The concept of a “blues aesthetic” is an attempt to describe selected examples of art in this century, and to delineate several important aspects of this art. Let’s be clear: what we are talking about is basic, twentieth-century Afro-American culture. The term “blues” is an appropriate designation for this idea because of its associations with one of the most identifiable black American traditions that we know. Perhaps more than any other designation, the idea of a blues aesthetic situates the discourse squarely on: 1) art produced in our time; 2) creative expressions that emulate from artists who are empathetic with Afro-American issues and ideals; 3) work that identifies with grassroots, popular, and/or mass black American culture; 4) art that has an affinity with Afro-U.S.-derived music and/or rhythms; and 5) artists and/or artistic statements whose raison d’etre is humanistic.
Although one could argue that other twentieth-century Afro-U.S. musical terms, such as ragtime, jazz, boogie-woogie, gospel, swing, bebop, cool, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul, funk, go-go, hip-hop, or rap are just as descriptive as “the blues,” what “the blues” has over and above them is a breadth and mutability that allows it to persist and even thrive through this century. From the anonymous songsters of the late nineteenth-century who sang about hard labor and unattainable love, to contemporary rappers blasting the airwaves with percussive and danceable testimonies, the blues is an affecting, evocative presence, which endures in every artistic overture made towards black American peoples.
The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism.Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC, 1989.
