‘Men Cry Too'

This chapter explores lovers rock and the ambiguities that exist around the gendered and sexual politics of the genre and how lovers rock has become feminised as female' reggae music. It examines how the genre of conscious' lovers rock's attempts to reconcile the dichotomies between the erotic and protest with complex outcomes for black male and female sexual subjectivities. Using black feminist discourses, the chapter provides the dynamics of power, sexual politics and love as they are articulated through discourses on masculinity within lovers' rock music. As a classic lovers rock track, 'Men Cry Too' was important because it captured the sense of loss, longing and vulnerability that was part of black male life in Britain, but was and remains frequently overshadowed by the notion that black masculinity within the British roots reggae music scene is constructed upon the paradigm of political resistance and protest detached from emotional or erotic expression.