Music and Cats / Book of Abstracts - Catalog - Page 44
Abstracts
Panel 6: Feline Metaphors
16:40 – 16:55
Feline Metaphors for
Female Empowerment
in 1920s-30s Blues
Dani Wilde / BIMM University Brighton
This work analyses feline imagery employed by
female artists in classic, hokum, and dirty blues
music of the 1920s and 1930s. The study centres on
the polysemic symbolism of cats, spanning hoodoo
and supernatural associations such as the "black
cat bone", to "pussycat" and "kitty" as double
entendres for female sexuality. The Prohibition Era
(1920-1933) provided a significant context for the
rise of hokum and dirty blues genres. Illicit
speakeasies cultivated an environment for blues
women to explore taboo subjects through
humorous innuendo, often utilizing feline terms to
express sexual desires and leverage erotic capital.
In an era of social patriarchy and disrespectful
erotic slang aimed at women, many female blues
artists reclaimed crude feline terms, transforming
this language into expressions of female
empowerment.
Memphis
Minnie’s
lyric,
"Everybody wants to buy my kitty. I wouldn't sell
that cat to save your soul," exemplifies this
agency. Through her refusal to "sell" her “cat”,
she directly addresses objectification, asserts her
sexual autonomy, and challenges the harmful
Jezebel stereotype as a powerful act of resistance.
The cultural roots of "black cat" superstitions
originate in West Africa and medieval Europe.
African Americans merged these traditions to form
Hoodoo, a prevalent theme in blues music. The
"black cat" metaphor in early blues music
therefore represents a potent cultural memory of
surviving West African traditions. Embraced by
artists such as Clara Smith, Ma Rainey, and Trixie
Smith, it became a powerful symbol of Black
female empowerment. Trixie Smith’s "Voodoo
Blues", for example, with its vengeful hexing
potion made from “black cat legs”, articulates
her defiance against patriarchal figures. This
work demonstrates how, in an era of profound
marginalisation, blues women transformed
the multifaceted symbol of the cat, powerfully
declaring sexual autonomy and Black female
empowerment.
Clara Catkin
42
