"The path the slave took to 'citizenship' is what I want to look at. And I make my analogy through the slave citizen's music -- through the music that is most c

Mamie Smith's pathbreaking 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues" set the pop music world on fire, inaugurating a new African American market for "race records." Not l

The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake ("the devil's music"), but a shadowy presence

Jimoh (English, U. of Arkansas-Fayetteville) investigates African American intracultural issues that inform a more broadly intertextual use of music in creating

A vivid investigation of how blues music teaches listeners about sin, suffering, marginalization, lamentation, and worship.