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Odd issues of appropriation or otherwise (in this case as regards a blues song I may be writing)
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You clearly need to get digging then!
All the noteworthy and popular music genres are created by the Chocolate skinned people
This is an undeniable FACT all MUST follow his/her lead...........
They continue to create the NEW and original while all others are forced to "appropriate"
So you have NO other choice but to appropriate, emulate, simulate, copy, mimic, etc.
The TRUTH will be told no matter who likes it or not True musical genius lies with the Black people
No more songs that start with “I woke up this morning”. Please.
I think its a bit more complicated, but less controversial than saying that all popular music comes from black people. On one side, America has made a lucrative business of taking music that originates in black communities and selling it in a new package with white artists.
Its likely a combination of America's history with slavery and its incredible amount of wealth that helped it influence the music industry as a whole. The musical influence of African roots on American music is substantial, and it sets it apart from many other styles of music. Because it's hard to divorce American music from much of the blues influence, it's hard to find a popular music genre that isn't in some part heavily influenced by African Americans. Particularly now that a majority of popular music is now influenced by hip hop. However, the most significant point of contention probably comes from how people were introduced to these styles of music. America has a history of the generational divide that often results in one generation demonizing a form of "black music" (like jazz, blues, funk, rap, etc.), while the next generation grows up on it, tries to imitate it and make it their own. As a black package, it's far less popular to the mainstream market, so businesses would take black music and package it on white artists to benefit from the music of black people but the aesthetic appeal of white people. This happened with Elvis, this happened with Eminem, this happened with Miley Cyrus and her twerking. When it was "urban" its often characterized as wild, unsavory, dirty and low class. However the young generations embrace it, imitate it, and America then tends to change its perspective calling the white artist revolutionary and edgy. It's a repeating cycle really.
(Side note: To contrast the pop examples above, an example of black America accepting sincere appreciation and emulation of a genre that originates from the black community, Eminem is generally respected within the Hip Hop community, and he continually gives credit to his influences in Hip Hop. It's also not 100% that black artists can't sell. MC Hammer, Beyonce and Michael Jackson are examples of black artists that achieved mass appeal, but generally, there are some controversial factors around character and appearance that contribute to this.)
This youtube video actually shows songs that were popular in the black communities and to my knowledge all the artists were respected after being discovered as not actually black. (except the last one of course lol)
People outside the US who take influence from genres of African American origin probably have a slightly different opinion about the matter, and their "appropriation" is perhaps less tainted by the racial issues that America deals with. I think the most important thing to acknowledge is that black music has never been an exclusive club from the perspective of most black circles. Because black artists wanted to be accepted and understood, they often embraced non-black musicians who took a sincere appreciation for their music. The problems always arrived when the business would take their sound and package it on an outsider to the music for the sake of selling to a larger less knowledgable white audience that previously had demonized the very same music when it was "black."
The general misconception is that when people claim cultural appropriation that it means they want people to stop appreciating something. I think in most cases, they're just saying, give it the appreciation and credit it deserves. All races have contributed to America's sound, but it's a lie, and disrespectful to erase specific cultural influences from the entire thing just because you like it, but you don't care enough to at least acknowledge where it came from. There are only a few cases I can think of where people might want others to halt their activities because of cultural appropriation, and those are generally cases of religious, historical and ceremonial importance that people don't want to see monetized and watered down.
Somewhere over Quebec
Interesting discussion you chaps. In general I always try to side with the ‘if you can’t be respectful at least don’t be a dick’ team on almost all matters. People and nations both.
The first human played a 4 on the floor using 2 rocks. I shall make a conscious effort to pay respect every time I fire up my rig
@WillieNegus @chocobitz825
And @oldschoolwillie (previously I had my Willies confused) 🤪
Good stuff. I enjoyed the read, and appreciate the perspective you guys bring.
You sure rap is a black thing? People have been setting poetry to music for probably thousands of years. Here's a more recent example:
Thanks for the kind words. However, I’m not trying to appropriate anyone’s comment by taking credit for a perspective I haven’t offered.lol
Lol, I seem to have gotten my Willies mixed up.
Regardless, I am familiar with some of the enlightening stuff you have posted.
So the random shoutout is still deserved, I say.
In my honest opinion, the term "cultural appropriation" is just another umbrella term created by the easily offended to mean both "cultural appreciation" and "cultural insensitivity". There is a complete difference between the two.
