Over My Head: The Power of Ancestral Music to Future the Black Church

Over My Head: The Power of Ancestral Music to Future the Black Church explores how sacred music genres of the Black church (Spirituals, hymns, and gospel music) have functioned historically as spiritual technologies, empowering African-descended peoples to navigate their lives through and beyond perilous circumstances while helping maintain connections, however tenuous, to ancestral spirituality. Employing an Afrofuturist lens, the author examines the origin and evolution of these genres and posits how their creation and performance employ core elements of imagination, improvisation, and adaptability--ancestral spiritual technologies that can help African and African-descended Christian communities "vision" themselves into generative, hope-filled futures.