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>> 131 4 A Voice So Full of Pain and Power Black Gospel and Blackness When black gospel artists in São Paulo engage in routine practices to master their art, forces of racial identity are unleashed. I argue in this chapter that an array of practices that belong to the black gospel scene shape the racial consciousness of artists, strengthening feelings of blackness, developing ideas about black history, and sharpening beliefs about the role of black people in God’s plan for humanity. To build my argument, in the first section I examine the practice of seeing videos of US black churches—for black gospel artists , a central place of their scene—and argue that this seeing carves out and reinforces a specific, aspirational middle-class blackness. In the second section , I focus on the core aesthetic practice of the black gospel scene, vocal technique, suggesting how the experience of that technique and reflection on that experience have a strong affinity to heavily essentializing discourses about black voice and identity. In the final section, I look at black gospel 132 > 133 instructor, made this clear one rainy morning as I was sitting in his studio, sipping strong coffee, my feet perched on cables that crawled over the floor like an octopus. Against the far wall, a row of purple robes was swaying on a thirty-two-inch screen, on either side of which DVDs were piled twenty high. When I asked how he used the DVDs, he grinned. “Teaching! Because you see, John, the first secret to good singing is seeing how it’s done. The best way to learn how to ‘sing black’ [cantar black] is to see how they do it—not just to listen to CDs but to see. Then you really understand the force of black Black gospel singer 134 > 135 McKlurcken, and erupted in a belt of his own, prompting the others in the room to burst into applause and laughter. Seeing these videos, while important for refining artistic skill, also had the effect of exposing young artists to a new and exciting model of blackness , one that many of them had never seen before and that would, I want to argue, shape their ethnoracial consciousness. While the artists I got to know had been used to calling themselves negros before seeing the videos, they admitted that the term had been mainly one of description, not a focus of pride. These videos presented them with a model of blackness about which they could feel proud: for here were blacks who were prosperous, suffused with self-respect, in control of a respectable institution, unified, and—of major importance—Christian. Consider the videos’ panning shots, of church interiors and audiences. Every video had at least one such shot, filled with evidence of impressive material prosperity: vast, cavernous spaces, gleaming cherrywood stages, plush carpets, endless pews; congregants bedecked with designer dresses, pashmina scarves, broad-brimmed ribbon- and flower-encircled hats, and pressed double-breasted suits. Here were black people blessed with material bounty—importantly, visibly respectable bounty—thus confronting and challenging Brazilian assumptions about black people. “From day one,” said Michael Santiago, “all we hear is that black people are addicts and gangsters and sambistas. If the black rises at all, it is because he is a malandro”—that is, a trickster or double-dealer. Yet in these videos blacks are none of these things; they are well-off, God-fearing Christians. “I thought, ‘Look at those churches,’” said Michael. “‘They are rich, they are surrounded by abundance, but they are serious, they are Christian.’” Valter, a saxophonist in the Azusa church, put it this way: “It is amazing to see blacks who are doing well, wearing those clothes, and also good Christians. We have a lot to learn from that.” My informants responded in particular to the self-confidence they witnessed in the videos. There was something in the posture of these people, in the way they held themselves, that communicated self-respect. “I love looking at those people in the American churches,” said Angélica. “It is an example for us. Because the negro here [in Brazil] is really different. He is unsure of himself. But your negros, it seems they are not afraid of anything.” I asked her to be more specific. “Look, the way they stand, hold their chins up. It’s hard to explain.” Marcelo tried: “When they wave their hands, walk across the stage, it’s like they do not care who...

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