Some musical examples - an example of cultural insensitivity is the "We are Siamese" song from Lady and the Tramp. Cultural appreciation is the song "Ganbareh" by Sash. It isn't stealing someone's culture when you're not taking the piss out of it.
(Strangely enough, St. Patrick's Day and Cinco Day Mayo are both a combination of cultural appreciation and cultural insensitivity and an excuse to get people to drink discounted alcohol.
)
🙏🏾 @CracklePot
I think your opinion of what, cultural appropriation means and why the term was created seems very dissmissive. This Wikipedia article provides several examples and distinguishes cultural appropriation from the positive definitions of cultural exchange.
You don't have to think it mate. I am being dismissive of "cultural appropriation". The reason is, the concept of "cultural appropriation" is a form of oppression and stifling of creative freedom. So do I have to ask permission before using certain instruments in a piece of music? Is it culturally appropriating Austrian culture if I want to write a piece of neo-Classical music?
People from the dominant culture dismissing the concerns of minority and disempowered cultures and people is a form of prejudice. To dismiss the concerns out of hand is how oppression works.
Let's take it down to a more micro level.
Let's say I took a song you made, copied vital elements of it and made something I claim is new, original and organic.
I never credit or acknowledge your influence because I feel your claims and the burden to credit the original influence is just oppression on my creative freedom.....
which side of this argument would you be standing on?
"sure mate, have at my whole collection while you're at it!"
or
"wait, your music is clearly influenced by mine. at the very least admit that!"
or maybe you'd be the "stop and desist" kind?
I personally don’t care what you do with music or what sources you decide to use, that’s your own personal choice. I just think your opinion about what cultural appropriation is was very narrow . I think there are examples of people exploiting other people’s culture with no consideration whatsoever for how they are affected or effected by it. Specific situations are certainly up for debate as to whether it constitutes exploitation or not but to say in all cases that people are simply being too sensitive seems to overstate the case.
Without a doubt there will never be consensus on these issues and now more than ever cultures are mixing together and influencing one another.
If someone respects another culture, it would seem reasonable to consider their wishes with respect to how their culture is used. Clearly many people have had and will continue to have no desire to take this into account when they decide to use something. Sometimes they might not be aware of the source. Other times they believe their usage is not taken from the other culture.
Unless you’re a member of a corporate culture where you have lots of laws, lawyers, and courts to enforce how your products are used or can use some sort of military action— a culture relies upon the willingness of others to respect their wishes.
In general, many people have little desire to try and empathize with others and would rather do what they intend to do with preferably no interference by others. Others seem obsessed with trying to exert control by dictating what’s acceptable usage.
My confidence in people being reasonable is very low due to my own Eeyoric POV so I’d take whatever I have to say on this topic with a grain of salt.
Applying syncopated rhythm to music is not inherently a black thing. The style, culture, and society it comes out of all matter.
Though I'd say, the clip you have shows more of an influence of jazz culture influence. It was adopted by mostly white beatnik poets who considered themselves on the outskirts of mainstream society and chose to show that by applying their poetry and rhythms to the unpopular, often deemed dirty and low class, jazz from "other side of the tracks" black culture. By using the jazz their parents and society hated, and associating themselves with some of the dirty and gritty stereotypes of that scene, they created an identity for themselves where they could isolate themselves, based on culture from an isolated group. They took the reality of a group of people forced to live on the other side of town, and who had to perform and create under harsh conditions, turned that misery into fashion and then used it to express their misery as new originals.
Nah, that's total BS. Jazz was extremely popular in the US in the mid-20th century. For several decades it was the dominant form of popular music. Jazz musicians were pervasive in the studios and TV bands well into the 1970s, and are still found on popular tv shows even today. To say that jazz was "unpopular, dirty, low class" in the late 1950s reveals profound ignorance of recent music history.
Just to concede a few things for the sake of being fair. If black people came and said, Neo-Classical Metal is black music because jimi hendrix, in many ways that is a mistaken claim and cultural appropriation. To divorce classical composers, and European music from that genre of metal is entirely wrong. Another example of appropriation is the ownership some black communities feel for the song "amazing grace." It's not written by, or for black people, but somehow down the line became associated with black church gospel music. almost ironically really.
