Songs in Black and Lavender: Race, Sexual Politics, and Women's Music

African American Music in Global Perspective

by Eileen M. Hayes, Linda Tillery (Foreword)

Drawing on fieldwork conducted at eight women's music festivals, Eileen M. Hayes shows how studying these festivals--attended by predominately white lesbians--provides critical insight into the role of music and lesbian community formation. She argues that the women's music festival is a significant institutional site for the emergence of black feminist consciousness in the contemporary period. Hayes also offers sage perspectives on black women's involvement in the women's music festival scene, the ramifications of their performances as drag kings in those environments, and the challenges and joys of a black lesbian retreat based on the feminist festival model. With acuity and candor, longtime feminist activist Hayes elucidates why this music scene matters. Veteran vocalist, percussionist, producer, and cultural historian Linda Tillery provides a foreword.

Genres: Nonfiction, Lesbian, Feminism

248 pages, Paperback

First published February 24, 2010

Reviews

[Biubiubiubunny · Rating 2 out of 5]

"While it can be argued that Asian American women also experience the effects of racism, they experience these effects differently from the vast majority of African American women" (141). Till this point, I stopped reading. It doesn't need to be argued that Asian American women also experience the effects of racism. It's not a thing that needs to be argued, just like you wouldn't say that the music industry is "arguably" dominated by men. This book gives me a complicated feeling. I think it's been doing some of the things that the author sets out to critique.

[Inda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I turned in my review to Callaloo and hopefully it will be accepted. Even though I gave the book four stars here, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. Hayes looks at black women within the women's music movement primarily as it continues through music festivals. The black women, predominantly lesbian, who attend these festivals often find themselves at odds with a space that tries to ignore race while accepting all forms of sexual expression.

Hayes has a lot of information within a relatively short study and she does a good job in pointing out the difficulties of presenting an ethnographic study. For instance, there are lots of questions she did not get to ask in addition to the ones that managed to make the cut. Unfortunately, this leaves the reader with just as many questions that need to be answered.

However, the reason this book only gets four stars is because of the last chapter. The information presented is itself very important and should be an essential part of LGBT studies, especially as it pertains to black women. However, within the overall context of the book, this information does not fit. Hayes discusses black "feminine masculinities" through transgender issues and drag king shows. Unfortunately, she does not present this chapter in the context of the women's music festivals as she had the other chapters, so this one seems forced and out of place. I would love to see an extended version of this type of study that focuses more on the black transgender community and the performance and spectacle dynamics of black drag king shows both within and outside the realm of women's music festivals.

Still, I love that this book is so accessible and Hayes has to put herself and her experience into the text so that the reader understands her position in conducting this study. Overall, it is really a remarkable work and it should be on the shelf of anyone in black studies, black music studies, LGBT studies and music studies (among many other disciplines).