Language
English (en)
Date of Award
Spring 3-28-2025
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (A.B.)
Restricted/Unrestricted
Unrestricted
Abstract
As a form of regional hip-hop, Bounce music operates as an expressive culture native to New Orleans with generational lineages of artists. Black sonicism is a regionally and digitally-sensitive theoretical framework that seeks to conceptualize how Black soundmakers and their audiences create a dialogic relationship through three components: responsive participation, spatial relatability, and expressed ratchetry. I catalog each of these components through three audience formations—origin, scope, and reception—to understand the tensions between Black music, regional identity, and technology. From this project, I propose a theoretical development to consider how Black artists continually pass down communal histories through their music while negotiating political and digital dynamics.
Mentor
Zachary Manditch-Prottas
Additional Advisors
Lauren Eldridge-Stewart, Christopher Dingwall
Recommended Citation
Clay, Leandrea L., "Black Sonicism: Cultural Maintenance and Evolution through New Orleans Bounce Music" (2025). Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses. 68.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/undergrad_etd/68