Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Soul Music - Gender, Perfomance, and Content

Our project seeks to explore Soul music of the late 1950s into the 60s, particularly Motown soul, and to examine issues of gender and how that has affected performance styles and music content. We will then compare the 60s to subgenres of Soul: Psychedelic Soul and Neo Soul, which emerged in the late 60s and early 90s, respectively. Lastly, we will comment on how these genres made soul more equal, gender-wise, and have allowed for more freedom of expression in terms of performance and song topics. Our project will explore artists such as Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Betty Davis, The Undisputed Truth, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo, and others.

By Tomi Ogunwumiju and Mersedes Sweeney

1 comment:

wh said...

cool! I just have a question about the kind of evidence you will provide to make your point about gender equality in the soul music genre. Were you thinking about the number of women represented? Where you thinking about looking musical content for lyrics about gender politics?