Black Epistemologies and Music

The arts have consistently been interlocutors for Black scholarship in the humanities. Poetry, literature, and music are sources of knowledge for theorizing social realities. This relates to two elements: (a) an epistemology that values the production and spread of oral, subjective, and aesthetic forms of knowledge; (b) the systematic exclusion of Black people from academic spaces, especially in Latin American contexts, which encourages alternative practices of reflection and registry. Many artists actively consider what is produced in the cultural margins to be a strong locus of political and intellectual creativity. In Brazil, the rapper Emicida has been trying to make his artistic projects catalysts for philosophical reflection. His album Sobre crianças, quadris, pesadelos e lições de casa resonates with Asian, African, Black Atlantic, and Latin American sources of knowledge including religious practices, pop culture, and philosophy. It discusses themes such as love, race, racism, history, family, environmental crisis, and work relations through the combination of musical styles from Brazil, specifically, and the Black Atlantic, more generally. This article establishes a dialogue with the theories and debates suggested by this album, thus situating its contribution to Black scholarship and epistemology

Art · Humanities · Linguistics · Sociology · Music History and Culture · Philosophy