Critical Review 8 – Marshall’s “We Use So Many Snares”

Marshall’s blogpost entitled “We Use So Many Snares” traces the popularity and the prevalence of snare patterns and timbres in Reggaeton, a genre he only recently discovered. He also offers a relatively detailed description of the “music itself,” drawing attention to the differences between snare styles in various genres. “the difference between soca and dancehall, between merengue and reggaeton,” he says, “Is a mere issue of speed--at least in a basic musical sense; let's not forget, though, that the cultural contexts for these styles are often rather different.” The overarching tone of the article is the accessibility that beat-making programs, bloggers, and technology in general have widened to each of these genres. My question is if these musical styles, which have their roots in specific localities but are also syncretic international forms, become simplified and reduced once they are exported globally.

            He explains its global reach – “Reggaeton has become the most popular youth music not just in the PR and DR and Panama but in Cuba, Colombia, Belize, and increasingly in Mexico, Chile, and non-Caribbean Latin America. of course, it's big in Japan. and there appears to be a thriving scene these days in the UK.” When a musical style is globalized – that is, exported to and enjoyed in countries apart from its origin, does it maintain its historical integrity? Do Reggaeton listeners in geographically distant areas like Japan understand the music they are listening to – its influences, founders, shapers, or does it become the generic sound of an entire area? Do musical genres need to maintain their historical integrity (that is, their indebtedness to locality) for them to keep their cultural validity? 

Field Note 2 - Odd Future Interviews, Lyrical Motives

My second set of fieldnotes is dedicated to developing a deeper understanding of the motives (if any) behind Odd Future’s lyrical content. One of the most striking elements of Odd Future’s music is the often nihilistic lyrics. A lyrical analysis will not play a large role in my final ethnography; rather, I want to understand the lyrics as they relate to both their creators and their receivers. Although the members of Odd Future may not support the ideas expressed in their lyrics, we cannot expect that a chorus of fans chanting blatantly immoral lyrics has the same relationship to the text. The following excerpts from interviews highlight a few points:

1.     Tyler the Creator and other Odd Future members sometimes use their negative lyrics as a sort of competition amongst themselves – who can come up with the grossest texts?

2.     Odd Future suggests that texts can exist independent of motive or subliminal message.

3.     The lyrics that are often cited as Odd Future’s most immoral are not thought out (as far as meaning), but are simply what popped into their heads.

·      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Wci7j6dvs

o   1:50

§  Interviewer: Is there any territory that you guys will not touch lyrically because it’s off limits or it’s just too personal?

§  Tyler: Sudan

§  Interviewer: Anything?

§  Tyler: I don’t know. I don’t really set off to say… I just say the first shit that pops into my head.

·      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rcYsE_H7mM

o   2:40

§  Hodgy Beats: Our actions are really random and our thoughts are normally out of the ignorance and creativity that we have built up, so I know you guys think there’s some fucking subliminal messages behind everything we do. Well guess what, motherfucker? it’s not! it’s fucking not! we’re fucking human and we like art and we like creating shit!”

·      http://austinist.com/2011/03/10/odd_future_wolf_gang_kill_them_all.php

o   Interviewer: Do you think there's gonna be some backlash from some of your lyrics? From the Republicans and such.

o   Hodgy Beats: Well, it’s not really about Republicans. I mean, I don't care who I piss off by saying anything because most of the shit that we say, if it’s not us being sincere to ourselves, it’s probably us competing in the studio to see who comes up with the most disgusting verse or some shit. So, they can talk all the fuck they want to but they're not there when the music's created. So, I'm not worried about anything.

o   Interviewer: So you guys actively try to one-up each other and push the envelope even further?

o   Hodgy Beats: Oh hell yeah, hell yeah. That's why I think our music is so good. It's such a production. But a lot of, at our shows, the kids sing along to every fucking word so the lyrics must contain some type of catchy content or something that someone likes.

