The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop 9780814733325, 9780814731208, 9780814731192

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The Games Black Girls Play

The Games Black Girls Play Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop

Kyra D. Gaunt

ni NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org Cover photo by Raymond Depardon, © 1998, Magnum Photos. Title: “USA, 1981, New York City, Harlem District, 110th Street, Festival for the Police.” Originally printed in Voyages (Paris: Hazan, 1998). © 2006 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gaunt, Kyra Danielle. The games black girls play : learning the ropes from Double-dutch to Hip-hop / Kyra D. Gaunt. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-—8147-3119-2 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8147-3119-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978—0-8147-3120-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8147-3120-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. African Americans—Music—History and criticism. 2. African American girls—Social life and customs. 3. Rap (Music)—History and criticism. 4. Singing games—United States. 5. Rope skipping— United States. JI. Title.

ML3479.G38 2005 780'.89'96073—dc22 2005024053

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materia!s are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America

c10987654321 p10987654321

I dedicate this book to Jasmine and Stephanie, the twins who inspired the start of this “game”; my mother, Ardell, who trained my four-year-old feet to dance, who propels me and prays for me to be free to do my thang; and my birth father, Norman, whose presence makes life complete. Now, something else is possible. Let me be open to what it brings and what I have to bring to it.

Dare to be different than the recipe that brought you here. —Bernice Johnson Reagon

somebody / anybody sing a black girl’s song. bring her out to know herself. (Shange 1977)

A Zen poet once said: A person who is a master in the art of living makes little distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their mind and their body, their education and their recreation, their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which and simply pursue their vision of excellence and grace, whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing. To them they are always doing both.

Contents

List of Musical Figures xl

Acknowledgments Xiil

Introduction 1

1 Slide: Games as Lessons in Black Musical Style 19 2 Education, Liberation:

Learning the Ropes of a Musical Blackness 37 3 Mary Mack Dressed in Black:

The Earliest Formation of a Popular Music 56 4 Saw You With Your Boyfriend:

Music between the Sexes 89

5 Who’s Got Next Game? Women, Hip-Hop, and the Power of Language 111 6 Double Forces Has Got the Beat: Reclaiming Girls’ Music in the Sport of Double-Dutch 133

7 Let a Woman Jump:

Dancing with the Double Dutch Divas 158

Conclusion 181 1X

x | Contents Appendix:

Musical Transcriptions of Game-Songs Studied 188

Bibliography 197

Index 211 About the Author 221

Musical Figures

Figure 1 Cheer “OO-lay, OO-lay.” Cyclic model of refrain 33

Figure 2. “Mary Mack” version 1 65 Figure 3. “Mary Mack” version 2 65 Figure 4. OO-lay vs. Oh-la, cheers compared 79

Figure 5 “James Brown” chant 135 Figure 6 Double Forces chant 153

xl

Acknowledgments

This book is the product of various collaborations with friends, colleagues, mentors, coaches, and the social memory and lived experiences of African Americans, both female and male. It has been full of ups and downs, but it is a privilege to bring this work forth to the world. This would not have been possible without the generous support of faculty summer fellowships from the University of Virginia, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a postdoctoral fellowship for underrepresented faculty from the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation’s commitment to not only increasing the number of minority faculty in the professorate, but also offering mentoring and collegial interaction at its annual conferences, is profound and has enriched my academic life immensely. Thanks to Jasmine, Stephanie, the fifteen women I interviewed and got to know, the girls from a summer writing program in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Candace Ramsey and Bridgette Ramsey in Philly, LaShonda Barnett,

and particularly the Double Dutch Divas and the director of the film of the same name, Nicole Franklin. Franklin’s film is perennially broadcast on the Discovery Channel. Thanks for the honor. I hope readers are inspired by my thoughts about you all. Various colleagues, mentors, and staff have assisted me along the way: Judith Becker at the University of Michigan; Ed Ayers, Adria LaViolette, Richard Handler, Jessica Feldman, Cindy Wall, Scott DeVeaux, Judith Shatin, Michelle Kisliuk, Deborah McDowell, and my dear friend, Kandioura Dramé at the University of Virginia; Robin D. G. Kelley, Linda Tucker, Michael Beckerman, Gage Averill, Pauline Lum, and especially Mercedes Dujunco and Suzanne Cusick at New York University; and thanks to various colleagues elsewhere, including Niloofar Mina and Joe Schloss for assisting, supporting, and inspiring me. Your generosity,

Xill

xiv | Acknowledgments encouragement, inspiration, laughter, and faith in me I acknowledge here. Your contribution has always been right on time. Some colleagues are old friends from graduate school at Michigan: Stacy Blake, Guthrie P. Ramsey, and Nancy Hopkins-Evans. As an instructor who’s always learning from my students, I want to thank all the graduates and undergraduates from my courses in African American music, hip-hop, popular music, jazz, and ethnomusicology history and theory. I teach because of the greatness you inspire in me and will inspire in others. Additional support on this project was generously given by several of my graduate and undergraduate students, including Amy Daken, Melvin Butler, Brett Pyper, Monica Hairston, Michael Birenbaum-Quintero, Jalylah Burrell, William (Billy) J. Levay, and Yesenia Godoy. If I left anyone out, your generosity is acknowledged in spite of my forgetfulness. No project of this size or scope could be completed without partnership. I want to thank Corinna Fales, who generously assisted at several stages with editing this project and, finally, Sue Birch, my chaos management coach: You made it so that I could hear my own thoughts and find them later, too. Close friends gave me insight into who I am beyond being a teacher or scholar: Thank you Myra “Nicky” Anderson, Harry Allen, Tomas Doncker, Lenise Logan, Liza Lopez, Melvin Thomas Brown, Shabbir Kazmi, Toni Blackman, Roxane Butterfly, and my other friends and coaches at Landmark Education who keep the power and magic of life alive and real for me and all people.

Thanks to the Hopkins family in Philly, my immediate family in Rockville, Maryland, and my youngest family members who I am committed will have an education that matters; to Arielle, Aliazah, Amanda, Dakotta, Cheyenne, Elizabeth, and Garrison, all my love, laughter, and support. I am in academia for the opportunity to bring our culture to my students and the world out there so I can bring what people get about us back home. And, to that special man out there for me (perhaps you’re already in my life): With the completion of this book I am clear there’s plenty of room for you to appear. Come play with me. I got a few other games to share. You bring yours! Finally, let me thank Eric Zinner, Despina Gimbel, and Emily Park, my editors and assistant editor at New York University Press. I was everything but “coachable” for most of the years it took to complete this project. Thanks for believing in my work from the start to the very end. Thanks for all you did (and didn’t do) to cause this to happen. Your time

Acknowledgments | xv

and enduring attention to my work will pay off in ways none of us can predict, but we all can wish for the best. I thank you humbly and joyfully. All thanks to the creator for bringing me to this moment, and for giving me the courage to persist and play big. Let us cause the next game of life because that’s who we all were made to be! "Cause we’re big B-I-G / And we’re bad B-A-D / and we’re boss B-O-SS B-O-SS BOSS! Asé!

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