PMH/Black metal soul music: Stone Vengeance and the aesthetics of race in heavy metal

For all of metal’s globalization, metal is frequently associated with white, working-class men. This article focuses attention on the African-American minority within US metal scenes, drawing on a case study of the all-black thrash metal band Stone Vengeance, who ‘while enjoying a primarily white male audience, formed their aesthetic in recognition, even celebration, of their blackness’. The band face a predicament in how far to resist or to play with stereotypical constructions as blackness—embodied in the description of the band as ‘lords of heavy metal soul’. Interviews with Stone Vengeance frontman Mike Coffey show how he both situates heavy metal within a tradition of black music and at the same time desires to locate himself simply as a heavy metal musician. This tension between individual empowerment and a commitment to the collective runs through the wider field of heavy metal.