The class and colour of tone: An essay on the social history of vocal timbre

The voice as timbral entity has proved especially resistant to analysis. Focusing on the voice of black South African choralism, this essay attempts to do two things: provide an account of the colonial-historical conditions - political acts and "structural aesthetics" - in which the black choral voice was fashioned, and then, through an approach one might call the "phonetics of timbre", describe that voice's sonic identity.