From Gospel to Gates: Modal Blending in African-American Musical Discourse before the Signifyin(g) Monkey

Christopher Coady

doi:10.5130/portal.v8i1.1938

Abstract

Despite its origins in the literary realm, Henry Louis Gates The Signfiyin(g) Monkey: A Theory of African-American literary criticism has become a standard methodological text for the study of African-American music. Those who embrace the theory accept as the foundation of their argument an apparent link between African-American linguistic and musical realms. This short paper locates the origin of this type of modal blending in research into the rhetorical practices of Gospel services in the United States during the early 1970s. It posits that this body of work established a consensus in the field of Cultural Studies over the affinity of linguistic/musical practices in African-American culture and demonstrates that this understanding was used to justify the application of Gates theory to musical analysis in the 1990s. The ubiquity of Gates theory in the study of African-American music today is therefore shown to be the result of interdisciplinary collaboration rather than the legacy of any one particular individual.

Highlights

The 1988 publication of Henry Louis Gates’s The Signifyin(g) Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism provided a new analytical tool for the study of African-American music
The African-American permutation of Esu appears in contrast as an overarching narrative voice
Gates holds that: Esu’s functional equivalent in Afro-American profane discourse is the Signifying Monkey, a figure who seems to be distinctly Afro-American, probably derived from Cuban mythology, which generally depicts Echu-Elegua with a monkey at his side

Summary

Introduction

The 1988 publication of Henry Louis Gates’s The Signifyin(g) Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism provided a new analytical tool for the study of African-American music. The monkey commits his second act of misrepresentation, convincing the lion to let him go with the promise of relaying a secret he ‘really need[s] to know.’ The secret ends up being to the lion’s detriment: ‘If you fool with me, I’ll sic the elephant on you again!’ The use of this rhetorical strategy drives the action of the text, it demonstrates the potential for ambivalent speech to serve as a strategic device in the subversion of established power structures.

Results

Conclusion