"This Is America": Race, Gender, and Politics in America's Musical Landscape

Katie Rios argues that prominent American artists and musicians build encoded gestures of resistance into their works and challenge the status quo, using Childish Gambinos video for "This Is America" as a starting point. She explores how elements such as clothing, hairstyles, body movements, gaze, lighting effects, distortion, and word play symbolize American dissonance and how artists relate to and represent underrepresented groups, especially those not traditionally perceived as having a majority voice.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 196 pages
Publication date: 15 March 2023
Publisher: Lexington Books

Katie Rios' book "This Is America: Race, Gender, and Politics in America's Musical Landscape" explores how prominent American artists and musicians use encoded gestures of resistance in their works to challenge the status quo. She uses Childish Gambino's video for "This Is America" as a starting point and examines how elements such as clothing, hairstyles, body movements, gaze, lighting effects, distortion, and word play symbolize American dissonance. Rios highlights the ways in which artists relate to and represent underrepresented groups, particularly those that are not traditionally perceived as having a majority voice. The encoded resistances recur across performances and video recordings, becoming recognizable as repeated acts of resistance directed at injustices based on various categories, including race, gender, class, religion, and politics.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781793619181