Berkeley Undergraduate Journal

This research thesis examines how Black musical cultures serve as an emotional and emancipatory pedagogy, creating the foundation of American music through shared restorative power in times of distress. Acknowledging the importance of music in meaning-making and educating, this thesis utilizes Sara Ahmed’s (2014) “sociality of emotions” and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s (2019) “racialized emotions” to contextualize how emotion in the music industry can significantly influence Americans’ values. Further, I apply these methodologies to understand marginalized communities’ use of music as a tool of resistance and expression to challenge the violence of White supremacy. Through textual analysis and interviews, this research intends to answer, how have Black musical producers utilized the emotionality of music to encode the notion of freedom, moving people from suffering racial discrimination to counting on a promising future? Research findings include insights from participants from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. I connect the emotionality of Black musical cultures to the multicultural realities of the American experience, defining the concept of American music as Black and multicultural.