Conclusion

Abstract

The artists in this book actively and willfully espoused what Jacques Attali characterizes as the function of the “herald”: performing explicit challenges to various frameworks and heralding a change-to-come. Self-conscious of these power structures, these artists’ aesthetic aimed toward both undermining what they viewed as forms of oppression as well as creating, literally, an alternative present, and, in some ways, an imagined future free of the coercive tenets of modernity . Although racism, sexism, and homophobia continue to be problems in society, the normalization of anti-blackness or misogyny has been eroded, with alternative popular music echoing these concerns far before mainstream society decided these acts were worthy of notice.