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Cultural appropriation in music - what's acceptable?

Started by The Mollusk, December 08, 2021, 05:38:57 PM

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The Mollusk

Paul Simon's "Graceland": Acceptable because he collaborated and recorded it with African musicians, even though he wrote all the music himself?

Talking Heads and Eno/Byrne brazenly nicked a load of that stuff as well and those two are the whitest motherfuckers around. Is that merging of styles alright? Is it okay to introduce the Western world to an otherwise almost totally overlooked style of music if you're not including the native musicians of that style in your performances? In recent years I've found myself pondering if Talking Heads are even really all that great. From a Westerner's point of view they're cool as fuck, but there's more coolness in traditional Arfobeat's little finger, let's be honest.

My main beef for starting this thread was contemplating Swedish band Goat today. Calling their debut album "World Music" (although they claim it's an attempt at leveling the playing field in that "we all play world music" and the term itself is stupid and ignorant) seems a fair bit shortsighted when the band are presumably all white and a lot of the styles they're incorporating are from cultures not involved in the creation of the music at all. I've seen Goat live (and, I'll admit, really enjoyed myself) and they did have an African percussionist playing with them... but isn't that just tokenism?

All of these topics I'm posting here are raised with only a fraction of full education on how much the artists credited/acknowledged their source material (though I'm willing to bet Byrne did relatively fuck all in that department) and this thread is as much here to debate what's right/wrong as it is to potentially enlighten me if I've not got the full picture. As usual my ADHD brain will probably dawdle off and not feel engaged enough to have any big discussions but I am always happy to be proven wrong and pointed to wider sources.

greenman

Seems like two quite different arguments, against the use of another cultures music and whether if you do use very specific compositions you credit them properly.

Vitamin C

Ask Los Lobos about Graceland. They have some choice words about Simon, to say the least.

QuoteWe tried calling him, and we can't find him. Weeks go by and our managers can't find him. We finally track him down and ask him about our song, and he goes, "Sue me. See what happens."

What?! Come on...

That's what he said. He said, "You don't like it? Sue me. You'll see what happens." We were floored. We had no idea. The record comes out, and he's a big hit. Retroactively, he had to give songwriting credit to all the African guys he stole from that were working on it and everyone seemed to forget. But that's the kind of person he is. He's the world's biggest prick, basically.

https://www.laweekly.com/los-lobos-on-paul-simon-do-you-mean-zydeco-when-you-say-zy-decko/

lipsink

The Paul Simon one is iffy cos he was accused by the artists he collaborated with, of stealing their music. Plus there's him breaking the cultural boycott against apartheid to collaborate with the artists. I still love the album though.

Edit: Oops. beat me to it!

chveik

cultural appropriation talk should be focused on the people actually stealing/not paying royalties instead of vague calling outs of bands that incorporate traditional folk in their music.

Kankurette

Quote from: lipsink on December 08, 2021, 06:04:06 PMThe Paul Simon one is iffy cos he was accused by the artists he collaborated with, of stealing their music. Plus there's him breaking the cultural boycott against apartheid to collaborate with the artists. I still love the album though.

Edit: Oops. beat me to it!
At least they were black musicians, I guess. It would have been more offensive if he'd worked with white Afrikaners, them being the oppressors.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: The Mollusk on December 08, 2021, 05:38:57 PMFrom a Westerner's point of view they're cool as fuck, but there's more coolness in traditional Arfobeat's little finger, let's be honest.


Depends how you define 'cool', a fairly nebulous concept in the first place.

Pop music comes from Rock & Roll, that comes from blues, blues comes from folk, folk comes from dudes with tabors, dulcimers and lutes, and everything like Viking plainsong, hymns, bongos etc in between, and so on and so forth. It's all in the pottage and should belong to everyone.

That said, "Puff Puff Give" crossed the line.

Doomy Dwyer


Captain Z

Quote from: Vitamin C on December 08, 2021, 06:01:48 PMAsk Los Lobos about Graceland. They have some choice words about Simon, to say the least.

https://www.laweekly.com/los-lobos-on-paul-simon-do-you-mean-zydeco-when-you-say-zy-decko/

After looking up the song they were talking about (Myth Of Fingerprints) it seems Los Lobos were added to the credits of the 25th Anniversary re-release in 2012, so hopefully they feel a little less aggrieved now.

kngen

Quote from: The Mollusk on December 08, 2021, 05:38:57 PMMy main beef for starting this thread was contemplating Swedish band Goat today. Calling their debut album "World Music" (although they claim it's an attempt at leveling the playing field in that "we all play world music" and the term itself is stupid and ignorant) seems a fair bit shortsighted when the band are presumably all white and a lot of the styles they're incorporating are from cultures not involved in the creation of the music at all. I've seen Goat live (and, I'll admit, really enjoyed myself) and they did have an African percussionist playing with them... but isn't that just tokenism?

