James Brown Research Articles

Rhythm as a Counter-cultural Political Instrument of Empowerment in James Brown’s ‘Say it Loud, I‘m Black and I’m Proud’

Rhythm as a Counter-cultural Political Instrument of Empowerment in James Brown’s ‘Say it Loud, I‘m Black and I’m Proud’

Jazz music: From black pride to political consciousness to social change in the United States

African Americans have been marginalised, discriminated against, and excluded from American society for centuries. First as slaves, but later when they gained emancipation, they remained relegated, differentiated, and discounted, in a range of areas, including in the political and economic spheres. Music has been a means to promote their greater inclusion in American society, drawing together and uniting all Americans through its power. While there have been links drawn between music and the African American struggle for equality, there has not been sufficient focus on the pivotal role that specifically jazz music has played in this regard. Jazz particularly has been a vehicle for promoting Black pride, political consciousness, and social change. This article argues that jazz has had a major effect on African American culture, society, and experience. Analysing the works of legendary jazz musicians James Brown, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, and The Temptations, this article shows that jazz is not only as a catalyst for, but a driving force in, the fight for political freedom, as well as for economic empowerment, which is arguably still ongoing today.

The Effect of Sexual Health Empowerment on the Sexual Function of Pregnant Women: An Intervention Based on the James Brown Model

Background and Objectives Pregnancy is associated with many physical and mental changes. These changes can lead to sexual dysfunction. Targeted and appropriate training can be effective in reducing this disorder. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effect of sexual health empowerment based on the James Brown model on the sexual function of pregnant women. Subjects and Methods This study was a randomized controlled field trial conducted on 68 pregnant women referring to health centers in 2018. The women were placed in intervention and control groups. The intervention group attended 4 training sessions based on the James Brown model. Evaluation of sexual function before, two weeks and one month after the intervention was done with the FSFI tool. Data analysis was done in SPSS software (version 20), using independent t-tests, paired t-tests, analysis of variance, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney and Friedman, chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. P values of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results Before the intervention, the mean and standard deviation of the sexual function score of pregnant women in the two groups were homogeneous based on independent t-test (P=0.081). Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference (p < 0.001) in total sexual function scores between the intervention and control groups at both two weeks and one month post-intervention. Conclusion Sexual health education based on the James Brown model has a positive effect on the sexual function of pregnant women. Therefore, by training based on this model, it is possible to increase awareness and then improve the sexual function of pregnant women.

Rhythm as a Counter-cultural Political Instrument of Empowerment in James Brown’s ‘Say it Loud, I‘m Black and I’m Proud’

Rhythm as a Counter-cultural Political Instrument of Empowerment in James Brown’s ‘Say it Loud, I‘m Black and I’m Proud’

The Curious Case of the James Brown Estate

The Curious Case of the James Brown Estate

Vanishing Point: Chadwick Boseman’s Body and the Still Image

The desire to read Chadwick Boseman’s body of work in a traditionally representational way is already complicated—in an interview with The Atlantic, Spike Lee describes his casting choice of Boseman in Da 5 Bloods: “Here’s the thing for me. This character is heroic; he’s a superhero. Who do we cast? We cast Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and we cast T’Challa. Chad is a superhero! That character is Christlike!” The conflation of Boseman’s body with these iconic figures moves beyond simply reading the image as representational specifically beside analysis of temporality. Lee’s film was released streaming in June of 2020, the same month that saw significant numbers of protesters supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, four months into a national response to a pandemic, and three and a half years into what felt like a never-ending presidential term. The narrative of the film takes this into account; it acknowledges the Black Lives Matter Movement and slides a notable side-eye to the Trump presidency. The film is timely, cutting, and grounded contextually in the here and now and significant for what it discloses, however, this paper is focused on how the still images which ground the film complicate the possibility of any full disclosure, and any clear, uncomplicated representation due to a collapse, leverage, and slippage of time. The question at the center of this analysis is: under what temporal circumstances does Boseman’s body have a chance in its ability to live up to (or perhaps trouble) over-representation? What must happen to give the body voice? This paper relies heavily on aesthetic interventions into race and visuality as posed by Alessandra Raengo, Grant Farred, and Fred Moten as well as the discussions of indexicality put forth first by Roland Barthes and deconstructed by Shawn Michelle Smith.

