Background

A survey of how Black audiovisuality developed and thrives in films and television through importing and materializing the sonics of Black musical representation — from 'Blaxloitation' classics (Shaft, Truck Turner) to cine-auteurs (Melvin Van Peebles, Spike Lee and Jordan Peele) to music video performers (Michael Jackson, Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar) to video artists (Arthur Jafa and Isaac Julien) to contemporary multi-genre explorations of race (Sinners, Lovecraft Country, Atlanta and Swarm). The book views Jazz, Soul, Funk, Disco, Hip Hop, Techno and House not as 'source music' but as genetic origins in the transformation of movies and shows, resulting in new cinematic and televisual formations — all of which foreground the body, performance and musicality.

The book is soft-cover 192 pgs 170 mm x 220 mm.

Credits

Commissioning editor - Stoffel Debuysere
Design: Gunther Fobe
Part of the research project Echoes of Dissent at KASK & Conservatory / School of Arts Ghent

2026

Published by Courtisane, Ghent

Book front and back cover

Overview

Back cover blurb

The interrogation of the relationship between cinema and politics is predominantly associated with the visual domain, where the politics of the audio-visual is all too often reduced to the politics of the image. The publication series Echoes of Dissent aims to parry the hegemony of the eye, and subsequent disregard for the ear, by examining the relationship cinema–politics from a sonic perspective.

Isaac Hayes in Truck Turner (1974)

Technical

Book contents

Introduction:
Black Cine-Body Sonics

1. Shaft (1971)
Gordon Parks, Richard Roundtree & Isaac Hayes

2. iPod advertisements (2003-2005)
Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani & Steve Jobs

3. Truck Turner (1974)
Isaac Hayes, Clint Eastwood & Yaphet Koto

4. White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It) (1995 & 1983)
Duran Duran, Melle Mel & Spike Lee

5. Clockers (1995)
Spike Lee, Malik Sayeed, Charles Bronson & Terence Blanchard

6. Lovecraft Country – “Sundown” (2020)
Mark Dorsey, James Baldwin & H.P. Lovecraft

7. Alright (2015)
Kendrick Lamar & Terrace Martin

8. Space Is The Place (1974)
Gil Scott-Heron, Sun Ra, Jesse Jackson & Fred Wesley

9. Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) (2008)
Beyoncé & Gwen Verdon

Courtney B. Vance, Jurnee Smollett & Jonathan Majors in Lovecraft Country (2020) 10. Lemonade (2016)
Beyoncé, Terrence Malick & Nina Simone

11. When The Levees Broke (2006)
Beyoncé, Led Zeppelin, Terence Blanchard & Aaron Copland

12. Lovecraft Country – “Rewind 1921” (2020)
Sonia Sanchez, Isaac Julien & Melvin Van Peebles

13. Love is the Message, the Message is Death (2016)
Arthur Jafa, Kanye West & MFSB

14. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)
Melvin Van Peebles, Brer Soul & Mario Van Peebles

15. Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1975)
Bernie Casey, Sabato Rodia & Godfrey Cambridge

16. Michael Jackson’s Ghosts (1996)
Michael Jackson & Stan Winston

17. Lovecraft Country – “Full Circle” (2020)
Frank Adu, Jim Brown & Terry Notary

Beyoncé's Lemonade (2016) 18. Us (2019)
Jordan Peele & Michael Abels

19. Sinners (2025)
Beyoncé, Alan Lomax & Ludwig Göransson

20. The Blood of Jesus (1941)
Moby, Nina Simone & Spencer Williams

21. Atlanta (2016-2022)
Donald Glover & Frederick Wiseman

22. This Is America (2018)
Donald Glover, Childish Gambino & T.D. White

23 Swarm (2016-2022)
Hype Williams & Michael Uzowuru

Interdiction:
Racializing the Soundtrack

Dominque Fishback in Swarm (2024)