In this week’s episode, Tim and Jeremy are joined by writer, critic and academic Emily J. Lordi to discuss her 2020 book The Meaning of Soul (and much more besides). Emily talks about how she got into writing about Black music and the particular status Soul held in academia at the start of her career. The three consider changing historiographies of Black culture, talk over some key canonical texts, and contrast Soul with scholarship on Blues and Jazz.
Emily explains how her analysis looks beyond lyrics in its appraisal of the political content of Soul, and how through an evaluation of a shift between sacred and secularised notions of the genre, we can see an articulation of a collective subjectivity representative of the congregational traditions from which the music draws on.
Elsewhere, Tim, Jeremy and Emily consider ‘the crew’ in Soul and Hip Hop, Disco’s relationship to Soul, Gladys Knight and the Pips and Minnie Ripperton. For patrons, the three dig into Emily’s concept of ‘Afro-Presentism’, Beyonce, Janelle Monáe, contemporary R’n’B, and the affect of resilience.
Emily J. Lordi is a writer, professor, and cultural critic whose focus is African American literature and Black popular music. She is professor of English at Vanderbilt University and the author of three books: Black Resonance (2013), Donny Hathaway Live (2016), and The Meaning of Soul (2020).
Produced by Matt Huxley.


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