Toni Morrison’s A Mercy grapples with maternal responsibilities and the simultaneous  value and presumed danger of female independence. As the two “unmastered” women watch Rebekka run to her husband Jacob for comfort, Lina tells Florens, “We never shape the world…The world shapes us” (Morrison 83). Yet, at the climax of A Mercy, we witness the […]

From the first moody guitar strums of “Blue Vein,” I was completely charmed by the world of Lael Neale’s latest album, Acquainted with Night. The magic word with Neale is roots; the singer-songwriter hails from rural Virginia, a clear deduction based on her uncomplicated, folk musical textures and honey vocals. On the aforementioned album opener, […]

Within the past three years, the members of indie hip-hop collective Brockhampton have cemented themselves as trailblazers of dissolving genre barriers and relating to their audience on a profoundly human level. While the musical act has not yet been properly examined under the lens of academic popular music criticism, I strive to explore the ascent, […]

As the sole woman throughout the majority of the play, Rose Maxson is August Wilson’s main character of Fences to represent the struggles of African American women.

…I relisten to this album with a greater depth of understanding and appreciation for the rhetorical ability of Winehouse to convey and connect these particular situations of romance and pain to a vast audience she could have never anticipated.

Woodstock sowed its roots in intentional festival fashion as a force of individuality against corporatism; but as music festivals have expanded into and engaged with the material cultures of both music and fashion on a more capitalist level, the three components of Woodstock’s fashion and the three festivals focused upon in this essay have lent […]

Referring to police brutality, gender and racial inequity, and most decidedly, the shortcomings of capitalism, The Coup aims to stir up an unforgettable, political earworm for listeners to act out against these intersecting societal injustices.

As Southern hip hop rose to popularity nationwide, it refused to simply concede to the overbearing assumptions of non-Southern listeners who attempted to consider all Southern rap as a single genre.