Hear James Baldwin’s great record collection on a Spotify playlist
You can hear American writer James Baldwin’s record collection as Spotify playlist. In his hymned work Another Country, Baldwin hailed the creative power of music:
The beat: hands, feet, tambourines, drums, pianos, laughter, curses, razor blades: the man stiffening with a laugh and a growl and a purr and the woman moistening and softening with a whisper and a sigh and a cry. The beat – in Harlem in the summertime one could almost see it, shaking above the pavements and the roof.
Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi, a curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, has gone further, creating a playlist of Baldwin’s listening. “I latched onto his records, their sonic ambience,” says Onyewuenyi. “In addition to reading the books and essays, listening to the records was something that could transport me there.”
Image: CC – Allan Warren – James Baldwin taken Hyde Park, London
Spotter: Flashbak, Hyperallergic
Posted: 31st, December 2020 | In: Key Posts, Music Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
