ABSTRACT
In the century between William Wells Brown and Baraka, the representation of music in black fiction went through a dramatic metamorphosis. The examination of the tradition of representing music within the tradition of African American literature illustrates that black writers were continuously informed by black music and musicians in terms of subject matter, thematic concerns and artistic paradigms. African American writers developed a number of tropes for representing music and musicians in fiction which can trace their roots back to the pre-fictional slave narratives that laid the foundation for the black literary tradition in America. The adoption of Marxist ideology by no means diminished Baralca’s devotion to the representation of African American music and other elements from the oral tradition in his production of innovative performance-oriented forms. The creative acts of black musicians which are represented in the poetry and drama Baraka has produced over the last three decades are paradigms for political engagement.
