Africa in Words is running a series of posts on Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of its release. Click here to read the first post of the series and here to read the third.

Gabriel Improta continues with a post on the music of Brazil and the role culture plays in Gilroy’s conception of ‘black Atlantic:’

When looking at the cultural practices of the black Atlantic, Gilroy called for focusing on music. He criticised the obsession with the body of slaves and their descendants;  the result of a dichotomous (and Western) approach to the relation between body and mind. This dichotomy, he explains, leads to the understanding of black music (and dance) as the lowest form of art because it would be solely physical and, therefore, never intellectual. Often, music — and especially black music — is understood as a “spontaneous” or “natural” manifestation, produced by an innate talent linked to race or nationality.

Read the rest: Gilroy’s Black Atlantic: Samba, Jazz and Sambajazz in Brazil and the Black Atlantic. « Africa in Words http://bit.ly/10IuVO2