PWR194ABA: Contemporary Black Rhetorics: Prince

Prince’s music and life
Liberated Black music
Liberated Black Theology
Liberated Black Masculinity
Liberated Black People
—Dereca Blackmon, “Beyond Definition: The Black Liberation Theology of Prince”
 
African American Rhetoric is concerned with both the liberation of Black people and their participation in all facets of life in a multi-ethnic, multicultural society. As a field of study, it traces the arc of strategic language use by African Americans as incorporated in forms such as slave narratives, spirituals, poetry, fiction, speeches, music, film, memes and other forms of online discourse.
—Keith Gilyard and Adam Banks, On African American Rhetoric
 
Black music in all its genres, styles and eras has always been about freedom and transformation.  About both Black people and the whole society.  About the US Black experience, the African continent and the diaspora. These musical forms and the social movements they reflect and help shape are therefore central to the study of African American rhetoric. From overtly translating the ideas of social movements for mass audiences, to capturing the mood of a moment or move, to reflecting and influencing the aesthetics and styles that attend public discourse, to simply being a space where debates get worked out in community, music in Black traditions are as important a space of engagement as political speeches, sermons, websites, or even #BlackTwitter.
 
This course will examine Prince’s music, life and impact and their relationship to both social movements and everyday dialogue and debate to introduce African American Rhetoric as a field of study. Students in the course will trace specific themes in Prince’s music throughout his career, write an album review, and create a blog on some aspect of Prince