This course seeks to demonstrate the extent to which Black popular music both reflects and challenges abiding perspectives on the meanings and appropriate performances of gender, race, and class. Beginning with Louis Jordan's "A Man Ain't a Man (Until a Woman Calls His Name)" and Ray Charles ”I Got a Woman," (1958), each week we will investigate a seminal R&B theme, song, or artist in order to explore how representations of black American masculinity reflect – and reflect upon – vital issues in the civil rights and post-civil right eras.