Black Mountain Songs

Abstract

The article uses sound—specifically Black music, traces of Mvskoke Creek ceremonial music, and sound waves generated millions of years ago during the orogeny that produced the mountains in the region—to reorient the author to her mountain climb up the infamous Stone Mountain (Georgia, USA). The author takes up the listening practices informed by Dylan Robinson’s and Katherine McKittrick’s refusal in Hungry Listening (2020) and Dear Science and Other Stories (2021) to capture, know, or make Black and Indigenous sound immediately legible, knowable, and recognizable. Meditating on sound produced by (and on/in) mountains—with wonder—I offer a critical listening and imagining practice that accesses different temporalities, rethinks embodiment, and examines investments in walking as knowing. Moving with sound in this article, Black liberation and Indigenous resurgence (including Land Back) are experienced through geologic time, vibration, and soundwaves.