BLACK GEOSONICOLOGIES

We highlight how the geography of music (geomusicology) and everyday sounds (geosonicology) narrate multiple scenes of Blackness and Black life across Black Chicagoland in deeply complex ways. We keep the music and sonic identity of Black Chicagoland at the center of our work to understand Black Chicagolanders in relation to what you see through our photography. 

You must have a Spotify account to hear the full songs on the curated playlists. We are in the process of moving our playlists to a new streaming platform. To learn more about the spatial complexities in our sound recordings, click here to access our geography primer about Chicagoland.  

This sound installation is a mashup of various scenes of Blackness and Black life across Black Chicagoland, including: 

• Nature sounds in a Black neighborhood in Country Club Hills (South Suburbs and the Calumet Region)
• An expressway that cuts through Black neighborhoods in the city and the north, west, and south suburbs where Black folks live  
• Cars driving through Black areas on the south, west, and north sides of the city as well as the west and south suburbs
• The green line train at the intersection of Lake St. and Holman Ave. on the west side of Chicago 
• A Black pastor preaching at a storefront church in East Garfield Park neighborhood - community area (27)
• Black House Kids getting their life and expressing joy at a birthday party in an unmarked area 
• Chicago Bucket Boys performing downtown in the Loop neighborhood - community area (32)
• A group of Black women elders  playing drunk simon says in Calumet Park (Chicago Southland and the Calumet Region)

This sound recording was taken during a house party for Miss Priss, the Grand Dame of House, and the Black House Kids — members of the house community who have shaped house music, culture, and its geographies since its birth in Black LGBT spaces in Chicago during the 1970s. 

The party took place at the Underground Wonder Bar in the River North neighborhood - Near North Side community area (08). During the party, there was a moment when the music skipped so when you play the audio, listen to the ways the Black House Kids respond with sound. The music is important, but we encourage you to listen for other sonic imprints decorating the space and sit with how Black Chicagolanders use sound and rely on what is audible to and for them in house parties across Chicagoland or what we call, Black acoustemologies.

We invite you into a place many are not allowed to enter to listen to the sonic exchanges between the DJ and dancers and the Black Chicagoness in the club, which was produced by the Black Chicagolanders in it. 

The DJ spinning is music historian and Black House Kid Duane E. Powell. 

We also collaborated with the Black House Kids to name all of the images for Still Sweatin' — a curated room that was part of our exhibition at Worth Ryder Art Gallery in Berkeley, California. 

The "house room" centered the placemaking practices of the Black house music and cultural community of Chicago and how they use house music, culture, and sound to claim space and place across Chicagoland or what we call, "house geographies." Each of the images were named after songs or tracks that represented house based on how the Black House Kids hear, understand, and define it. 

Our collaborators for the Still Sweatin' playlist, included Braxton Holmes, Miss Priss, Duane E. Powell, and Todd McCurry. 

Extra special thanks to DJ Cannonball, Robert Williams, and DJ Xray. 

We named each of the images we selected for our exhibition at Worth Ryder Art Gallery after a song by a Black artist from Chicagoland for the Black Chicagoland playlist. Check it out below.