Black Power Music! critically explores the soundtracks of the Black Power Movement as forms of "movement music." That is to say, much of classic Motown, soul, and funk music often mirrored and served as mouthpieces for the views and values, as well as the aspirations and frustrations, of the Black Power Movement.

Black Power Music! Protest Songs, Message Music, and the Black Power Movement critically explores the soundtracks of the Black Power Movement as forms of "movement music." That is to say, much of classic Motown, soul, and funk music often mirrored and served as mouthpieces for the views and values, as well as the aspirations and frustrations, of the Black Power Movement. Black Power Music! is also about the intense interconnections between Black popular culture and Black political culture, both before and after the Black Power Movement, and the ways in which the Black Power Movement in many senses symbolizes the culmination of centuries of African American politics creatively combined with, and ingeniously conveyed through, African American music. Consequently, the term "Black Power music" can be seen as a code word for African American protest songs and message music between 1965 and 1975. "Black Power music" is a new concept that captures and conveys the fact that the majority of the messages in Black popular music between 1965 and 1975 seem to have been missed by most people who were not actively involved in, or in some significant way associated with, the Black Power Movement.

Black Power Music! is a boldly conceived, brilliantly executed, and surpassingly timely volume that eloquently explains how Black Power Music was able to reconstitute African American culture in the decade 1965 - 1975. Professor Rabaka's originality in using ideas from disciplines traditionally kept apart enables him to find the consilience that binds these disciplines together vis-à-vis black power music, to succeed where others have not. The volume's ambitious thesis is as compelling as it is clear, and the discussion of the cultural and intellectual politics of sex and gender in Chs. 4 and 5 ought to be required reading in many disciplines. John Michael Cooper, Southwestern University, USA W i l l ia m JeFFer y Og ba r