Get Ready.
Well kids, get the toilet-tissue out, cuz next week the shit hits the fan. For a couple of years now I’ve sat back from a distance and read, heard, and gossiped about what goes on the Experience Music Project Conference, an annual favorite among my colleagues.
Now see, lil’ Frankie Leon Roberts doesn’t engage music, so heretofore he's never presented at the conference. But I’ve always loved the infectious paper titles that seem to emerge at this conference. This year is no different.
And the performance studies kids are in the house. Two of my mentors, the incomparable Daphne Brooks and Tavia Nyong’o are each giving fascinating talks, as is Jason King, Alexandra Vasquez, and a few other folks that are “products” of the department of performance studies at NYU.
Interested in the relationship between performativity and blackness? Between Amy Winehouse and blackface minstrelsy? Between ethics and embodiment? There’s something for everyone.
Check it out—if only from a distance.
Performance Studies Presenters at this year's EMP Conference: A Mix Tape
Daphne Brooks On Amy Winehouse, Mamie Smith and racial masquerade
Tavia Nyong’o On what he calls "musical miscegenation"
Alexandra Vasquez On the ethics of criticism, embodiment, and Latinidad
Jason King On black pop in the age of myspace, youtube, and blogging.
Jalylah Burrell on African American colorisms and Kyra Gaunt on hip hop and black transnationalisms.
Yes, yes ya'll, to the beat ya'll.
