AFRAM Blog Post 4

In reading Ludwig Hurtado’s article titled “Country Music Is Also Mexican Music”, it is clear that the country music industry has changed substantially from its roots in Hispanic culture. Hurtado discusses how “country music sounds white, looks white, and in many ways, is white. But country music’s origins are far from white” (Hurtado). This forgotten history is evident when Trump, an individual with strong anti-Latinx policies, can be seen praising country music. The Trump administration even “sent recruiters to set up booths at country-music fairs and country music festivals in the country’s heartland” (Hurtado 2019). This situation perfectly summarizes the hypocrisy associated with country music’s white-America modern portrayal in stark contrast with the Hispanic roots that founded the entire genre. From this it is clear that modern representations of genres have the ability to drastically change the perception associated with their roots.

Much like the forgotten Hispanic roots of country music, subcultures associated with genres are often left undocumented as well. This will often lead to confusion regarding a subculture’s history. This was the case when Rozz Therrien and Leah Michaels worked to uncover the untold history of Seattle’s Self-Defense Group Home Alive, founded after the rape and murder of Mia Zapata, a well known punk artist in the Seattle Grunge scene. The filmmakers described a situation in which little information was present about Home Alive, where they said “We found that it was really weird, like there was this lack of history talked about that no one of our generation knew about” (Dawes 2013). This makes me question my own role as an individual who participates in music subcultures in the preservation of community interactions.

These stories of forgotten music culture history exemplify the importance of maintaining accurate archives of the music scene at multiple scales. I hope that the increasing presence of technology in the music industry will result in better archives to allow the accurate reconstruction of music history in the future.

DJ Selections
Liberty - Linda Ortega: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA9P4TJAo8Q
Bullet with Butterfly Wings - The Smashing Pumpkins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-r-V0uK4u0

I chose the first song “Liberty” by Linda Ortega, as it incorporates modern Latinx musical themes into a country song, celebrating the Latinx roots of country music. I chose the second song “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by The Smashing Pumpkins, because I found that both the music and visuals in the music video accurately portray many themes that made the grunge scene so popular in the 1990’s, acting as somewhat of an archive of the genre.