You know the Supremes, but do you really know them?
Join Professor Daphne A. Brooks, Professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University, as she re-historicizes this legendary group by exploring their roots, as well as their broad range of musical influences growing up in Detroit, Michigan. The program will also consider the place of fashion and performance in the repertoire of the Supremes, and it will re-situate the group in relation to a long line of groundbreaking black women musicians who've shaped American popular music culture--from blues queens like Bessie Smith and cosmopolitan divas like Josephine Baker and Eartha Kitt to soul and rock icons like Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner. By way of celebrating this rich history, this talk aims to encourage us to hear and see how the Supremes continue to shape our present-day pop world of Beyonce, Rihanna and others.
Dr. Brooks is the author of two books on black performance and popular culture, Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 and Jeff Buckley's Grace, and she is currently working on her third study which is entitled Subterranean Blues: Black Women Sound Modernity.
