The Black Arts Movement (BAM) encompassed a group of artists, musicians, novelists, and playwrights whose work combined innovative approaches to literature, film, music, visual arts, and theatre. With a heightened consciousness of black agency and autonomy--along with the radical politics of the civil rights movement, the Black Muslims, and the Black Panthers--these figures represented a collective effort to defy the status quo of American life and culture.

Conjuring Freedom: Music and Masculinity in the Civil War's "Gospel Army" analyzes the songs of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment of Black soldiers who met nightly in the performance of the ring shout. In this study, acknowledging the importance of conjure as a religious, political, and epistemological practice, Johari Jabir demonstrates how the musical performance allowed troop members to embody new identities in relation to national citizenship, militarism, and masculinity in more inclusive ways.

Follow Bebop the cat on a journey through American music history. Every record takes Bebop to a different colorful sonic world. An award-wining Poet Laureate wrote a unique visual poem, Black Music Is. It is a celebration of vinyl, African-American icons, and modern-day musicians.