“How Black Music Took Over the World” with Melvin Gibbs and Stephon Alexander

Join FourOneOne and Sound+Science in celebration of producer, bassist, and author Melvin Gibbs’ new book How Black Music Took Over The World, which will be published by Basic Books on April 14th. Gibbs will be in conversation with Stephon Alexander, theoretical cosmologist, jazz musician, and author of The Jazz of Physics and Fear of a Black Universe. This event kicks off FourOneOne’s multipart residency with Gibbs, which explores the themes of the book through a series of conversations and live performances.

In How Black Music Took Over the World, Gibbs discusses the musical inheritance of Africa. Beginning with two rhythmic building blocks he calls the cell and the frame, Gibbs shows how those tools can transport listeners to “a realm where sounds become vehicles for human movement.” Reforged in the African diaspora in the Americas, they are played today on church organs, electric guitars, computers, telephones, or a simple gourd. Kool & the Gang called Black musicians the “scientists of sound”—and Gibbs shows how they discovered the world’s music.