Roots, Rhymes, and Rhizomes: an Introduction to Concepts of the Underground in Black Culture

Abstract

The Black underground is a rhizome, a diffuse root that projects its multifaceted conceptualizations throughout African American culture. It spreads its root-like tentacles through the fabric of history, manifesting at continuous points in reality and in cultural production. In the book, I attempt to trace some of these tentacles, mapping the conceptual pathways left in the wake of certain manifestations of the Black underground as an artistic or political movement, visual culture, an aesthetic quality or a literary trope. In this introduction to the book, I have culled discursive and meta-discursive texts from a variety of media including music, television, literature, and art. The undergirding guide, this book’s patron saint and muse, can be captured in the multitude of meanings assigned to the homological pairing of roots/routes. In this pairing, the phonological rendering of the word captures its homological masking of underground metaphors. The rhizomorphic qualities of roots/routes are useful introductory symbols to the various concepts of the Black underground. I don’t employ the adjectival form of “rhizome” here to initiate an in-depth analysis of, and/or theoretical engagement with, the works of Deleuze and Guattari.KeywordsUnderground EconomyBlack CultureAfrican American CultureBlack FolkUnderground RailroadThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.