·      http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/tyler-the-creator/#page2

o   Waka Flocka Flame: I’m sure you know people say y’all’s lyrics are dark or are negative. What do y’all think fans should get when they walk away from listening to y’all’s music?

o   Tyler: Well, our fans relate to our music, but most of the time the people who say that our music is dark and weird and shit like that—it doesn’t relate to them so they judge it based on what shocks them the most instead of the whole project. So the fans walk away as fans who are relatin’ to the shit, knowin’ what the fuck I’m talkin’ about, and then the other people can just sit there and claim what we’re doing is dark and Satanist or other bullshit that I don’t even like readin’ about. Because I’ll be readin’ shit where peo- ple say, “He’s not lyrical, and rap is supposed to be lyri- cal and have passion,” and I’m sitting there like, “He’s rappin’ about his life and how he misses his brother [on the song “Nightmare” from Goblin]. How is that not passionate?” But I guess those people just don’t relate to anything we’re saying, so they’re quick to judge.

o   Waka Flocka Flame: Do y’all actually do any of the stuff y’all talk about in your lyrics?

o   Tyler: Well, I don’t rape chicks . . . I have punched a girl in the eye . . . Um . . . What else? I say a lot of shit and it just depends . . . Sometimes it’s just ’cause shit is funny.

o   Waka Flocka Flame: Is there something deeper behind it? What do those images mean?

o   Tyler: Well, a lot of people think that stuff is deeper than it really is. Some people just think too much. Like, my manager knows I wanna be a video director, so he was like, “Hey, just write a video, write the treatment for it, and we’ll shoot it.” So I was like, “All right, fuck it. I’ll eat a cockroach, I’ll throw up, and then I’ll hang myself . . . It’s, like, no subliminal messages or secret meanings or anything. I just personally think the shit would look really cool, so I did it. I just like doing shit that I think is cool, and people happen to like it, so I’m pretty, like, fortunate for that. So I’m gonna just continue to be myself and do what I like. Again, people are just so quick to judge shit ’cause they don’t understand it. But I understand what I’m doing, and that’s all that should matter.

My next step, one that I am struggling to accomplish, is to find more fans of Odd Future and examine their relationships to the group’s lyrics. The main hurdle will be the issue of diversity – the fans that I currently have access to are students at Brown, who might not be indicative of the greater Odd Future fanbase. 

Critical Review 7 - Duany's “Popular Music in Puerto Rico: Toward an Anthropology of ‘Salsa’”

            In his article “Popular Music in Puerto Rico: Toward an Anthropology of ‘Salsa,’” Jorge Duany traces the development of salsa in Puerto Rico, showing how it rose as a proletariat genre in a social and political context of syncretism. He very effectively shows how the history of the Puerto Rican people, particularly in relation to European colonization and later US colonization, is reflected in the conflagration of musical styles that ultimately resulted in what we know today as salsa. He also successfully describes “the music itself,” highlighting instrumental consistencies between subgenres, rhythmic elements, and vocal patterns. My one point of contention with the article is his lack of description of the dance culture associated with salsa, which in this particular genre should not be neglected.

            Duany describes the prevalence of Puerto Rican culture in the United States, and the heavy hand American colonization had in shaping what became salsa. Today in the United States, salsa is associated with music, but I would argue that its principle connotation is with dance. Salsa clubs have very much become social fixtures particularly in urban centers, often seen as emblems of generic Latin culture. Duany recognizes the importance of dance in salsa culture when he says, “Above all, this is music to be danced to: a song that doesn’t make you moveyour feet doesn’t have any ‘salsa.’” (199). However, he fails to make any description of “the dance itself” or even the role dance plays in salsa culture aside from a few general descriptions. Upon noting this oversight, I question when music can appropriately be separated form its corresponding musical genres. If salsa is not truly salsa if it fails to evoke physical movement, how can it be analyzed without a description of the dance?

Black Jungle

The BBC documentary “Black Jungle” describes the musical style and attached culture of Jungle, a genre that developed in the late 1980’s combining traditionally black forms like reggae and soul with fast, rave-like beats. Jungle has clear connections to the sound system culture in 1970’s London (described in Les Back’s article, “’Inglan, nice up!’: black music, autonomy, and the cultural intermezzo”), where groups of black youth, excluded from white institutions of leisure, went to the street and established communal celebrations that revolved around musical participation. Though the line between exclusion and choice is blurry, the Jungle movement seems to be rooted in an affinity for black musical styles that were not being represented by the prevailing rave scene. Jungle’s adherents strove to achieve a syncretism between the two – the beat-driven elements of rave, with the connection to rich cultural styles. It is difficult to say whether the absence of black music in rave clubs unintentionally led to an exclusion of black youth, as seen in sound system culture, or if it simply highlighted a dissatisfaction with the preexisting musical scene.