Rule of Law Without International Courts

Abstract In commenting on the roles of Elihu Root and James Brown Scott in the founding of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), former International Court of Justice (ICJ) President Abdulqawi Yusuf stated “there can be no [international] rule of law without a court to apply it.” The American Society of International Law (ASIL)’s International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group recently hosted a symposium event to probe this statement. Without rehashing the voluminous scholarship on the international rule of law, this introduction to the symposium will explore specifically whether a court such as the ICJ or the PCIJ is a prerequisite to an international rule of law. The international court system as currently formulated plainly does not meet the requirements for the rule of law as often defined for domestic systems. Unless we are prepared to accept that there is no international rule of law, or only a partial or developing rule of law, this means that there must be an alternative definition of “rule of law” for international relations, which does not consider international courts as a prerequisite to rule of law in all circumstances, and highlights other enforcement mechanisms and arbitration. Accepting this point does not diminish the important role of international courts in the application of international law but does serve to emphasize how other mechanisms fill important rule-of-law gaps left by international courts. Each of the articles that follow this introduction addresses these mechanisms – including administrative bodies, sanctions, investigative mechanisms, and ad hoc arbitration – and how each mechanism interacts with the international court system.

James H. (Jim) Sidanius (1945-2021).

Memorializes Jim Sidanius (née James Brown [1945-2021]), one of the the foremost social and political psychologists of his generation. His theory of social dominance redefined the scientific study of intergroup relations, advancing novel hypotheses regarding the causes and consequences of intergroup conflict and inequality by integrating insights across the social and biological sciences. Jim's theoretical insights were matched only by his empirical prowess; he was a master at analyzing large data sets with advanced statistical methods, methods that he taught to hundreds of doctoral students over the years in his notoriously challenging but rewarding graduate statistics courses at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Harvard. Beyond his teaching of statistics and advanced topics in social psychology and African American studies, Jim mentored dozens of aspiring intergroup relations scholars over a 44-year career. As one of few Black social psychologists, he served as a role model for young Black scholars in particular. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

펑크 리듬의 발생과 발전 그리고 응용 방법 연구 - 펑크 리듬과 아프로 큐반 리듬의 구조적 연관성 분석을 중심으로 -

Funk rhythm was created and developed by James Brown and his bands in 1965, and applied and fused Latin music rhythms influenced by African Americans to American popular music. This thesis studied the relationship between funk rhythm and African rhythm, which had a great influence on the rhythm of popular music, from a structural point of view. The purpose of this study is to systematically analyze the generation and development of funk rhythm, which has a great influence on the rhythm of popular music, and to present the principles of rhythm application and fusion method. The research method was analyzed by comparing the rhythm structure of Latin music with the funk rhythm established after the release of James Brown's album in 1965, which is called the revolution of popular music rhythm, and the method of creating and applying the rhythm of popular music was studied. As a result of the study, a correlation could be found between the clave, the central rhythm of Latin, and the drum rhythm used in popular music. Finally, if this method is used, the possibility of creating a new popular music rhythm by applying many traditional rhythms is suggested.

Francisco de Vitoria and the (geo)politics of canonization in Spain/America

AbstractWhile the founder of international law was long considered to be Hugo Grotius, attempts were made in the late 1920s and early 1930s to dethrone him in favour of the Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria. This took place as the professionalization of the field of international law was reaching its golden age both in Europe and the Americas. Leading this case were the prominent US jurist James Brown Scott, one of the founders of the American Society of International Law, and the Spanish jurist Camilo Barcia Trelles. But why did they decide to revive Vitoria then, and why would they couch him specifically as the founder of international law? This article focuses on the intellectual history of the canonization of Vitoria in the context of the formation and consolidation of a continental Pan-American ideal and network of American international law in the Americas. Particular attention is paid to the American Institute of International Law, presided by Scott, and the formation of a Spanish Americanist cultural tradition in Spain. The latter deeply influenced Barcia, who developed a profound interest in Latin American questions, notably around the Monroe Doctrine. The article argues that these geopolitical Pan-American and Spanish-Americanist anxieties of re-unifying the Americas and Spain/America strongly influenced the depiction of Vitoria as a new founding father of international law and allowed Scott and Barcia to elevate themselves as Vitoria’s heirs.

