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Curtis Mayfield. The Chi-Lites. Chaka Khan. Chicago's place in the history of soul music is rock solid. But for Chicagoans, soul music in its heyday from the 1960s to the 1980s was more than just a series of hits: it was a marker and a source of black empowerment. In Move On Up, Aaron Cohen tells the remarkable story of the explosion of soul music in Chicago. Together, soul music and black-owned businesses thrived. Record producers and song-writers broadcast optimism for black America's future through their sophisticated, jazz-inspired productions for the Dells and many others. Curtis Mayfield boldly sang of uplift with unmistakable grooves like "We're a Winner" and "I Plan to Stay a Believer." Musicians like Phil Cohran and the Pharaohs used their music to voice Afrocentric philosophies that challenged racism and segregation, while Maurice White of Earth, Wind, and Fire and Chaka Khan created music that inspired black consciousness. Soul music also accompanied the rise of African American advertisers and the campaign of Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983. This empowerment was set in stark relief by the social unrest roiling in Chicago and across the nation: as Chicago's homegrown record labels produced rising stars singing songs of progress and freedom, Chicago's black middle class faced limited economic opportunities and deep-seated segregation, all against a backdrop of nationwide deindustrialization. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews and a music critic's passion for the unmistakable Chicago soul sound, Cohen shows us how soul music became the voice of inspiration and change for a city in turmoil.

Soul music --- Soul music --- Soul music --- Soul musicians --- African Americans --- History and criticism. --- Social aspects --- Political aspects --- Music --- History and criticism. --- African American. --- Chicago. --- Curtis Mayfield. --- cultural. --- empowerment. --- music. --- social. --- soul music.

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Despite rhythm and blues culture's undeniable role in molding, reflecting, and reshaping black cultural production, consciousness, and politics, it has yet to receive the serious scholarly examination it deserves. Destructive Desires corrects this omission by analyzing how post-Civil Rights era rhythm and blues culture articulates competing and conflicting political, social, familial, and economic desires within and for African American communities. As an important form of black cultural production, rhythm and blues music helps us to understand black political and cultural desires and longings in light of neo-liberalism's increased codification in America's racial politics and policies since the 1970's. Robert J. Patterson provides a thorough analysis of four artists-Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Adina Howard, Whitney Houston, and Toni Braxton-to examine black cultural longings by demonstrating how our reading of specific moments in their lives, careers, and performances serve as metacommentaries for broader issues in black culture and politics.

Rhythm and blues music --- African Americans --- Music, Rhythm and blues --- R & B (Music) --- R&B (Music) --- Rhythm 'n' blues music --- Popular music --- Blues (Music) --- Soul music --- Social aspects --- History. --- Political aspects --- History and criticism. --- Attitudes. --- r&b, rhythm and blues, blues, black culture, african american, inequality, kenneth edmonds, babyface, adina howard, whitney houston, whitney, toni braxton, music, black music, black inequality.