The Song, For Real!

This article emphasizes the primacy of the song insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(both as content and form); in Amiri Baraka’s poetics and limits its discussion to the collection entitled, Funk Lore insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(1996); and the album Real Song insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(1994); in dialogue with each other. In the context of the theories that value sound and music in terms of their cultural and historical rootedness, Baraka’s “funk lore” means collective knowledge and behavior that incorporates body and kinetics. Baraka breaks the Western forms of reading and writing with his insistence on musicality, orality and performance, which are more than personal choices—the most distinctive of African American expressions. In his omniverse, the soundless ghosts represent the destructive force, whereas the everresisting creative spirit is represented by sound, voice, music and funk.