Music for Counting Votes

Music for Counting Votes

The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War

The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War

Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk by David Menconi

Reviewed by: Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk by David Menconi Dan Cady Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk. By David Menconi. ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. xiv, 314. $30.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-5935-0.) In Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk, David Menconi delivers a series of profiles of musicians and movers and shakers, from the famous to the obscure, from North Carolina. He details each artist's origin, work ethic, good and bad luck, and ultimate contribution to the state's musical past. Menconi sees his work as a corrective to American music's standard regional narrative, which he believes privileges the Mississippi Delta, Nashville, and Seattle (in their respective moments) at the expense of Durham, Winston-Salem, and Chapel Hill. He argues that music created by residents of North Carolina's cities and small towns is "embedded in the DNA of some of the most important strands in American popular music" (p. 8). Beginning with the hardscrabble rambling of North Carolina's blues artists and hillbilly musicians, Menconi winds a path through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Along the way, he advocates for the overlooked men and women who brought the world country music, R&B, classic rock, grunge, [End Page 206] hip-hop, and an underappreciated form called beach music. For example, according to Menconi, Charlie Poole should have been Jimmie Rodgers; Blind Boy Fuller's bad luck kept him from the acclaim afforded to Robert Johnson; and while we recognize the genius of James Brown, we have wholly forgotten the 5 Royales. The same is true with the post-1960s rockers Nantucket, pop alternative band Let's Active, and the genre-averse Squirrel Nut Zippers. While the could-have-beens fill most of the book's pages, there are bona fide successes. Small record labels make their mark, and country-guitar player Arthur Smith commanded the airwaves and television sets. Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs continue to be valorized by fans and critics alike, and the Avett Brothers still attract fans worldwide. Yet as popular and influential as these figures have remained, they are rarely associated with North Carolina itself. Even in triumph, North Carolina's claim to prominence goes unrecognized. Menconi habitually lists album sales and placement on the Billboard charts as measures of relevance and indicators of failure. His real interest, however, is in the qualitative, not the quantitative. North Carolina's artists, he argues, share a couple of common traits: humility and determination. Perhaps it is the roots of their collective raising, but the state's musicians have traditionally contained their egos, shied away from believing their own press, and focused their energies on rigorous touring, long studio sessions, and humble approachability. This understated disposition and lack of grandiosity, in turn, has kept North Carolina's musicians from placing their state in the spotlight—hence the state's musical invisibility. In a book of unsung heroes, Menconi saves some room for disdain. As a music journalist, he intimately knows the nature of the music industry. The business of entertaining the masses is cold and unforgiving. For the earlier artists, the machinations of the nascent entertainment industry left many musicians with little to show for their all-consuming efforts. Later, major record labels that grew to behemoth strength by the late twentieth century mined young artists, profited from their labor, and discarded them at the first sign of a sales decline. Menconi also has little respect for artists like Ryan Adams, who came out of North Carolina but rejected the state as his fame grew. This is not—and is not intended to be—an academic work. Though based on dozens of interviews and deep research, the book has no citations and only a limited bibliography. Step It Up and Go may be one of the few books on the...

