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After a century of racist whitewashing, country music is finally reckoning with its relationship to Black people. In this timely work—the first book on Black country music by a Black writer—Francesca Royster uncovers the Black performers and fans, including herself, who are exploring the pleasures and possibilities of the genre. Informed by queer theory and Black feminist scholarship, Royster’s book elucidates the roots of the current moment found in records like Tina Turner’s first solo album, Tina Turns the Country On! She reckons with Black “bros” Charley Pride and Darius Rucker, then chases ghosts into the future with Valerie June. Indeed, it is the imagination of Royster and her artists that make this music so exciting for a genre that has long been obsessed with the past. The futures conjured by June and others can be melancholy, and are not free of racism, but by centering Black folk Royster begins to understand what her daughter hears in the banjo music of Our Native Daughters and the trap beat of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.” A Black person claiming country music may still feel a bit like a queer person coming out, but, collectively, Black artists and fans are changing what country music looks and sounds like—and who gets to love it.

African Americans --- Music and race --- Country music --- African American country musicians. --- Music --- History and criticism. --- African Americans, Country Music, Queer, Performance, Listening, Fans, Memoir.

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This book traces a rebellious spirit in post-civil rights Black music by focusing on a range of offbeat, eccentric, queer, or slippery performances by leading musicians influenced by the cultural changes brought about by the civil rights, Black nationalist, feminist, and LGBTQ movements, who through reinvention created a repertoire of performances that have left a lasting mark on popular music. The book's readings of performers including Michael Jackson, Grace Jones, Stevie Wonder, Eartha Kitt, and Meshell Ndegeocello demonstrate how embodied sound and performance became a means for creativity, transgression, and social critique, a way to reclaim imaginative and corporeal freedom from the social death of slavery and its legacy of racism, to engender new sexualities and desires, to escape the sometimes constrictive codes of respectability and uplift from within the Black community, and to make space for new futures for their listeners. The book's perspective on music as a form of Black corporeality and identity, creativity, and political engagement will appeal to those in African American studies, popular music studies, queer theory, and Black performance studies; general readers will welcome its engaging, accessible, and sometimes playful writing style, including elements of memoir.

Popular music --- Soul music. --- Soul music --- African Americans --- Rhythm and blues music --- Music, Popular --- Music, Popular (Songs, etc.) --- Pop music --- Popular songs --- Popular vocal music --- Songs, Popular --- Vocal music, Popular --- Music --- Cover versions --- Social aspects.