AP/HUMA 4307 3.00

Black Toronto Sounds

This course considers how Black peoples and Black artists shape and encounter the city of Toronto through sound. It uses the analytical frameworks and key areas of concern in Black Studies and Sound Studies to understand the social, historical and political contexts of listening as a critical practice.

Bringing Black Studies and the analytical frame of Blackness to Sound Studies allows us to explore Black sounds and ideas about listening in order to demystify the flattening narrative of Toronto as a multicultural city, because as Rinaldo Walcott says "something happens here"(2003). We focus on the contributions and major impacts that multiple Black communities (Caribbean, Continental Africans, historic African Canadian Communities and other Black diasporic groups) have had and continue to have in the city to investigate the question "What is the Toronto Sound?", a sound produced by GTA Black communities which has had global impact.

The course explores Black Toronto Sounds through listenings, readings and creative texts, including novels, music, radio shows, films, soundwalks, to consider Black life and Black being in the city of Toronto. Guest speakers will be invited into the classroom as experts to speak on key issues and frameworks to engage students in the subject matter. The course examines the production, reproduction and distribution of Black Toronto Sounds to consider what does an engagement with Black Studies and Sound Studies allow us to tune into and hear under narratives of Canadian Multiculturalism?