Dirty Nigger (1978)

Composer Note
From Julius Eastman’s remarks to the audience before the premieres of Crazy Nigger, Evil Nigger, and Gay Guerrilla in January 1980 during his composer-residency at Northwestern University:
 
“Now, there was, there was a little problem with the titles of the piece. There were some students — and one faculty member — who felt that the titles were somehow derogatory in some manner, being that the word ‘nigger’ is in it. These particular titles: the reason I use them is because — in fact, I use — there is a whole series of these pieces, and they’re called the Nigger Series. Now, the reason I use that particular word is because, for me, it has a — what is, what I call — a basic-ness about it. That is to say, I feel that — and in any case, the first niggers were, of course, field niggers, and upon that is really the basis of what I call the American economic system: without field niggers you wouldn’t really have such a great and grand economy that we have. So, that is what I call the First and Great Nigger: field niggers. And what I mean by niggers is that thing which is fundamental, that person or thing that obtains to a basic-ness, a fundamental-ness, and eschews that thing which is superficial, or — what can we say — elegant. So that a nigger, for me, is that kind of thing which is: attains himself or herself to the ground of anything, you see. And that’s what I mean by nigger — so, there are many niggers, there are many kinds of niggers. There might be — there are, of course, ninety-nine names of Allah but then there are fifty-two niggers. And so, therefore, we are playing two of these niggers.“