Item Details

‘She don’t need no help’: deconsolidating gender, sex and sexuality in New Orleans bounce music

Issue: Vol 12 No. 3 (2018)

Journal: Gender and Language

Subject Areas: Gender Studies Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/genl.32522

Abstract:

New Orleans bounce music is a dance-oriented hip-hop form that has emerged as a notably non-normative genre, in which queer Black bounce artists destabilise binary cultural paradigms and emphasise queerness as inclusive and relational. We explore how five artists' lyrics and public personae actively refute the consolidated, naturalised nexus of gender, sex, and sexuality by disentangling each of the three strands from one another. In order to explore how this is accomplished, we created a corpus of bounce lyrics. We analysed lexical indices of gender; self-positioning as feminine subjects; sexual subject-object positioning; normalisation of sex between men; retention of masculine subjectivities; and rejection of gender binarism. Further, the artists repeatedly expose the ubiquitous nature of sex between men in their lyrics, working to assert its existence and normalcy in the popular imagination. The bounce artists we analyse expose and articulate forms of deviance, expressing a blackness and queerness that insists on making visible the humanity and sexuality of Black people and queer people. Bounce music, made by queer people of colour, for an audience of predominantly poor, heterosexual women of colour, is a communitarian cultural labour.

Author: Christina Schoux Casey, Maeve Eberhardt

View Original Web Page

References :

Allen, J. (2012) Black/queer/diaspora at the current conjuncture. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 18(2–3): 211–48. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-1472872

Bersani, L. (1987) Is the rectum a grave? October 43(Winter) 197–222.

Blackwood, E. (2014) Language and non-normative gender and sexuality in Indonesia. In L. Zimman, J. Davis and J. Raclaw (eds) Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality 81–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Borba, R. and Ostermann, A.C. (2007) Do bodies matter? Travestis’ embodiment of (trans)gender identity through the manipulation of the Brazilian Portuguese grammatical gender system. Gender and Language 1(1): 131–47. of the Brazilian Portuguese grammatical gender system. Gender and Language 1(1): 131–47. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.2007.1.1.131

Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005) Identity and interaction: a sociocultural approach. Discourse Studies 7: 585–614. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445605054407

Bunzl, M. (2000) Inverted appellation and discursive gender insubordination: an Austrian case study in gay male conversation. Discourse and Society 11: 207–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926500011002004

Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.

Byrd, A. (2016) Claiming Jezebel: Black female subjectivity and sexual expression in hip-hop. In J. Ward (ed.) The Fire this Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race 248–56. New York: Scribner.

Carby, H. V. (1992) Policing the Black woman’s body in an urban context. Critical Inquiry 18: 738–55. https://doi.org/10.1086/448654

Carlin, S. (2014) Interview: Big Freedia is the Queen of Bounce in New Orleans and beyond. Retrieved from http://radio.com/2014/06/17/interview-big-freedia-is-the-queen-of-bounce-new-orleans.

Cohen, C. (1997) Punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens: the radical potential of queer politics? GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 3(4): 437–65.

Combahee River Collective Statement (1977) Combahee River Collective Statement. Retrieved from http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html.

Costa Vargas, J. H. (2010) Never Meant to Survive: Genocide and Utopias in Black Diaspora Communities. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Davis, J., Zimman, L. and Raclaw, J. (2014) Opposites attract: theorizing binarity in sociocultural linguistics. In L. Zimman, J. Davis and J. Raclaw (eds) Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality 1–12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dee, J. (2010) Sissy Bounce, New Orleans’s gender-bending rap. The New York Times (25 July). Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25bounce-t.html.

Dyson, M. E. (2007) Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop. New York: Basic Civitas Books.

Foucault, M. (1982) The subject and power. Critical Inquiry 8: 777–95. https://doi.org/10.1086/448181

Gallagher, N. (2013) The Queen of Bounce shakes on into KC. Retrieved from www.thepitchkc.com/arts-entertainment/music/article/20566288/the-queen-of-bounce-shakes-on-into-kc.

Gaudio, R. (1997) Not talking straight in Hausa. In A. Livia and K. Hall (eds) Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality 642–62. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gaudio, R. (2014) Acting like women, acted upon: gender and agency in Hausa sexual narratives. In L. Zimman, J. Davis and J. Raclaw (eds) Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality 170–94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199937295.003.0009

Goodwin, M. (2006) The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status, and Exclusion. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470773567

Greco, L. (2012) Production, circulation and deconstruction of gender norms in LGBTQ speech practices. Discourse Studies 14: 567–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445612452229

Hall, K. (2005) Intertextual sexuality: parodies of class, identity, and desire in liminal Delhi. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15: 125–44.

Hall, K. and O’Donovan, V. (1996) Shifting gender positions among Hindi-speaking Hijras. In V. Bergvall, J. Bing, and A. Freed (eds) Rethinking Language and Gender Research: Theory and Practice 228–66. London: Longman. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2005.15.1.125

Henriques, J. (2010) The vibrations of affect and their propagation on a night out in Kingston’s dancehall scene. Body and Society 16: 57–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X09354768

Hill, M. L. (2009) Scared straight: hip-hop, outing, and the pedagogy of queerness. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 31: 29–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714410802629235

Hill Collins, P. (2006) Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge.

hooks, b. (1992). Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston, MA: South End Press.

