“In this episode, scholar Daphne A. Brooks talks with poet/singer/songwriter Jamila Woods about archives as wellsprings, the lifeworlds of Black women and girls, and what it means to practice care in all its many registers.
Brooks’s book, Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound (2021), is now available from Belknap Press.
Jamila Woods’s albums HEAVN (2016) and LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019) are both out on Jagjaguwar.
“Artists On Writers | Writers On Artists” brings together luminaries in the fields of art and literature to have the conversations they themselves wish to have. This biweekly web series is a joint production of Artforum and Bookforum and is sponsored by the Morgan Library & Museum.
Daphne A. Brooks is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Theater Studies, American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University and the author of Jeff Buckley’s Grace and of Bodies in Dissent, winner of the Errol Hill Award for outstanding scholarship in African American performance studies. She has written liner notes to accompany the recordings of Aretha Franklin, Tammi Terrell, and Prince, as well as stories for the New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, and Pitchfork.
Tempering sharp and powerful lyrics with a sweetly melodic voice, Jamila Woods is a Chicago-bred singer/songwriter and award-winning poet whose inspirations include Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Morrison. Following the 2016 release of her debut album HEAVN, Woods received critical acclaim for her singular sound that is both rooted in soul and wholly modern. Her 2019 sophomore release LEGACY! LEGACY! featured 12 tracks named after writers, thinkers, and visual artists who have influenced her life and work. She is a Pushcart Prize-winning poet and co-editor of BreakBeat Poets: Black Girl Magic(2018). Her poetry was recently published in the Library of America anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song(2020). Woods recently made her television debut, performing “SULA (Paperback)” on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert on January 6, 2021.”