Funnily enough, I was just thinking about Goat in this context the other day. Didn't really come to any conclusions either way other than some of their shtick - like using the Bathory goat on their merch and the bloke dressed like a Bedouin who just sits at the front of the stage staring at people occasionally hitting a drum - makes me think there's something a little more arch than wholesale cultural appropriation. Can't quite put my finger on it though. It certainly makes me cringe less than Sting's 'walkin' an de moon' reggae voice in The Police.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: kngen on December 08, 2021, 08:16:23 PMIt certainly makes me cringe less than Sting's 'walkin' an de moon' reggae voice in The Police.

But it works though. If he sung in his native Wallsend accent, then it would be cringeworthy.

flotemysost

I had an idea for a similar thread a while back, and the first example that sprang to mind was Graceland. It was on pretty heavy rotation at home when I was little, so I suppose I've got somewhat affectionate associations with it, but in recent years I have wondered if things like that partly helped inform the naive "multiculturalism is great as long as white people still get to shape the dominant narrative and take the credit, let's all just hold hands and get along, lalala" world view that I've held (without really realising) for most of my life. I had no idea about the controversy (though I'm not hugely surprised), thanks for the background chveik and lipsink.

One example which I don't think necessarily deserves #cancellation - despite being an album entirely inspired by Native music, but made by a bunch of (AFAIK) white blokes - is Anonymous by Tomahawk. From what I've heard about its conception, it was quite faithfully researched and was based around the idea that this historically overlooked music deserves to see the light of day. Aside from perhaps being a bit of a gimmicky concept, and some of the vocal bits being a tad unnecessary IMHO, I don't get the impression of a band trying to claim full credit for another culture's efforts (even the name feels more like a humble nod to the oppression and dismissal of Native traditions and people).

I haven't listened to it in a while, but I was thinking about the album Eskimo by The Residents the other day - I mean, even that title is decidedly dodge by today's standards, and some of the vocal noises are a bit uncomfortably "ooga booga" from what I can remember - BUT according to the Wiki page it's actually deliberately crude and intended to satirise ignorance of indigenous American cultures (I haven't seen the accompanying faux-ethnographic documents that come with the album). I didn't actually realise this so I might be chatting utter cloaca here. But, then I guess that raises the question of when is it OK for white (again, AFAIK in this case!) artists to take it upon themselves to satirise oppression of minorities, and how close to the bone is it OK to go? I dunno.

There are loads and loads of examples of individual songs, videos etc. which play with cultural and racial tropes in questionable ways, and of late quite a few popular artists have come under fire for banking on ethnic ambiguity - Ariana Grande and Jesy Nelson of Little Mix, for example - but a lot of that is about cosmetic choices as well as musical style (not to say that's not important either).

Quote from: kngen on December 08, 2021, 08:16:23 PMSting's 'walkin' an de moon' reggae voice in The Police.

Agree, have always found Sting very cringe for this reason.

Goldentony

GOAT have been shite and cunts for years. Remember thinking this 2014 or so when dad psych was at its peak and Marc Riley was walking on water, fucking session musicians playing dress up.

Video Game Fan 2000

#13
Cultural appropriation and mixing is great, robbing people of labour is shite. Authenticity is one of the most bogus ideas in the world, the tell tale headlight of an approaching train of reactionary shit.

The weird thing with Byrne/Eno is that they did actually directly rip someone off - Holger Czukay, who was crushed that his friends stole so many of his ideas without telling him. Czukay called his world music experiments "ethnographic forgeries" so as much as I love Bush of Ghosts there is something a bit grim about taking something thats self aware and funny about being an ex-academic musician using tapes to imitate non western music to two rock stars presenting it as something moldbreaking.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: The Mollusk on December 08, 2021, 05:38:57 PMTalking Heads and Eno/Byrne brazenly nicked a load of that stuff as well and those two are the whitest motherfuckers around.

They didn't 'nick' it. Eno is a fan of gospel music and Talking Heads were up front about their love of funk. I mean, c'mon:


Where My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is problematic is the track Qu'Ran, which was left off later releases:


He discusses it in this excellent interview with Adam Buxton, which I coincidentally listened to yesterday: https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts/90. It's a real shame because it's a great piece of music. On being asked why they didn't just do another mix without the offending samples, he says they didn't think of it. D'Oh!

QuoteMy main beef for starting this thread was contemplating Swedish band Goat today. Calling their debut album "World Music" (although they claim it's an attempt at leveling the playing field in that "we all play world music" and the term itself is stupid and ignorant) seems a fair bit shortsighted when the band are presumably all white and a lot of the styles they're incorporating are from cultures not involved in the creation of the music at all. I've seen Goat live (and, I'll admit, really enjoyed myself) and they did have an African percussionist playing with them... but isn't that just tokenism?

