The Rise and Decline of Black Bands in American Popular Music with Dr. Scot Brown

On Nov. 10 at 4:30 p.m., Dr. Scot Brown, professor in African American studies at UCLA, will present his work in a discussion titled “The Rise and Decline of Black Bands in Popular Music in the 1970s.”

This event will be held in partnership with the Department of Music, Institute for African Development, Department of History, the Cornell Hip Hop Collection and the African Studies and Research Center. Taking place in the Africana Research and Studies Center, Brown will be discussing his research on the confounding factors that contributed to the decline of the popularity of Black music throughout the 1980s. “African American bands’ experiences in popular music were not driven solely by shifting consumer tastes,” Brown said. “But also by underlying contextual and structural issues such as the Black entrepreneurial and professional activism and cultural politics of race.”

Brown’s research has spanned over nearly two decades and has produced papers, books and music pieces under the alias Scotronixx.