Irvine, J. and Gal, S. (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

Jagose, A. (1996) Queer Theory. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Johnson, E. P. (2008) Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina University Press.

Keyes, C. (2000) Empowering self, making choices, creating spaces: Black female identity via rap music performance. Journal of American Folklore 113: 255–69. https://doi.org/10.2307/542102

Kish, Z. (2009) ‘My FEMA people’: hip-hop as disaster recovery in the Katrina diaspora. American Quarterly 61: 671–92.

Kotz, L. (1992) The body you want: Liz Kotz interviews Judith Butler. Artforum 31 (November): 82–9.

Kulick, D. (1997) The gender of Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. American Anthropologist 99: 574–85. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1997.99.3.574

Kulick, D. (1998) Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226461014.001.0001

Lamble, S. (2008) Retelling racialized violence, remaking White innocence: the politics of interlocking oppressions in transgender day of remembrance. Sexual Research and Social Policy 5: 24–42. https://doi.org/10.1525/srsp.2008.5.1.24

Livermon, X. (2012) Queer(y)ing freedom: Black queer visibilities in postapartheid South Africa. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 18(2–3): 297–323. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-1472908

Livia, A. (1997) Disloyal to masculinity: linguistic gender and liminal identity in French. In A. Livia and K. Hall (eds) Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality 349–68. New York: Oxford University Press.

Livia, A. (2000) Pronoun Envy: Literary Uses of Linguistic Gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Livia, A. and Hall, K. (eds) (1997) Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press.

Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007) On the coloniality of being. Cultural Studies 21: 240–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548

Mikdashi, M. and Puar, J. K. (2016) Queer theory and permanent war. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 22(2): 215–22. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-3428747

Milani, T. (2013) Are ‘queers’ really ‘queer’? Language, identity, and same-sex desire in a South African online community. Discourse and Society 24: 615–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926513486168

Miller, M. (2012) Bounce: Rap Music and Local Identity in New Orleans. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Miller-Young, M. (2008) Hip-hop honeys and da Hustlaz: Black sexualities in the new hip-hop pornography. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 8(1): 261–92. https://doi.org/10.2979/MER.2008.8.1.261

Motschenbacher, H. (2013) Now everybody can wear a skirt’: linguistic constructions of non-heteronormativity at Eurovision Song Contest press conferences. Discourse and Society 24: 590–614. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926513486167

Muñoz, J. E. (2007) Cruising the toilet: LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, radical Black traditions, and queer futurity. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 13(2–3): 353–67.

Ochs, E. (1992) Indexing gender. In A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon 335–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oware, M. (2009) A ‘man’s woman’? Contradictory messages in the songs of female rappers, 1992–2000. Journal of Black Studies 39: 786–802. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934707302454

Patel, P. (2013). Bouncing back: the street kings (and queens) of New Orleans. Retrieved from http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/138-bouncing-back-the-street-kings-and-queens-of-
new-orleans.

Penney, J. (2012) ‘We don’t wear tight clothes’: gay panic and queer style in contemporary hip-hop. Popular Music and Society 35: 321–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2011.578517

Pennycook, A. (2007) Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. London: Routledge.

Pérez, E. (2015) The ontology of twerk: from ‘sexy’ Black movement style to Afro-Diasporic sacred dance. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal 9: 16–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/17528631.2015.1055650

Phillips, L. and Stewart, M. (2009) Nontraditional, nonconforming, and transgressive gender expression and relationship modalities in Black communities. In J. Battle and S. L. Barnes (eds) Black Sexualities: Probing Powers, Passions, Practices, and Policies 17–36. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Polly, J. (2011) Exclusive video interview: Big Freedia is ‘the Oprah of bounce!’ Can your booty handle it? LOGO News. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/freedia-05-2011.

Pough, G. (2007) What it do, Shorty? Women, hip hop and a feminist agenda. Black Women, Gender, and Families 1: 78–99.

Rose, T. (1994) Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

Rose, T. (2008) The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk about When We Talk about Hip Hop – and Why it Matters. New York: Basic Civitas Books.

Saucier, P. K. and Woods, T. P. (2014) Hip hop studies in Black. Journal of Popular Music Studies 26: 268–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpms.12077

Sexton, J. (2008) Amalgamation Schemes: Antiblackness and the Critique of Multiracialism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Smith, M. R. (2014) ‘Or a real, real bad lesbian’: Nicki Minaj and the acknowledgement of queer desire in hip-hop culture. Popular Music and Society 37: 360–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2013.800680

Spears, A. (2009) Theorizing African American women’s language: GIRL as a discourse marker. In S. Lanehart (ed.) African American Women’s Language: Discourse, Education, and Identity 76–90. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Troutman, D. (2001) African American women: talking that talk. In S. Lanehart (ed.) Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English 211–38. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g27.14tro

Wagner, B. (2009) Disturbing the Peace: Black Culture and the Police Power after Slavery. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674054769

White, E. ([1980]2000) The political vocabulary of homosexuality. In L. Burke, T. Crowley and A. Girvin (eds) The Routledge Language and Cultural Theory Reader 189–96. London: Routledge.

Whiteis, D. (2013). Southern Soul-Blues. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Wong, A., Roberts, S., and Campbell-Kibler, K. (2002) Speaking of sex. In K. Campbell-Kibler, R. Podesva, S. Roberts and A. Wong (eds) Language and Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and Practice 1–22. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.