During the early twentieth century, research on African American music focused primarily on spirituals and jazz. Investigations on the secular music of blacks living in rural areas were nonexistent except for the work of folklorists researching blues. Researchers and record companies avoided black fiddling because many viewed it not only as a relic of the past, but also a tradition identified with whites. In the second half of the twentieth century, rural-based musical traditions continued to be ignored because researchers tended to be music historians who relied almost exclusively on print or sound materials for analyses. Because rural black musicians who performed secular music rarely had an opportunity to record and few print data were available, sources were lacking. Thus, much of what we know about twentieth-century black secular music is based on styles created and performed by African Americans living in urban areas. And it is these styles that are often represented as the musical creations for all black people, in spite of the fact that other traditions were preferred and performed. This article explores how the (mis)representation of African American music has affected our understanding of black music generally and the development of black fiddling specifically.

In 2012, the flutist Claire Chase, founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble, received a MacArthur Award for her work as an “arts entrepreneur and flutist.” The award's emphasis on Chase's entrepreneurship reflects the growing demand among classical musicians, educators, and critics for self-driven musical projects, promoted as an engine of classical music's concert culture and as crucial to its renewal in the United States. Entrepreneurship curricula are now in place at almost every music school in the country.

In this article, I offer a critique of the increasingly institutionalized push for musical entrepreneurship, demonstrating that it is rooted in the discourse and ideals of neoliberalism. Drawing on scholarship by economist Guy Standing and political theorist Wendy Brown, I analyze the discourse supporting musical entrepreneurship training, demonstrating the ways it advances neoliberal values through the association of “freedom” and “innovation” with the dismantling of collectivity and valorization of precarious labor structures. This discourse produces an expectation of radical self-sufficiency throughout U.S. society, across multiple economic sectors and including non-economic areas of life. I argue that musical entrepreneurship training serves not as a progressive alternative to other forms of musical career building, but instead habituates musicians to precariousness and insecurity through its rhetoric and institutional endorsement.

Azealia Banks's 2011 hit single “212” established her as one of hip-hop's rising stars, with critics highlighting the song's provocative lyrics and Banks's ability as an MC as standout qualities. Banks would later receive attention for her public dispute with white rapper Iggy Azalea, whom she accused of exploiting black musical culture. This article integrates an analysis of “212” with a discussion of Banks's recent public rhetoric in order to examine the ways in which Banks rearticulates the figure of the black female rapper and criticizes white fascination with black female sexuality and black cultural forms. I conclude by situating this discussion within the broader context of contemporary “post-racial” politics, in which the political elements of hip-hop and the systemic racial inequalities they address have become increasingly marginalized in favor of “color-blind” conceptions of United States society and popular culture.

From the earliest elections with popular participation to the present day, American presidential candidates have harnessed music's connotative potential and affective properties in a variety of campaign contexts. But in a corporatized electoral landscape where the fields of politics and popular culture are inextricably intertwined, and every aspect of the candidate's public and private life is subjected to intense scrutiny enabled by the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies, nontraditional texts (such as music) play an increasingly significant role in candidate identity formation. Adding to recent work that explores the aesthetic and social dimensions of newly composed campaign music and its cultural currency, this essay turns a critical lens toward preexisting music and its impact on campaign discourses during Barack Obama's 2008 presidential primary campaign. I investigate three components of Obama's soundscape: 1) his engagement with hip hop—its artists, audiences, and values; 2) the intersections between his professed musical tastes and his complex biography; and 3) the playlists he used at campaign rallies, and the factors that allowed this soundtrack to solidify his own identity as candidate as well as forge alliances with women voters and black voters. Ultimately, cultural and musical analyses reveal how Obama's music strategy allowed him to project a black identity that was both “real” and “respectable.”

The New Orleans hot jazz vocal trio the Boswell Sisters was one of the leading ensembles of the 1930s. Enormously popular with audiences, the Boswells were also recognized by colleagues and peers to be among the finest singers, instrumentalists, and arrangers of their day. Many jazz historians remember them as the first successful white singers who truly “sounded black,” yet they rarely interrogate what “sounding black” meant for the Boswells, not only in technical or musical terms but also as an expression of the cultural attitudes and ideologies that shape stylistic judgments. The Boswells' audience understood vocal blackness as a cultural trope, though that understanding was simultaneously filtered through minstrelsy's legacy and challenged by the new entertainment media. Moreover, the sisters' southern femininity had the capacity to further contexualize and “color” both their musical output and its reception. This essay examines what it meant for a white voice to sound black in the United States during the early 1930s, and charts how the Boswells permeated the cultural, racial, and gender boundaries implicit in both blackness and southernness as they developed their collective musical voice.

Considering the aesthetic and social value of music making among Issei, first generation Japanese in California, opens a line of inquiry into how this immigrant population negotiated their cultural and political identities in a nation that racially marginalized them. As an integral aspect of Japanese culture, music was a medium through which Issei leaders chose to claim a cultural space in the United States. Their efforts to establish themselves within the social fabric of mainstream American society reveal the social and political forces that prevented their acceptance and assimilation. Issei responded by showcasing traditional Japanese music to educate white Americans about their revered heritage, singing songs for comfort and familiarity, and encouraging their children to perform Western music as an acculturative strategy. Caught between two nations, Issei emerged with alternative identities that ultimately failed due to the racist ideology governing American citizenship.