🎙️ Episode 7 Show Notes

Episode Title: Music as Memory: Dr. Fredara Hadley on Music as Culture and W.E.B. Du Bois (Part 2)

Episode Summary

In Part 2 of this powerful conversation, Dr. Fredara Hadley returns to explore the deeper relationship between music, culture, and identity through the lens of W.E.B. Du Bois.

Together, we examine how Du Bois’ Northern upbringing shaped his understanding of Black music—and why genres like jazz, blues, and gospel were outside of his lived experience. From the legacy of blackface minstrelsy to the rise of racial uplift ideology, this episode challenges us to consider how context, geography, and history influence what we value as “culture.”

Dr. Hadley unpacks Du Bois’ evolving perspectives, and the complexity of labeling him as simply “elitist.”

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

• How Du Bois’ upbringing in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, shaped his musical lens
• The impact of blackface minstrelsy on perceptions of Black music
• Du Bois’ critique of jazz and its cultural implications
• The role of respectability politics and racial uplift ideology
• The musical and intellectual contributions of Shirley Graham Du Bois
• How Black music functions as memory, preservation, and cultural truth
• Why we must avoid reducing historical figures to modern-day soundbites

Special Guest

Dr. Fredara Hadley – Ethnomusicologist, educator, and scholar of African American music and culture.

https://www.juilliard.edu/faculty/hadley-fredara

Film Mentioned

American Masters
W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel with a Cause premieres May 19, 2026

• Share trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kMsik6rDQM

Resources / Links:

• “Do Ba” Music performed by Christine Coburn Whack https://ccw.kit.com/cba7bd514d?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAacI9BHOncpU-y57vf9fEZ4-CUS8tPsDlxL4IxCa5YGKPpIft3EUIYsdAl9XKw_aem_fLLWPY6F5GZQuhRkZOJfcw
• “Do Ba” produced by Ladi Oyewo aka Bay The Producer https://www.instagram.com/baytheproducer/
• Transcript is available here https://www.buzzsprout.com/2598323
• Stay connected https://linktr.ee/ritacoburnmedia

Listen, Share, and Subscribe. Be a part of the conversation. These are our truths, our history, our stories, and they shape the world we live in. Join us on Mondays at 7:30 PM every week for the premiere of the next episode.

Copyright:

Music “Do Ba” Courtesy of publisher CCW Worldwide with Christine Coburn Whack

Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Rights: No known restrictions on publication

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014637057/