I'd say overall it's like trying to say American English is its own language, ignoring its influences from Latin. It's a disservice to do so since so much can be learned by understanding the origin of something. Understanding the core elements that make up our words, so they have context, rather than just being a collection of random letters. They help us understand the commonalities between our words and the words in Spanish and Italian, and even understand the differences between American, Indian, Australian English and the various forms from the UK. Music and its history can be the same.
This is why the notion of cultural appropriation is so ridiculous: The claims are founded on untenable assumptions about cultural purity, cultural essentialism, and reified cultural boundaries. No individual owns culture; it belongs to humanity. Anyone who disagrees should try to copyright, say, Wallonian culture, and see how far you get with that project.
Jazz out of the roaring twenties was entirely hated by classical circles, and many efforts were made to keep it from becoming mainstream. Those efforts failed as many variations of jazz came out. Big Band jazz being one of the more mainstream, but this is still contrasted by smaller night club style jazz that was far off the clean mainstream aesthetic.
To claim that Jazz was always popular is like saying Hip Hop was always mainstream in western music. It may be the most mainstream form of pop music now, but when it was hip hop coming out of the 70s, it was unpopular, it was controversial, and it was considered those things in part because it came from poor black neighborhoods. Same with Jazz. It came from poor black neighborhoods, and before it was adopted into the mainstream, it was fiercely hated by the establishment.
So who owns your music? It cants possibly be 100% original. You've taken influence from somebody. If by admitting you've been influenced by others, does that negate your ability to claim ownership of the music you created? Is it ok for me to say that I can copy core elements of your work without credit because you don't own the genre? Music is for everyone, so your creations are open game for everyone to take without credit? Its a vague and complex concept, but it is still important to at least try to acknowledge roots and cultural differences.
Cultural purity is the assumption of the lazy. There are layers, and we're not so dumb that we can't figure them out. We just choose not to.
The issue/question of appropriation isn't about some purity test. I think that for most people that consider it an issue worthy of discussion, the issue isn't that they object to people being influenced by music or art of another culture or subculture: they are concerned about the lack of acknowledgment for major contributions for which there has not been sufficient acknowledgment -- and oftentimes those contributions haven't just gone unacknowledged.
When people argue back as if the issue of cultural appropriation is about some form of purity, I think that either they are being disingenuous or are ignorant of the serious issues that cause people to be sensitive about the issue. (Or they might be being dismissive because they don't respect the people that have raised the issue). It isn't always easy to tell what generates the response.
Acting as if people discussing cultural appropriation is somehow tantamount to saying one can't be influenced by other cultures just seems to me to be overly dismissive.
What I actually wrote: "To say that jazz was "unpopular, dirty, low class" in the late 1950s reveals profound ignorance of recent music history." The clip I posted was from a mainstream teen movie. The bandleader was a successful TV composer. The musicians were successful studio musicians. Jazz was the dominant paradigm in American music at that cultural moment.
In contemporary society, individuals can own copyrights to individual works, but entire cultures cannot own styles of music, because the concepts of "culture" and "styles of music" are not definable in any meaningful way. See the parallel thread on psychedelic music. Given that no one can agree on what it is, it would be impossible to assign ownership. Assigning membership to cultures is equally ridiculous.
I'm dismissive of the concept of "cultural appropriation" because it emanates from a movement to pathologize normal cultural borrowing. It is a movement of people who set themselves up as the arbiters of other people's behavior, justifying their actions with ridiculously vague and logically untenable assertions. We've seen people driven out of business by these nutcases for no good reason at all. We need to resist this kind of insanity.
You are just wrong. But since you aren't actually interested in a serious discussion, I'll not continue the discussion except to point out that you keep misrepresenting the issue and what the issues are. You keep acting as if the issue is about people being influenced by other cultures. Which is not it. You keep pretending that people concerned about cultural appropriation are demanding some sort of purity or purity test. But no one does. You argue against straw men and show no interest in why it is an issue that the overwhelming contribution of the descendants of slaves have not received due recognition.
Lots has been written about the issues by historians and writers far more eloquent and knowledgeable than I am.
Your arguments seem to be dismissive comments that ignore the actual issues. If you have any curiosity, go read the works of writers and historians to better understand why some think it is worthwhile to discuss how a dominant culture's dismissivenes of the contributions of minority cultures has large repercussions.
Peace.
Thank you all. This was interesting and will give some of us some stuff to think about I'm sure. WIll let you know, elsewhere, how the blues song turns out
JG