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Black Men, Black Voices: The Role of the Producer in Synthetic Performance Ethnography

Black Men, Black Voices is an educational, entertainment, and ethnographic program in which African American male musicians perform a variety of musical styles influenced by the blues idiom (e.g., jazz, gospel, rap, rhythm and blues, zydeco, and hip-hop/spoken word). The artists also discuss their musical careers and the musical and cultural links among their diverse styles of music. This program is an example of synthetic performance ethnography in which the sociologist serves two roles. As producer, the sociologist stages the performance, assembles a cast of artists, and presents a general outline of the performance but allows the artists to script their own conversations. As sociologist, the sociologist analyzes various cultural texts displayed in the staging and the actual performance that can be discussed in traditional sociological terms. The article concludes with the implications of Black Men, Black Voices for the development of ethics and aesthetics in performance ethnography.