prompt 3.2 ~ discourse

Music and Material Culture

During reading week I headed to New York! I primarily used the time to visit family, friends and decompress from the first half of the semester. In terms of specific progress I made on the prompt, I used this time to engage in poetic observation, reading more on the topic and sketching.

An amazing artist book that my friend I was staying with had. Trenton Doyle Hancock created a new world in “Mind of the Mound”.

I noticed that New York as a city had a very distinctive typeface. The same lettering they had on taxi’s they used on signage around the city.

I had never been to Morocco before I went to this cafe called ‘Pause Cafe’ and I felt I was transported to Marrakesh. Everything from the cups to the tiles to the water fountain held the aesthetic effortlessly together. The music was also great, while I was there they were playing slower, groovier house (120 bpm~) that utilized a lot of brass instruments.

I began reading the seminal text “Music in Everyday Life” by Tia DeNora. I read parts of this book a few years back but it was again recommended to me by my former professor Thomas Hodgson. In this book DeNora talks about music and its social effects in the everyday and material culture.

I went to the Brooklyn Museum on one of my last days in New York and I was equally blown away and overjoyed by their exhibit “Africa Fashion”.

This exhibit was one of the first times in my life that I felt seen from an institution that doesn’t typically hold my culture to the same regards as others.

I felt proud to be Nigerian this day.