"Engendering funky futures: LaBelle, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Janelle Monae" was the topic of Dr. Francesca Royster's keynote address at the annual Engendering Change Chicago area graduate student conference April 4 at Northwestern University.
Royster's recent book, Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era, analyzed and theorized pop-musical performances through the lens of gendered, radicalized and sexual transgression, and provided the basis for her address.
After words of welcome by Nick Davis, director of graduate studies in gender and sexuality studies at Northwestern University, and an introduction by Northwestern graduate student and event co-chair Elias Krell, Royster, a professor of English at DePaul University, told the approximately 30 people gathered about her recent work surrounding post-soul eccentric performances in music.
Royster noted that her interest lies in "performances that are queerly future-looking in their imagination of gender, along with other forms of embodiment, including race, sexuality and age." Royster shared that in her research she "considered the ways that music can engender change, challenge notions of Black embodiment, respectability and uplift signified by the civil rights movement, and by its accompanying aesthetic of soul."
Post-soul eccentricity was forged from the fires of soul, Royster explained. "Soul privileges and polices heterosexuality and masculinity, and it reflects a Christian influence at its base ... In post-soul eccentricity, transformation and alteration become a way of reclaiming bodies that are the sites of racial and sexual conflict and violence by changing them physically and sometimes permanently, through technological manipulation," said Royster.
To illustrate this Royster spoke about the ways that LaBelle, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Janelle Monae utilized their voices and bodies in their performances to convey that they sat outside of what many people consider the norm. She also shared background information on each artist and how they revised the notion of sexuality and gender.
Royster explained that Patti LaBelle consciously used the term drag when describing her clothing choices and called herself the original drag queen.
The themes tackled in Ndegeocello's lyrics include homophobia in the Black community, violence and terror on a global scale, and the politics of bisexuality, Royster noted. "Ndegeocello has described herself in fluid gender and sexual terms; as bisexual, as lesbian, and as 'a femme in a butch body'," said Royster.
"Monae created the character Cindi Mayweather, the sometimes androgynous android heroine and muse to showcase her music," said Royster. Royster noted that Monae has been called an eccentric. "Her eccentricity is both an aesthetic and a tactic ... Eccentric musical performance depends on a queered relationship between body and sound, one that through the heightened state of performance opens up boundaries and produces a state of vulnerability and change that can approach the ecstatic," said Royster.
Royster also incorporated video examples of LaBelle's ( "Lady Marmalade" performance on Soul Train ), Meshell Ndegeocello's ( The Sloganer: Paradise music video ) and Janelle Monae's ( "Tightrope" music video ) work to illustrate how each artist embodied post-soul eccentricity.
Following Royster's address, Shoniqua Roach, Northwestern graduate student and event co-organizer, introduced Dr. Alex Weheliye, associate professor of African-American studies at Northwestern University, who provided the keynote response.
In his remarks, Weheliye focused on three points; the specificity of funk as a genre for the articulation of Black queer sounds and images, the periodization of post-soul, and the tension between embodiment and flight.
"Royster, in contrast to other funk scholars, gives us a model of Black-queer way of listening to the wonderful eccentricities of recent Black pop music that avoids some of the pitfalls of this recent scholarly canonization," said Weyeliye.
Weheliye noted that Royster discussed Eartha Kitt in her book, however, he wondered about earlier eccentrics that weren't mentioned such as Billie Holiday, Alice Coltrane, Big Mama Thornton, Josephine Baker, Zora Neale Hurston, Gladys Bentley, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, and James Baldwin. "How were these artists also 'queerly future-looking in their imagination of gender' and Blackness'," said Weheliye.
As for embodiment, Weheliye asked, "What about recent explicitly queer-identified performers such as Angel Haze, Le1f, Zebra Katz, Azealia Banks and Frank Ocean? Does this necessitate a rethinking of this Blackqueerly future-looking funky transcendence?"
A Q&A and reception took place following Royster's and Weheliye's remarks.
