Palm Oil & Pressure: Duality, Sound, and Black Representation

 Favour Alphonsus

Professor Harris

African American Literature 

06 Dec. 2025

Palm Oil & Pressure: Duality, Sound, and Black Representation

Duality is not merely a theoretical frame within early Black political writing. It is a lived rhythm. Reading Martin Delany and Frederick Douglass together feels like listening to a curated mixtape titled “Palm Oil & Pressure”. Palm Oil represents cultural rootedness, spiritual lineage, and inner grounding, while Pressure signifies urgency, agitation, and the political demand for recognition. Across Robert S. Levine’s introduction to Representative Man and Delany’s chapters “Means of Elevation” and “Emigration of the Colored People of the United States of America,” alongside Douglass’s “Claims of the Negro,” the two thinkers perform a call-and-response, arguing not simply over policy but over how Black identity should be staged, voiced, and represented.

I am reminded of moments in childhood living rooms where music and debate coexisted. My uncle played Fela Kuti’s “Water No Get Enemy,” insisting that Black people must remain fluid within systems, not abandon them. Yet my mother turned the volume to Miriam Makeba’s “Khuluma,” declaring that dignity may require departure. That was my first lesson in duality: two truths, held in one room, one family. Delany and Douglass replicate that familial tension, softness and resistance, palm oil and pressure, both necessary, both insistent.

Delany, in Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny, represents Pressure in its fully amplified register. His Chapter 17 argument for emigration is not a rhetorical flourish but a strategic refusal. He seeks elevation outside American structures designed to fix Black people into permanent marginality. His tone aligns with songs like Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Mannenberg” and Amina Claudine Myers’ “Jumping in the Sugar Bowl”, Black sound that does not beg for placement but invents new sonic geographies. Delany presses, disrupts, and demands space even if that space must be built elsewhere.

Douglass, by contrast, embodies Palm Oil, not passive, but grounded. In “Claims of the Negro,” Douglass insists that America must revise itself and make room for Black possibility from within. His tone resembles Rhiannon Giddens’ “At the Purchaser’s Option” or Sweet Honey in the Rock’s “Ella’s Song”, firm, lyrical, yet anchored in the belief that Black citizenship is not a request but a rightful restoration. If Delany calls for a departure, Douglass calls for a return.

Throughout this curated mixtape, Palm Oil and Pressure argue in a kind of lyrical dialogue:

Pressure: Leave their house. They never built doors for us.
Palm Oil: What if the door is ours by inheritance and memory?
Pressure: Memory cannot cure the wound of refusal.
Palm Oil: But refusal cannot erase belonging.

Their ideological conflict mirrors modern debates over representative identity, echoing Unit 1’s framing of “Dr. Umar v. The World.” Who gets to speak for Black people? Who decides the shape of Black futures?

This mixtape is not about resolving the debate. Instead, it honors both registers of liberation, the steady rhythm of palm oil and the sharp insistence of pressure. What I learned in those living rooms, and what Delany and Douglass teach on the page, is that Black representation has always existed in harmony and discord. Liberation, like sound, emerges not from perfect unison but from layered tracks, softness beside volatility, belonging beside exit, memory beside demand.

Palm Oil & Pressure: 13-Track Mixtape

1. Fela Kuti – “Water No Get Enemy”
   Pressure: unyielding political energy and fluid resistance.

2. Miriam Makeba – “Khuluma”
   Palm oil: grounded voice of dignity and communal memory.

3. Abdullah Ibrahim – “Mannenberg”
   Pressure: jazz as protest, creating space for Black political imagination.

4. Amina Claudine Myers – “Jumping in the Sugar Bowl”
   Pressure: avant-garde jazz pushing boundaries, refusing containment.

5. Rhiannon Giddens – “At the Purchaser’s Option”
   Palm oil: connects past and present, emphasizing rootedness and care.

6. Sweet Honey in the Rock – “Ella’s Song”
   Palm oil: vocal harmony as historical and emotional elevation.

7. Tems – “Free Mind”
   Palm oil: contemporary soft introspection for emotional literacy.

8. Sampa the Great – “Final Form”
   Pressure: asserting selfhood and Black excellence in diaspora contexts.

9. Hiatus Kaiyote – “Nakamarra”
   Palm oil: gentle storytelling, layered vocals emphasizing internal reflection.

10. Seun Kuti – “Black Times”
    Pressure: activism through music, echoing Delany’s call to action.

11. Nubya Garcia – “Pace”
    Palm oil: saxophone melodies as a personal, contemplative anchor.

12. Meshell Ndegeocello – “Earth”
    Palm oil & pressure: blends tenderness with urgency, showing duality in identity.

13. Burna Boy – “Wonderful”
    Pressure: modern diasporic energy that asserts cultural pride and resilience.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. “Claims of the Negro.” Unit 1: “Dr. Umar v. The World.”

Ibrahim, Abdullah. “Mannenberg.” Mannenberg: Is Where It’s Happening. South Africa: CCP Records, 1974.

Kuti, Fela. “Water No Get Enemy.” Expensive Shit. Nigeria: Afrobeat Records, 1975.

Levine, Robert S. Introduction. Representative Man: Martin Delany and Frederick Douglass. University Press, 2015.

Makeba, Miriam. “Khuluma.” South Africa: Gallo Record Company, 1968.

Myers, Amina Claudine. “Jumping in the Sugar Bowl.” Song for Mother E., 1980.

Ndegeocello, Meshell. “Earth.” Bitter, Maverick Records, 1999.

Rhiannon Giddens. “At the Purchaser’s Option.” Tomorrow Is My Turn, Nonesuch Records, 2015.

Sweet Honey in the Rock. “Ella’s Song.” Sweet Honey in the Rock, 1988.

Tems. “Free Mind.” For Broken Ears, 2020.

Sampa the Great. “Final Form.” The Return, 2019.

Hiatus Kaiyote. “Nakamarra.” Tawk Tomahawk, 2013.

Seun Kuti. “Black Times.” Black Times, 2018.

Nubya Garcia. “Pace.” Source, 2020.

Burna Boy. “Wonderful.” African Giant, 2019.