What struck me about the documentary was their description of Jungle as a departure from the past, in the sense that it was a redefinition of British identity “on black terms.” Instead of deepening a schism between white Britain and black “others,” Jungle appropriated the sounds of London’s musical scene and combined it with soul and reggae to create a distinct genre based on locality and a complex racial identity. Whereas the sound system scene was pushed out of white institutions, Jungle participants created a syncretic sound by their own will. However, I question the extent to which the success of the scene still depended on white support. In the documentary, a song is described as being so successful, it was played on BBC 1, a predominantly white media outlet. The documentary shows white record executives and radio jockeys, as well other white Jungle adherents. Is it white participation in Jungle simply indicative of the style itself, a blend of white and black styles, or does it point to an inability for black styles to disseminate without white aid?

Interview with Dan and Cam

Here's an excerpt from my interview with Dan and Cam, two roommates at Brown University. More to come...

11:20

Will: Something that you guys have been talking about a lot is the idea of Tyler’s personas. How do you think those multiple personas are related to reality? Do you see these personas as charicatures, or as exaggerated perceptions of reality? My basic question is – how do you guys listen to Tyler’s personas?

C: Dude, I see Tron Cat as like - this is obviously the very violent like murderous disturbing persona. I see it kind of like a horror film, um like visually, but I also kind of see it as his sick thoughts and imaginations that he just doesn’t really express out loud, but he just sits and thinks to himself but this is an embodiment of all of those thoughts culminating into one being and one persona in the song. Do you know what I’m saying?

D: Yeah, I think that one of the most indicative personas, or one that cuts to the heart of the question is his role as the psychologist. And I think that one of the things he’s doing, or one of the things I think he’s doing, is kind of exploring these aspects of the mind that are usually repressed and not talked about socially. And he got interested – you know, I’ve read interviews where Tyler says, “I got interested in the minds of killers and criminals and what’s going on in their heads, and like, what is their mental process?" And I think that he explores that through some personas like Tron Cat. And so, maybe that’s me really trying to put a positive spin on some pretty negative lyrics.

C: I feel like along with the psychologist persona is the really vulnerable Tyler sitting in a chair talking back to this doctor, and he always just spills his emotions, and sometimes will feel more, not dark, but sad. You know?

Will: And how do you guys feel like you connect to these songs that represent very dark sides of Tyler’s personality?

C: I feel like it’s kind of like, to some extent, I mean I obviously don’t think like that on a regular basis, but it’s just like, the fact that he can construct such well lyrically put together song with really creative metaphors about really disturbing and crazy shit just makes me want to root for his dark persona. Like, if it were a horror movie and I were watching all the lyrics happen, I would probably cheer for that guy.

D: Yeah, I think you just touched on the two things that I really identify with. Obviously, I don’t have the same kind of thoughts as Tyler in his Tron Cat persona. But there are times where I think things that are not quite socially acceptable. You know, there are dark sides to my personality too that I think I can not necessarily identify with, but that I can see some kind of sympathetic, um. And I respect Tyler for not only not repressing that side but letting it flourish. And I think the lyricism and the metaphors, the song construction, I can appreciate as separate from the lyrical content. I find that really compelling.

16:00

Will: So turning to songs like “Radicals,” where the chorus is “Kill People, Burn Shit, Fuck School,” do you see that as an ironic statement or as an exaggeration of the everyman’s dark desires?

C: I thought about this a lot over the summer when I was listening to “Goblin” in the car, because I listened to it a lot over the summer. I think it’s very much an exaggeration for his rebellion against typically accepted societal norms. Do you know what I’m saying? Like, obviously he doesn’t want you to kill people and drop out of school and burn shit, it’s more about going against the grain and not doing necessarily what society wants you to do. I feel like he’s just saying, “do whatever the fuck you want. Be whoever you want to be.” Like, I’m a table, I’m a unicorn, if I say I want to be a table or a unicorn you can’t tell me I’m not a unicorn.

