol LeBron, Alejandro Madrid, Martin Daughtry, Leo Cardoso, Alex Russo, Steph Ceraso, Tara Rodgers, Ashon Crawley, Bill Bahng Boyer, Ben Tausig, Amanda Keeler, Rui Costa, Maile Colbert, Debra Rae Cohen, David Suisman, Mara Mills, Gina Arnold, and Shawn VanCour, who gave chapter 5 a great read. Special appreciation to Frances Aparicio, Fred Moten, Daphne Brooks, Emily Thompson, Gus Stadler, Josh Kun, and Jonathan Sterne for mentorship and those bold early noises in the field! And of course gratitude to the readers, writers, subscribers, and social media supporters of Sounding Out!, who motivate on the daily.
To the archivists who gave me keys to kingdoms: Matthew Colbert and David Coppen (Sibley Music Library in Rochester, New York), Jim Farrington (Rush Rhees Library at the University of Rochester), Lea Kemp and Kathryn Murano (Rochester Museum and Science Center), Beth Howse, Aisha Johnson, and Vanessa Smith (Special Collections, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library at Fisk University), Christopher Harter (Amistad Research Center at Tulane University), Eisha Prather, Katherine Reagan, and Ben Ortiz (Kroch Special Collections at Cornell), Laura Russo (Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University), Alvin Singh (Lead Belly Foundation), and Andy Lanset, archivist for WNYC.
Special thanks goes to those who guided me through manuscript development and production. I am grateful for the motivation and guidance of Anne Bramley, Shakti Castro’s meticulous permissions research, and Cecelia Cancellaro’s intuitive and surgical editing. At NYU Press, Eric Zinner gifted me with sharp-eyed enthusiasm, patience, and unwavering belief in my project; my series editors and anonymous readers provided necessary nudges to new vistas, and Alicia Nadkarni and Erin Davis tirelessly moved the book along.
I finished this book as I was warmly welcomed to Ithaca, New York. The friendship of SAMMUS, Kebbeh Gold, Nandi Cohen, Ben Ortiz, Travis Gosa, Jessica Gosa, Belisa Gonzales, Phuong Nguyen, Betty Nguyen, Tavo Licón, Sandra