A meditation on the soundscapes of black boyhood and disruptive imaginations

Abstract

In this article I consider how discourses of crisis and politics of respectability make it difficult to imagine black boyhood. While both forms of intervention are guided by good intentions, they nonetheless stymie research and critical engagement with how black boys experience boyhood. This article considers how a speech by President Barack Obama functioning as a precursor to formal announcement of the My Brothers Keeper initiative demonstrates the difficulty with distinguishing black boys from black men and, therefore, from developing interventions and research, in general, that attends to the needs, interests, and ways of being of black boys. I propose that in the absence of discursively focused research and empirical data, the inner thoughts and lives of black boys can be located in culture, specifically soundscapes created by black male recording artists that offer disruptive imaginations.