D: Yeah, I’d agree. I think it’s exaggeration for effect. But you know, there are other songs where the ironic component might be a better explanation.

Critical Review 6 – Weinstein’s “Digging the Music: Proud Pariahs”

            In her article “Digging the Music: Proud Pariahs,” Weinstein discusses the subculture of metal, particularly its white, working class, male ethos. I challenge many of the assertions she makes in regards to gender disparity and identity within the scene, as I find her to reduce the gender dynamics to overly simplified binaries. On page 104, she says that males are, “at a minimum, ambivalent regarding women, seeking to escape from maternal and other forms of female authority and fearful of being viewed as ‘mama’s boys,’ and yet attracted to women sexually.” This description of male-female relationships essentializes them into two categories – mother and partner, a categorization that does not take into account the myriad of complexities that go into interactions between sexes. Though she later discusses some female metalheads who achieve some level of subcultural capital (by performing masculinity), there is a resounding binary in her argument about gendered relationships – men either hate women or want them. This binary takes credibility from her research, as it feels like it reduces metalheads into restricting archetypes of masculinity, which may often be true but nonetheless lack necessary nuance.

            This lack of nuance is also evidenced by her general oversight of the inherent femininity in many of the cultural signifiers in the metal scene. Weinstein traces the genealogy of metal to hippie, punk, and biker culture. In her discussion of metal music itself, she highlights its expressivity, specifically referencing the wailing, crying qualities of many guitar solos, as well as the expected emotionality of lead vocalists. These vulnerable qualities of the music seem at odds with the identity of the scene, which Weinstein asserts is overwhelmingly masculine. Furthermore, her extensive discussion of the long hair as central to metal style never once calls into question long hair as a traditionally female aesthetic. Though their long hair is arguably descended from hippie culture, not from feminine style, long hair has implicit societal connotations, namely feminine ones. She says that metalheads take pride in the “stigma of long hair” (133), likely referring to its stigma of disheveled rebellion. Again, she forgets to discuss the role of long hair in establishing the feminine identity, one that metalheads would probably be less proud of.

            Though I agree with many of Weinstein’s arguments and cannot deny the inherent masculinity in the metal scene, I think she overly simplifies its gender dynamics. Her reductions make her article feel very flat, and leave the reader with the sense that they haven’t actually learned about real, nuanced people. 

Critical Review 5 – Hayes’ “Fear of (and Fascination with) a Black Planet: the Relocation of Rap by White Non-Urban Youth”

In his article “Fear of (and Fascination with) a Black Planet: the Relocation of Rap by White Non-Urban Youth,” David Hayes examines the role of rap music in shaping white suburban identity. The emergent youth subculture, one that is based on subversion of their homogenized, “white” local values, conceives of black culture as it is portrayed in media representations of rap music. He ultimately argues that by reducing a racial group that is absent from their localities, white youth, who claim affinity for a black art form, ultimately reduce black identity to a few stereotypes.

            My main critique of Hayes’ article is his antagonism of the white youth he interviews as a result of what he sees as their contributions to the marginalizing institution of racism. Though I do not think that appropriation of black aesthetics in an otherwise white cultural landscape necessarily indicates a white sense of solidarity with blacks, I think the venturing of white youth into a typically black scene should be appreciated as a form of boundary crossing. He calls for a reevaluation by white youth of their perceptions of blackness, suggesting, “Steps toward achieving this goal could begin with a vigorous critique of their own assumptions about the interrelation between race and rap culture, although this would require access to anti-racism education programs, social justice groups and other school and community-based resources, as well as their willingness to embark on such a project.”

            My question is if the white youth described in the article truly are guilty of a lack of “willingness to embark on such a project,” or if their affinity for rap indicates a subliminal willingness. Is their participation in rap, however racialized and reductive though it may be, a signal of their attempt to understand blackness, more so than their local neighbors, who stay completely removed from any contact with black culture?