Episode Summary

Dr. Cornel West and Professor Tricia Rose unravel the Black pain of the present in the context of the tremendous legacy of African American creativity and music, in this special extended version of Office Hours. They connect Black musical tradition to the current political moment and pay special homage to Prince and his iconic “Purple Rain.” Discover how you can transform this current moment in this important episode of The Tight Rope. 

 

Cornel West

Dr. Cornel West is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University. A prominent democratic intellectual, social critic, and political activist, West also serves as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. West has authored 20 books and edited 13. Most known for Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, West appears frequently on the Bill Maher Show, CNN, C-Span, and Democracy Now. West has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films, including Examined Life, and is the creator of three spoken word albums including Never Forget, featuring Prince. West brings his focus on the role of race, gender, and class in American society to The Tight Rope podcast. 

 

Tricia Rose

Professor Tricia Rose is Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. She also holds the Chancellor’s Professorship of Africana Studies and serves as the Associate Dean of the Faculty for Special Initiatives. A graduate of Yale (B.A.) and Brown University (Ph.D), Rose authored Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994), Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality and Intimacy (2003), and The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop and Why It Matters (2008). She also sits on the Boards of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Color of Change, and Black Girls Rock, Inc. Focusing on issues relating to race in America, mass media, structural inequality, popular culture, gender and sexuality and art and social justice, Rose engages widely in scholarly and popular audience settings, and now also on The Tight Rope podcast.  

 

Insight from this episode:

Recollections of Dr. Cornel West’s first impressions of and ensuing friendship with Prince. 

Reasons why Black music is important and the role it plays in social activism. 

Strategies on generating a new sound for the current moment, extending and elaborating on the Black American musical tradition.

How to leverage the current “tipping point” as a catalyst for lasting social movement. 

Details on the need for creative, interactive spaces for BIPOC.

Strategies on utilizing technology to create impact and effective change.

 

Quotes from the show:

On the Black musical tradition and its relationship to historical trauma and suffering: “To look unflinchingly at all the hurt and the pain and yet still dish out the compassion and creativity, the style and smile-- that’s the great gift to America.” –Cornel West The Tight Rope Episode #2

“Any time you lyrically express a catastrophe, the catastrophe does not have the last word.” –Cornel West The Tight Rope Episode #2

“Music touches the hopeless, and it can heal, sustain, equip, fortify… Once you get oppressed folk fortified, woo, Lord, that’s like Sly Stone’s “Stand!”” –Cornel West The Tight Rope Episode #2

“Part of the contemporary spiritual war against young folk, especially young Black folk, is to get them to consent to a capitalist economy that’s shot through with wealth inequality. You get them to consent to a militarized nation state that will contain them or incarcerate them if they step out of line. But also you get them to consent to a commodified culture so that they’re distracted into things that are superficial: status and spectacle.” –Cornel West The Tight Rope Episode #2

“[C]apitalism and neoliberalism have destroyed local