No, DeForrest’s work is crucial because he talks about exactly what he means, what was happening when, and who was involved, and how he sees that innovation as being meaningful. It’s easy to be dismissive of academics I think with the “were they there” kneejerk reaction, but we need scholarship to give us this kind of bigger picture. No one person was there for all of it at once. Then we have something meaningful to debate.
This is a beautiful, exquisitely comprehensive trip through Black innovation from the perspective of the United States and Black Americans in music and technology and the combination of the two. It covers not just dance music but the industrialized music in general. Then techno – and technology – get connected to a larger timeline, one from which Black narratives have often been excluded.
visit - https://cdm.link/2024/04/deforrest-brown-on-black-innovation-in-music/
