This essay studies Sylvia Wynter's “Black Metamorphosis” and draws attention to the ways plantocratic systems generated black creative activities that rebelled against the tenets of white supremacy and its attendant order of consciousness. Building on Wynter's insights, the essay argues that plantation activities were rebellious and inventive spaces that enunciate “the revolutionary demand for happiness.” This demand for happiness draws attention to how musical beats and grooves are rebellious enthusiasms that recode ongoing plantation logics and, as well, open up a new order of consciousness.
© Small Axe, Inc.
2016
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