For better or worse, they're definitely doing a thing. There's a load of guff on the sleeve about them being part of some obscure Swedish tribe, or whatever. It's hokum to flesh out the tribal sound.

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on December 08, 2021, 09:55:26 PMThe weird thing with Byrne/Eno is that they did actually directly rip someone off - Holger Czukay, who was crushed that his friends stole so many of his ideas without telling him. Czukay called his world music experiments "ethnographic forgeries" so as much as I love Bush of Ghosts there is something a bit grim about taking something thats self aware and funny about being an ex-academic musician using tapes to imitate non western music to two rock stars presenting it as something moldbreaking.

Eno acknowledges that Czukay was ahead of them incorporating samples in that way, but he says he and Byrne were the first to make it funky. Can't argue with that.

jobotic

I view Damon Albarn as being guilty of cultural appropriation but I don't Boris or Guitar Wolf.

Whyssat then?

holyzombiejesus

I was also thinking about this recently as I often see this white guy with dreadlocks busking on Market Street. He does reggae songs and sings in a patois and I want to slap him. A reggae band was playing in his usual spot recently; they were all black apart from that white guy who was playing guitar for them, so if they don't have a problem, maybe it's wrong of me to have a problem on their behalf.

Inspector Norse

Quote from: jobotic on December 09, 2021, 12:08:47 AMI view Damon Albarn as being guilty of cultural appropriation but I don't Boris or Guitar Wolf.

Whyssat then?

Perhaps because rock music has already gone through several levels of appropriation, so foreigners doing it isn't that much of a leap, while Damon Albarn is trying to tap the source directly?

Re David Byrne: his label Luaka Bop put out a load of cool "world" music things, but he also has a habit of putting his own songs on compilations called "The Soul of Black Peru", which is definitely a wee bit dodge.

Pauline Walnuts

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on December 09, 2021, 07:04:07 AMI was also thinking about this recently as I often see this white guy with dreadlocks busking on Market Street. He does reggae songs and sings in a patois and I want to slap him. A reggae band was playing in his usual spot recently; they were all black apart from that white guy who was playing guitar for them, so if they don't have a problem, maybe it's wrong of me to have a problem on their behalf.

Maybe the white guy was a Jamaican and was brought up in a 'Reggae culture' while the black guys were all Nigerian, and though reggae was the only way they'd get on busking, despite having only heard Bob Marleys Greatest hits.

Maybe the real cultural appropriator here is the businessman in his suit and tie?


dissolute ocelot

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on December 08, 2021, 11:51:19 PMThey didn't 'nick' it. Eno is a fan of gospel music and Talking Heads were up front about their love of funk.
Talking Heads were majorly inspired by African music on Remain In Light, but recently west African legend Angelique Kidjo covered the entirety of Remain In Light in an even more African style, which I think successfully gets payback for that.

There's a lot of bands who copied African guitar pop, like Vampire Weekend, but a lot of original New Wave pop sounds similar. Surely copying an African version of western rock n roll is legitimate cultural exchange, though, just as when the Beatles and Stones and all the British invasion bands took American blues back across the Atlantic, and American bands then copied that.

I've more of a problem with stuff like Malcolm McLaren copying African drumming styles for Bow Wow Wow and then hiphop in the 80s, it seems more cynically trying to find "the next big thing" in music to exploit. But maybe that's just because it's McLaren.

bgmnts

Quote from: chveik on December 08, 2021, 06:12:33 PMcultural appropriation talk should be focused on the people actually stealing/not paying royalties instead of vague calling outs of bands that incorporate traditional folk in their music.

Yeah, this.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: jobotic on December 09, 2021, 12:08:47 AMI view Damon Albarn as being guilty of cultural appropriation but I don't Boris or Guitar Wolf.

Whyssat then?

The Pearly King & Queen community have never quite forgiven Damon.

Naa, Albarn is genuinely a force for good with World music: Mali Music, Monkey opera, Africa Express, Honest Jon record label, bringing the late Tony Allen to a new audience.

The Mollusk

Quote from: chveik on December 08, 2021, 06:12:33 PMcultural appropriation talk should be focused on the people actually stealing/not paying royalties instead of vague calling outs of bands that incorporate traditional folk in their music.

They're two different things. Cultural appropriation is more the latter thing you mentioned there whereas stealing/not paying royalties is, well... just theft. Cultural appropriation is a grey area which I think warrants more of a discussion as opposed to theft which is far more easy to conclude. If you out-and-out just stole someone else's art entirely that is very obviously a cunt's move.

