Black Stars or Black Holes? Cities as Sites for Verticality in Popular Black Music Production

Abstract

The popular Black music genre has been a principal feature of the US recorded music industry, instrumental for creativity, innovation and for the long-term cyclical patterns of growth, change and sustainability within this vital cultural products industry. Urban locations have acted as the central terrains for music production, industry corporate ownership, music distribution and consumption. Cities constitute the sites for verticality in music production; they function as both artistic centres of creative expression and as sites of industrial production of musical products via recording and processing music for mass distribution. This paper analyses the interlinked, changing spatial-geographic, social and cultural variables, patterns and relations that comprise Black musical genres within the US music industry, rectifying the conspicuous neglect of the critical role of urban space and of the location of Black music production in the musical recording business.

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