Cool (African aesthetic)

The African cultural aesthetic of cool encompasses calm and mental tranquility, peace, smoothness, silence, vitality, healing and well-being, self-composure, social and self-purification and proximity to the gods.

In his work African Art in Motion, scholar Robert Farris Thompson divides the philosophy of cool into five distinct elements: visibility, luminosity (of motion), smoothness, rebirth and reincarnation and composure of the face (the "mask of the cool").

Visibility

Luminosity of motion

Smoothness

Rebirth and reincarnation

The mask of the cool

Ontological framework

Traditional West African ontology does not devalue one fundamental aspect of existence in relation to another. It is an intuitively existential acknowledgement and acceptance of the duality of nature and the balance of forces—of, for example, feminine and masculine, physical and spiritual, seen and unseen, of the living and the ancestors. These forces are not separated, but conjoined; and, in fact, interact continuously and with fluidity in aspects of everyday life— in the natural world, in religion and philosophy, in visual art, in folklore, in music and dance.

Apparent opposites, or countervailing constructs, not only meet— as with the Kalunga line, a sacred, underwater line of demarcation where the worlds of the living and of those passed on reconnect and interact— but can and often do inhabit the same space, conceptually or literally. Sometimes, one element inhabits the interstices of another in time and space. This latter principle is evident in the syncopation and polyrhythmic complexity of West African music and some Afro-Cuban music (and, to some extent, in African American music), and is an essential characteristic of an element of jazz: swing. In this sense, the traditional African ontological approach is the opposite of that of, for example, Zoroastrianism, where Light and Darkness are warring concepts. In the African understanding, there is no struggle, no antagonism; there is cohabitation and balance.

This dualistic ontological perspective, of motion and stasis, of tension and tranquility, of juxtaposition and coexistence, of heat and cool, grounded in the interplay of opposites, helps form the framework of the mask of the cool.

Mystical coolness and the "mask of the cool"

Cool is feminine energy; it is stillness, calm and strength. Cool is composure, dignity in being and comportment and a practiced stoicism. It is a way of being, a way of walking in the world. Cool abides. Heat is masculine energy, strength and movement; it acts. Both elements assume co-equal values in African movement and dance, in African music and art. The cool aesthetic permeates traditional West African cultures and African-American culture, as well— in black artistic and musical expression, in the hitch in the "pimp" strut of urban, African American men; in African American dress and adornment, demeanor and speech.

Thompson explains the cool aesthetic in African and African American movement in African Art in Motion:

The mind of an elder within the body of the young is suggested by the striking African custom of dancing "hot" with a "cool" unsmiling face. This quality seems to have haunted Ten Rhyne at the Cape in 1673 and it struck the imagination of an early observer of strongly African-influenced dancing in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century, who noted "thumping ecstasy" and "intense solemnity of mien." The mask of the cool, or facial serenity, has been noted at many points in Afro-American history.

It is interesting that what remains a spiritual principle in some parts of Africa and the rare African-influenced portions of the modern U.S.A., such as tidewater Georgia, becomes in the mainline Afro-American urban culture an element of contemporary street behavior:

Negro boys…have a 'cool' way of walking in which the upper trunk and pelvis rock fore and aft while the head remains stable with the eyes looking straight ahead. The…walk is quite slow, and the Negroes take it as a way of 'strutting' or 'showing off'....

The…cool style of male walking in the United States is called bopping…. Mystical coolness in Africa has changed in urban Afro-American assertions of independent power. But the functions, to heal and gather strength, partially remain. And the name cool [kule], remains. And the body is still played in two patterns, one stable, the other active, part energy and part mind.

The cool aesthetic in African American culture

The intrinsic value of cool in West African cultures lies in the fundamental belief that a certain detachment from one's surroundings is emblematic of spiritual centeredness and strength. This value of "the mask" resonates deeply in and pervades African American culture. In displaying cool, one also possesses it; thus, cool is both a means and an end. Cool manifests and conserves energy, as well as personal and spiritual, or psychic, power. In the dozens, an often ribald African American oral tradition in which two opponents take turns "signifying" or otherwise insulting one another's family line, the ultimate failure, the ultimate disgrace in this contest of wit and self-possession is not the failure to return a "snap" (insult) with a more cutting or side-splitting one; it is to "lose one's cool." Paradoxically, it is in the inscrutable mask of cool that the dualism of cool as a philosophical construct is, perhaps, most readily apparent. Physical composure under excitement or duress exercises strength and mental toughness (masculine energy); but it manifests serenity, spiritual vitality and stillness (feminine energy), which are venerated strengths, as well.

Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, considered by many to be the quintessential embodiment of cool.