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on December 08, 2021, 09:55:26 PMCultural appropriation and mixing is great, robbing people of labour is shite. Authenticity is one of the most bogus ideas in the world, the tell tale headlight of an approaching train of reactionary shit.

Cultural appropriation can be great in future, when we reach a point where it's no longer referred to using that phrase and we've become a society which more openly acknowledges and incorporates multiculturalism (moreover when the cultures on the oppressed end of the scale say it's okay, not when we do), but looking at it historically from a time when attitudes towards non-whites were far worse, there are certainly some examples of appropriation which need to be held to account.

I'm not trying to stoke a reactionary fire with this, but I do think being able to openly discuss where we think certain artists put a foot wrong (or right) in their work is very much worthwhile. This forum is switched on enough to not suddenly want to cancel Talking Heads but a thread like this would be a shitstorm on Twitter.

___


Last year I made an instrumental hip hop track that exclusively sampled an obscure song by an African funk band and I didn't give any credit when I put it online. I can't remember the song now and I feel quite bad about that.

All Surrogate

I disagree with musical segregation just as much as I disagree with racial or national segregation. No barriers please; freely mix things up.

Exploitation in the music industry will only end when exploitation in industry in general ends. Socialise, don't monopolise.

chutnut

Quote from: The Mollusk on December 09, 2021, 10:55:09 AMLast year I made an instrumental hip hop track that exclusively sampled an obscure song by an African funk band and I didn't give any credit when I put it online. I can't remember the song now and I feel quite bad about that.

I don't think I've ever heard of any hip hop (or any sample based music) producers doing this so it seems a bit of a strange thing to feel bad about. Also in this case were the African band not appropriating funk in the first place too?

I'm not sure about all this, I can't imagine that putting restrictions on what music people are allowed to be influenced by or create will ever be a good thing, especially if you're basing it on their race.
Also when you say 'when the cultures on the oppressed end of the scale say it's okay, not when we do', how does this work? Will someone be making a statement on these cultures' behalf to let people know when it's OK? What if some people from that culture don't have a problem with it and some do (which will almost certainly be the case realistically), who's right?

jobotic

Not wishing to derail the thread but I don't want to start another one just for this-

What's the name of the fake Japanese soundtrack album made by French musicians? I have it at home but cannot remember what it's called.

SteveDave


Brundle-Fly

Nothing will ever stop me enjoying New Wave white reggae music between 1977 and 1984. Even if Bounty Killer had me in a headlock.

Video Game Fan 2000

#28
Quote from: The Mollusk on December 09, 2021, 10:55:09 AMCultural appropriation can be great in future, when we reach a point where it's no longer referred to using that phrase and we've become a society which more openly acknowledges and incorporates multiculturalism (moreover when the cultures on the oppressed end of the scale say it's okay, not when we do), but looking at it historically from a time when attitudes towards non-whites were far worse, there are certainly some examples of appropriation which need to be held to account.

What makes cultural appropriation so great is that the vast majority of it happens outside of ethical or philosophical ideas about why its good or bad, or whether its OK or not, who has power and who doesn't. It happens because people find it worthwhile to connect with other people and to exchange aesthetic ideas. Its the normal function of human activity to ignore boundaries about communities or demographics, or ideological strictures about stuff like national character, social identity or authentic forms. It shows there's still a lot of human activity and life that is outside politics and economic exploitation. Small measures of freedom are possible even in this world.

I think its telling that its nearly always a retrospective discussion - when culture mixing is called into question, its usually already happened. It's never really the case that we talk about stuff that might happen in the future: should we mix these two forms of music? Would it be good to combine local cuisine with ingredients from this immigrant group? Will it be OK for people to adopt this style of dress? That alone is strong argument about the limits of historicising everything, because it tells us how hard "appropriation" is to predict and the extent that it really is a spontaneous thing. To be historical about historicising, its only relatively recently these kind of ideas about authenticity and historical context and the like have been accepted in left or liberal circles, historically they are deeply conservative ways of thinking about intersubjectivity and creativity.

There's other stuff - like the way some advertising imitates and exploits the way black people express themselves on social media, that is really bad, but I don't think that is necessarily part of "appropriation" - I think we need another way to talk about stuff that extracts value and debases the thing it extracts from, but doesn't fold that into the idea that cultural exchange is sometimes a dodgy or suspicious thing. To me, its hard to name something that is more of a net good than ideas swapping beyond demographic boundaries.

phantom_power

Quote from: jobotic on December 09, 2021, 11:31:18 AMNot wishing to derail the thread but I don't want to start another one just for this-

What's the name of the fake Japanese soundtrack album made by French musicians? I have it at home but cannot remember what it's called.

Yamasuki Singers?