The Poetry of Pop by Adam Bradley

Reviewed by: The Poetry of Pop by Adam Bradley Eldonna L. May The Poetry of Pop. By Adam Bradley. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. [414 p. ISBN 9780300165029 (hardcover), $28; ISBN 97800300248326 (paperback), $22; ISBN 97800300165722 (e-book), price varies.] Illustrations, appendix, notes and credits, index. Adam Bradley’s book proposes that pop song lyrics are poetry. Certainly, there is a measure of truth to that statement, and he examines more than one hundred years of diverse popular song to prove it. Nothing is out of bounds in this investigation; Gershwin sidles up to James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Nirvana, Joni Mitchell, and Young Thug. In analyzing popular music, however, it is not always easy to find clear and convincing evidence of the poetic in a steady stream of melisma and fade endings. While I read Bradley’s The Poetry of Pop, the following words of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart came to mind: “In an opera, poetry must necessarily be the obedient daughter of the music” (Letter to Leopold Mozart, 13 October 1781). It also raised the specter of Richard Wagner’s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, and, finally, the thinly veiled wisdom of Aaron Copland’s essay, “How We Listen,” in What to Listen for in Music (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939). Like opera, the lyrics—poetry—of popular music demands our full sensory attention to be properly appreciated; as Mozart pointed out, however, poetry and music must work obediently and gracefully together. This is the thrust of Bradley’s book as he calls the reader’s attention to the little-used concept of poetic analysis in popular music. He makes the case that while listeners focus on the romanticized meaning of popular-song lyrics, they often ignore the finer details of the “libretto” and do not practice “active” or “critical” listening skills when evaluating song lyrics. Instead, they are swept away by the pathos of the words and not the ethos. He keenly observes in discussing Rihanna’s song “Diamonds” that “a poetic act that is also a musical one. One finds an art in equipoise” (p. 13). The book is cogently organized in tripartite fashion, initially consisting of three chapters encompassing the relationship between lyrics and melody; the often-neglected poetic nature of song lyrics and the distinction between lyric and narrative poetry; and the importance of poetic form as it relates to cognition insofar as the language of [End Page 408] literature is concerned. Part 2 focuses on rhythm and rhyme and these components’ relationship to musical accompaniment. In discussing rhythm, Bradley raises the issue of tempo rubato in both poetic and musical phrasing from the classical perspective in juxtaposition with singers Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and Willie Nelson. The thoughtful inclusion of Jerry Wexler’s observation that “the art of gliding over the meter and extending it until you think they’re going to miss the next actual demarcation” (p. 98) serves as an excellent example of the ways in which popular music artists enhance the relationship between words and music through vocal delivery—a device that listeners have both come to expect and take for granted. In this section, too, Bradley enters into a lengthy discussion of both the concept and history of rhyme. His thoughtful commentary concerning the timeline of lyric poetry and its absence in modern literature and song is beneficial to both educators and researchers in teaching and analyzing modern/popular song because it effectively explains the reasons for devices such as slant rhyme as well as the abandonment of rhyme by some songwriters altogether. In this section, Bradley takes us on a detailed songwriter’s journey including Samuel Francis Smith’s “God Save the King” (1832), the Beatles’ “Michelle” (1965), the Hollies’ “Stop, Stop, Stop” (1966), and Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s “Raising Sand” (2007), discussing the relative merits and features of each song, the relationship between rhyme, rhythm, and music, and the artistic equation that led to such successful songs. One of the most interesting chapters in part 2 is devoted to the use of figurative language. This section in particular should be required reading for every vocal-music student because it includes an in-depth discussion of the use...

“A Complete Struggle”: Zion Building and Women Connected to the Mormon Battalion

“A Complete Struggle”: Zion Building and Women Connected to the Mormon Battalion

An Imperfect Legacy

An Imperfect Legacy

Teaching About Police Brutality Through Music

I taught 2nd year high school students at a private girl’s school in Japan about police brutality and the African American experience through songs by four different African American artists: Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, James Brown and Alicia Keys. Other resources utilized in this elective class included the film “The Hate U Give” (2018), interviews and videos on YouTube and an original interview with an African American teacher working at the school. Utilizing music and many other primary sources, this course helped students improve their English, learn about American culture, and reflect on challenging current events. While the topic was linguistically difficult for English language learners, I introduced vocabulary from the songs and other sources, prepared pre-viewing guides, and regularly checked for comprehension through discussion questions and collecting student work. The students seemed to appreciate being able to discuss a difficult, relevant topic, and their vocabulary related to the subject matter steadily improved. Students also seemed to enjoy the materials used to teach the content matter.

The Effect of Training Based on James Brown Model on Self-efficacy in Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Introduction: Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) is one of the most frequent chronic diseases among children and adolescents. Educational strategies underscore patient’s roles in the management of diseases and enhance self-efficacy behaviors. Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an educational intervention based on James Brown’s model on self-efficacy in adolescents with T1DM. Materials and Methods: In this randomized clinical trial, 70 participants were selected and assigned to the control and intervention groups by random block. The two groups received routine care for T1DM. The intervention group was also provided with educational sessions, 60 minutes twice a week for 4 weeks, based on the educational model. The participants completed the diabetes management self-efficacy instrument at the beginning, at the end, and a month after the end of the study. Data analysis was performed using the Chi-square, Independent samples t-test, Covariance (ANCOVA), and repeated measures ANOVA. Results: The mean±SD age of the intervention and control groups was 14.81±2.05 and 15.18±2.11 years, respectively. Before the intervention, the two groups were not different statistically in terms of demographic variables (age, sex, duration of diabetes, insulin intake, etc.) and self-efficacy. The results showed that immediately after the intervention and also in the follow-up stage, the mean scores of self-efficacies and its subscales (nutrition, blood glucose monitoring, physical activity, and medical treatment) in the intervention group were significantly higher than the control group (P<0.05). The mean scores of self-efficacies at the beginning, at the end, and a month after the end of the study were 27.97±5.08, 41.46±4.41, and 44.55±4.38, respectively. In the control group, however, these differences were not significant. Conclusion: The education based on James Brown’s model can improve self-efficacy among adolescents with T1DM. It is recommended that nurses use this method to increase self-efficacy in adolescents with T1DM.

