"Sound Identities offers sustained reflection on the sociocultural implications of youth consumption of popular music such as rap, heavy metal, calypso, and salsa.".

"If it can be argued that young people construct their identities through the social formation of boundaries, then it is important to uncover how social, cultural, and political boundaries are created and lived through popular music. This is both a pedagogical and political concern.

In Sound Identities, contributors pursue these themes throughout: across the terrains of the American nation; across the global dynamics of postcolonial music history; and ultimately back into the micropolitics of the pedagogy of musical affect in the classroom. The eighteen essays in this volume foreground a wide array of theoretical and empirical research that looks at the dynamic role that music plays at the level of the everyday lives of today's school youth."--BOOK JACKET.