This is a guest post by Michelle Minor, a Program Specialist detailee for the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI).
Dr. Allie Martin, an assistant professor of Music at Dartmouth College is one of CCDI’s 2024 Artists/Scholars-In-Residence. Martin is also an assistant professor for the Cluster for Digital Humanities and Social Engagement and serves as the director of the Black Sound Lab at Dartmouth College. She began her project, Sampling Black Life: Soundscapes and Critical Intention, in November 2023. Through her project, she samples Black life and sound by exploring Library collections with critical intention. Sampling is a technique utilized in hip-hop and reverberates across a range of musical genres. Martin uses sampling in her work to encourage critical reflection on the contents of the Library’s digital collections as well as imaginative uses of their sounds.
“I’m particularly interested in what gentrification sounds like to black people in this city. Some things get louder, some things get softer. Some things become more criminalized. It really just depends on what aspect you’re looking at from noise legislation to Go-go to, you know, the sounds of construction and sirens.” — Dr. Allie Martin, CCDI’s Summer Fuse 2024 event (01:04:04)
This month, Allie will also present her work at the 22nd Annual Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival (MVAAFF) in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts alongside Maya Freelon, another CCDI 2024 Artist/Scholar-in-Residence.
Michelle Minor interviewed Allie to learn more about her project.
Congratulations on receiving a CCDI Artist/Scholar-in Residence award! Can you tell us about your project?
My project is called Sampling Black Life: Soundscapes and Critical Intention. I’m sampling three different collections at the Library to make soundscape compositions that challenge us to sample as ethically and intentionally as we possibly can. Those collections include the Library’s Voices Remembering Slavery, Chicago Ethnic Arts Project, and Now What a Time: Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals collections.
This month, you will be participating in the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival. What are you looking forward to the most from that event? What can attendees expect to learn about you and your work?
I’m really excited to participate in the film festival, in part because I’m not a filmmaker but I do think about narrative quite a bit. Throughout my time as an Artist/Scholar-in-Residence, I’ve enjoyed talking about the work with people the most, and really starting conversations about these collections. I’m curious to see how folks at the film festival will engage with my work. Attendees can expect to learn about my sampling process and to hear some of the work I’ve made thus far this year.
You are developing a series of soundscape compositions for your project, Sampling Black Life. What are soundscape compositions and why are they appropriate for the message you intend to convey with your project?
I define my soundscape compositions as pieces that I’ve composed that feature soundscape recordings as the primary component. I think they’re appropriate for this project because they introduce people to the collections but also stretch the material a bit, through pauses, repetition, and other modes of manipulating the sounds.
“You wasn’t no more than a dog to some of them in them days. You wasn’t treated as good as they treat dogs now. But still I didn’t like to talk about it. Because it makes, makes people feel bad you know. Uh, I, I could say a whole lot I don’t like to say. And I won’t say a whole lot more.” — Fountain Hughes, Interview with Fountain Hughes, Baltimore Maryland, June 11, 1949
You describe yourself as an ethnomusicologist and sound artist. What is ethnomusicology? What drew you into the field?
Ethnomusicology is, generally speaking, the study of music and culture. I think of myself as a person that’s interested in the musical and sonic decisions that people make every day. I originally entered the field because I wanted to study go-go music and gentrification in Washington, DC, and was told that ethnomusicology was the way to do it. That was in 2013, and I never really looked back!
What does it mean to amplify Black sonic life? What is the significance of centering the sonic aspects of Black life?
At Black Sound Lab (BSL), we amplify Black sonic life in a number of different ways, through events, collaborations, and other projects. One of my favorite BSL projects has been Black Covid Care, a website and community engagement project that explores how Black people have kept themselves well throughout the pandemic as well as before Covid. Through that project, we were able to meet and engage with dozens of individuals and community organizations from across the country and it’s been a very rewarding experience.
Learn More about Allie’s Work!
To learn more about Dr. Allie Martin’s work and the work of other CCDI award recipients, subscribe to the Of the People: Widening the Path blog.
CCDI is part of the Library’s Of the People: Widening the Path program with support from the Mellon Foundation. This four-year program provides financial and technical support to individuals, institutions and organizations to create imaginative projects using the Library’s digital collections and centering one or more of the following groups: Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color from any of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and its territories and commonwealths (Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands). Learn more about CCDI here.