The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten

Reviewed by: The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten Timothy Lyle (bio) Harney, Stefano and Fred Moten. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study. New York: Minor Compositions, 2013. 166 pp. ISBN: 978-1-57027-267-7. Paperback. $27.00. After reading Stefano Harney and Fred Moten's collaborative work for a second time, I realized how urgent their invitation to join the undercommons is—how vital it is to reach for an alternative way of being, seeing, and loving one another. Though readers might be familiar with components of their argument by way of their critical article on subversive intellectual practice and the university in Social Text (2004), this more expansive offering introduces new terms, clarifies previous terms, and encourages the redirection and/or dismissal of other terms still in use. Comprised of six unique but interrelated essays and an interview, The Undercommons is a provocative world-making project or, at the very least, a radical reorientation toward love and belonging that has deep ties to a Black radical tradition. Importantly, Harney and Moten do not necessarily initiate this world-making project; rather, they make clear that what we need to get free and to stay free—what we are waiting for—already exists and can be traced back to the "hold" of the ships that crossed the Atlantic with enslaved persons—thus making their "undercommons" inextricable from Blackness itself. In their estimation, the task in front of us is to rethink or to rediscover what we need, where we might find it, and how we might navigate an endless array of apparatuses and institutions that stand in the way. By pulling on a rich radical black tradition—including Frantz Fanon, C.L.R. James, Malcolm X, Édouard Glissant, fugitive enslaved persons, maroons, and even James Brown and Marvin Gaye—Harney and Moten reveal and problematize an increasingly administered world, its politics, and its aesthetics. As they survey various iterations of management in the contemporary moment (from governance to policy and from credit to logistics), they smartly ask about the character of command—of regulation, of fixing—that requires certain modes of existing, ones that often bar us from what we love, from one another, and from other things and senses. In The Undercommons, readers will not find an endorsement of many of the buzzwords that regularly accompany conversations about injustice and liberation: For example, words like restoration, healing (or rehabilitation), uplift, community, self-determination, consciousness, reparations, historical correctives, or even home-building are disrupted and re-routed. For Harney and Moten, the answers cannot involve the aforementioned terms because they all remain saddled by a rehabilitative enterprise; they all signal a movement from something/someone in need of repair to something/someone that has been or should be repaired. Not only do Harney and Moten contest the very diagnostical impulse, but they also expose how the prescription for treatment is neither coincidental nor politically neutral. [End Page 174] In this way, their critique and their alternative-building (life in the undercommons, that is) are inextricably linked to Disability Studies—and Black Disability Studies, particularly—because of its persistent dismantling of knowledge-power that makes bodies mean and that attempts to delimit what bodies can/should do. As they describe the undercommons that they so value, Harney and Moten explain that participation requires us "to look squarely into the fucked-up face of things" and to issue fervent and relentless refusal.1 By refusing what has always already been refused to Black folk, queer folk, Indigenous folk, poor folk, and other similarly marginalized, the undercommons promotes an ethos of "getting lost and staying lost," to borrow from Dreamworks's Madagascar for a moment. (If a reference to an animated film seems like a bizarre or inappropriate reference here, recognize that the undercommons privileges the nonsensical as it seeks new ways to live, to think, and to interact, especially ones that contest perpetual mediation). To live a life of the undercommons, we must learn to live with brokenness, to neglect our debts, and to refuse to repair ourselves. Indeed, we perhaps should go further and abandon any so-called refuge in an identity or a self...

Blackness as Riot Control: Managing Civic Unrest Through Black Appeal Programming and Black Celebrity

During the uprising that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, black hip-hop artist Killer Mike appeared on television to ask that people remain nonviolent and in their homes. Similar events took place years earlier. James Brown performed a live concert on WGBH to keep Boston peaceful following Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968. During the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, both The Cosby Show and The Arsenio Hall Show were used to similar ends. These examples demonstrate the ways in which television has activated black identity to quell certain forms of civil rights protest and implicate televisual discourses of liveness, domesticity, and public service.