Black Feminist Funk: Funk Women and Black Musical Feminism

Reiland Rabaka provides an alternative history of funk since the mid-1960s, that uncovers the epoch that funk women influenced and were influenced by while wrestling with issues revolving around race, gender, sexuality, and class simultaneously in the American music industry and in American society. Rabaka explores the long line of artistically adventurous African American women whose music made groundbreaking contributions to funk, but whose subtle forms of alternative feminism and intoxicating eroticism led to their marginalization in both historical and contemporary discussions of the musical genre. Their gender identities and intense sexual expressions fly in the face of longstanding narratives about funk, which almost invariably focus on male figures. The book focuses primarily on the most acclaimed female funk group and artists of the classic era: Labelle, Chaka Khan and Betty Davis, who created an uncompromising anti-commercial, unclassifiable form of ultra-erotic funk rock that directly challenged patriarchy, the politics of respectability, and conservative conceptions of Black women’s sexuality. The book will be of significant interest for those interested in Race and Ethnicity in Popular Music, Gender and Sexuality in Popular Music, the Cultural Study of Popular Music, Black Studies, Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, and Music and Politics.