Between Acousmatic Blackness and Blacksound: The Cultural Politics of Black Music in Spain

Abstract

This dissertation examines the intersection of racial identity and music through an analysis of the cultural politics of listening in Spain. It is an ethnomusicological investigation into the circulation of Black music in Spain using race, sound, and digital technology as critical categories. The centerpiece of this paper is an ethnographic exploration of spaces where Black music resounds but in which Black narratives and Black people are absent. I adopt Mendi Obadike’s concept of “Acousmatic Blackness” to explore the function of sonic Blackness as a sign, sound object, and aesthetic quality within Spanish popular culture and new social formations in Spain organized around cultural Blackness. Obadike defines Acousmatic Blackness as the presence of Black sounds in the absence of Black bodies. The acousmatic nature of Black music is especially prominent in a place like Spain where the sounds are audible and travel easily within spaces where Black histories and narratives are absent.By interrogating reimaginations and reinterpretations, I argue that a local perception and reworking of codes and concepts embedded in Black music genres such as hip-hop and reggae, is juxtaposed by a disengagement and nullification of Blackness in a way that excludes the lived experiences of Blackness. These narrative contestations are articulated through complex rhetorical strategies, multiple modes of disavowal, and exclusions rooted in Spain’s contentious history with Blackness. The presence and absence of Blackness—an aporia that traverses this dissertation—is rooted in the simultaneous acceptance of Black cultural expressions and the rejection of lived Black experiences in Spain. The performance of Black music in Spain offers a useful lens for contemplating postcolonial Blackness and global racial imaginations, as well as the abstraction of Blackness as a fragmented commodified form. Together, these chapters merge ethnographic research, historical accounts, literature review, and theoretical analysis to examine the cultural politics of Black music in Spain.