Thompson's elucidation of cool helps to explain cool in other aspects of African American culture. Absent the overarching philosophical framework of traditional African cultures, however, cool in the African American context finds expression largely as an aesthetic. For decades, African American jazz musicians and, later, black-power activists in the 1970s were known for wearing sunglasses, even indoors and at night. The dark, impenetrable lenses of a pair of "shades" help to mask emotion and, thus, "cool" the face. Further, the African custom of moving "hot" with a coolness of mien remains in evidence in African American dance today. Another example of cool in African American culture is the intensely emotional vocal style of soulful crooner Jerry Butler, delivered with trademark, inscrutable composure, which earned him the moniker "The Ice Man".

One meaning 'cool' shares with Standard English is an absence of excitement in a person, especially in times of stress. However, in African traditions, the cool aesthetic encompasses concepts of luminosity of motion, rebirth and reincarnation, healing or a state of wellness, calm, general well-being, and harmony — an absence of conflict. Some of these meanings have resonance in African American culture today.

African American use of 'cool' has evolved to include related meanings. In addition to indicating an absence of conflict, 'cool' also is used to communicate agreement or compliance and to describe something 'hip' (from the Wolof word "hipi," meaning to open one's eyes, to be aware), meaning fashionable and current; as well as something desirable, aesthetically appealing, or something of sublime or understated elegance. Over time, these African-American uses of the word have become assimilated into American vernacular English and become more mainstream. Just as jazz began to change and influence popular music in the 1920s, the language of black jazzmen began to infiltrate the American lexicon. Mainstream slang usage of 'cool' to mean “excellent" or "superlative” was first recorded in written English in the early 1930s. In the 1940s and 1950s, 'cool' became an integral part of the vocabulary of beatniks and some mainstream youth eager to embrace the language of their jazz-musician idols. Since then, the word has become ubiquitous in world popular culture.

In popular culture

With the spread of the cool aesthetic beyond the African American community, certain manifestations of coolness have become part of mainstream American and world popular culture. American actor Marlon Brando was one of the first white actors to attempt to mimic African American cool on the silver screen, in movies like The Wild One (1953) and On the Waterfront (1954). Today, Brando's portrayals of troubled youth seem almost cartoonish; but such roles made him a Hollywood legend and, much like blackface minstrelsy, introduced non-black American audiences — albeit indirectly — to a defining element of African American culture.

Brando was followed in short order by actor James Dean in Rebel without a Cause (1955); and, with time, other white actors brought cool to the silver screen, perhaps more convincingly, as elements of African American culture became more mainstream. The steely demeanor of ponchoed actor Clint Eastwood's nameless drifter in the "spaghetti westerns" of the 1960s, and of John Travolta's character Chili Palmer almost four decades later are classic examples in American cinema. In an interview in the late 1990s on NBC's "Today Show", host Bryant Gumbel remarked on Palmer's cool. He then asked Travolta, "Do you know how black that is?" After considering the question a moment, Travolta responded thoughtfully, stating he had never thought about the character in such terms, but that he likely had absorbed Palmer's style of comportment from African American males in his hometown high school.

"Cool" in popular culture, as with most popularized metaphysical constructs, is generally stripped of its spiritual and mystical dimensions; it is shallow. Cool for the masses has been reduced to a kind of macho bravado or superficial stylishness (a version of the African notion of "looking smart"), and is often synonymous with an element of arrogant self-awareness. In its most common slang usage, 'cool' has become an adjective, rather than a noun or verb. In the context of a mutually reinforcing ethnic, cultural or social group, or clique, being perceived as "uncool," "lame," or "wack" can be a source of embarrassment or shame and engender ostracism by the "cool" group. Shared standards of what is "cool" or "uncool" can help establish group identity and belonging, as well as define outsiders and outcasts. In this sense, such standards act as mechanisms of control and conformity. Likewise, outsiders may often deride the "cool" group as merely self-centered or conceited.

In popular culture, "cool" also often describes someone or something which conforms to a set of social or moral values perceived as countercultural, i.e., which challenge the norms, mores, or values of a dominant group or prevailing regime.

While slang terms are usually comprised of short-lived coinages and figures of speech, 'cool' is one of the more ubiquitous slang words in Western countries. It continues to be a very popular response in conversations, especially among young people, and is ranked number one on the Top Ten Word Lists of California Youthspeak in 2003. Young people around the world use the term 'cool' to express peer group-related values and a connection to American pop culture.

References

Lewis MacAdams, Birth of the Cool. Beat, Bebop and the American Avant-Garde, Free Press, 2001. The title of the book comes from Miles Davis's 1949-1950 jazz recording sessions. This is not intended as a scholarly work, and is reported to have many (relatively minor) inaccuracies.

Stering Stuckey, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America. Oxford University Press, 1998.

Robert Farris Thompson, African Art in Motion. Exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (University of California Press, 1974)

Robert Farris Thompson, "Dance and Culture, An Aesthetic of the Cool: West Africa Dance" in African Forum 2, no. 2; Fall 1996: pp 85-102

External links

Online Dictionary
[1] "Epistemological Dualism and the Primal Other: Traversing the Countours of the Encounter -- Again," Tony Balcom.