The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop

by Kyra D. Gaunt and Kyra Gaunt

Book Overview

2007 Alan Merriam Prize presented by the Society for Ethnomusicology

2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Book Award Finalist

When we think of African American popular music, our first thought is probably not of double-dutch: girls bouncing between two twirling ropes, keeping time to the tick-tat under their toes. But this book argues that the games black girls play --handclapping songs, cheers, and double-dutch jump rope--both reflect...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814731201
• ISBN13: 9780814731208
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 238 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

The blurbs from the back of the book...

"By placing black girls at the center of her analysis, Kyra Gaunt challenges us to be ever mindful of the importance of gender, the body, and the everyday in our discussions of black music. The Games Black Girls Play is an exciting and original work that should forever transform the way we think about the sources of black, indeed American, populat music. This is a bold, brilliant, and beautifully written book."-Farah Jasmine Griffin, Columbia University "The Games Black Girls Play not only makes the point that black girls matter, but that the games, thoughts, and passions of black girls matter in a world that regularly renders black girls invisible and silent. Gaunt brilliantly argues that the culture of black girls is a critical influence on contemporary black popular culture." - Mark Anthony Neal, author of New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity