AFRAM Post #2

A theme that has been sustained throughout our course that is extremely important to our analysis of the histories of Rock music and American popular music in general is the idea of "authenticity." It is used heavily in rockist narratives to invalidate and invisibilize certain artists and their work, while promoting and highlighting others (those being forms acceptable to white audiences and a white supremacist economic system). Hamilton discusses how "rock ideology is first and foremost an ideology of authenticity: It delineates what constitutes "real" rock music, including who is authorized to play that music and who is authorized to listen to and talk about it." Similarly, in Chang's Q&A about the historical resistive function of Hip Hop, he rejects the idea of there being a "golden era" of Hip Hop. He talks about how in the late 80s and early 90s, Hip Hop was used to empower and lift up youth populations who were experiencing acute levels of marginalization, surveillance, and policing. This trend continues into today, where we see Hip Hop representing struggles globally, from DAM in Palestine, or M.I.A. providing commentary on issues unique to places like Trinidad and India. The diverse examples he uses here prove that Hip Hop is truly an instrument of resistance, and the iterations we see popping up globally are no less legitimate than music by widely celebrated artists like Kendrick Lamar. 

There are many examples that come to mind of Hip Hop songs or artists that use their platform and art to spread anti-establishment messages. Within the umbrella of Hip Hop, some of these songs are hard-hitting and brutally honest, while others are more satirical. I would argue that neither form is more “authentic” or legitimate than the other. Kendrick Lamar’s song “The Blacker the Berry” is a relentlessly heavy song with powerful lyrics about Blackness and a struggle with identity, battling destructive stereotypes about Black people. Capturing a different tone, “Work it Out” by Jurassic 5 featuring Dave Matthews Band blends Hip Hop and pop to create an upbeat and hopeful tune about perseverance and collective strength. Most interesting about this song is the music video produced in 2006, a satirical mockery of George W. Bush, which I thoroughly enjoy, despite my limited memory of the Bush administration.

AFRAM Post #2

This week, themes of oppression seemed to be very apparent throughout the readings. Whether it be racist or sexist, the music industry's notorious maltreatment for anyone who is not the perfect white male is still present today.

In Tracy Moore’s article, “Oh, the Unbelievable Shit You Get Writing About Music as a Woman” clearly shows the hardships she faces in this industry due to her gender. Moore says about the Rock scene, “If you're a girl in this scene...it's typically assumed you are a groupie type looking to hook up or some dude's girlfriend.” Moore further goes on to talk about all the “shit” she hears from people who consider her to be “a groupie type.” This notion that women are not considered as equals in the music industry has been a long battle women have tried to fight. Elvis Presley copying Big Mama Thorton’s songs happened so long ago yet these issues still prevail. It’s sad to see sexism so prevalent in today’s time even with all the feminist actions taken today. 

In Theresa Riley’s article, “Still Fighting the Power” she discusses the fact that Chuck D called rap “CNN for Black People.” I understand what he was trying to say that by listening to rap around the world, you understand the different stories and hardships people have faced. However, I feel by saying those specific words, creates this idea that Black people don’t listen to the news or these issues in the raps can be generalized to the issues all Black people face. Therefore, creating this divide more between Black and White people.

The two songs I’ve chosen are Try by Colbie Caillat and I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. I feel both of these songs are about female empowerment and show that although there still is female struggle in the music industry and in the world, women will conquer.

AFRAM Blog Post #2

Johnny Le

In Tracy Moore's "Oh, the Unbelievable Shit You Get Writing About Music as a Woman," Moore begins to emphasize and the absolute ridiculousness of male reactions to female songwriters. Moore specified that if other men talked to her about rock, it would be a "hostile attempt to quiz me on records to 'prove' I had the right to talk about a band" (Moore). This sort of "gate-keeping" rock is an obvious form of rockism, where white men are claiming it as "their very own." Based on the prior articles we read for this class, we should be aware that the white men were the ones "stealing" from marginalized pioneers. In this case, Moore clearly has an expertise on rock music and songwriting, yet people that are less or just as equally talented as her are doubting her skills, simply due to the fact that she is a woman. Moreover, in "Still Fighting the Power", Theresa Riley interviewed Jeff Chang, the author of a book on the post-civil rights era on hip hop. Chang stated that Chuck D once said that "hip hop was CNN for blacks... since then he would say that it's become CNN for marginalized young people" (Riley). Some people may see this statement as a way of gate-keeping, like typical white men with rockism. However, this draws in the importance of separating the two. Hip hop was originally created by and for black people. Although hip hop used to be commonly stereotyped as "inappropriate," the real struggles are sometimes best translated through vulgar language. As for rock, white people took ideas and songs from marginalized people and claimed rock as "the white genre."
I chose two songs by Rico Nasty because I think she best exemplifies defining genres. She normally blends the sounds of rock and hip hop together without caring about people's expectations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D4happ4TQU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF-HLNVKi0I

AFRAM Blog Post #2

Gianni Landby

           Humans are social creatures, we strive to connect with one another, share interests, and feel a part of something larger than individuals. I believe that Oh, the Unbelievable Shit You Get Writing About Music as a Woman by Tray Moore and Still Fighting the Power by Theresa Riley with Jeff Chang is a perfect example of two groups of people who are searching for belonging.

            Before reading this article, I had not acknowledged or realized the negative energy and strait up hate that many women receive when expressing their opinion towards rock music. Interestingly, crude comments are mainly blasted towards women who acknowledge themselves “as an insider and being greeted with a shit-fuck-ton of vitriol” (Moore) by men, vs women who admit they do not have the proper knowledge and weirdly enough get positive feedback from these same guys. This plays into the excludability factor, as Moore is not only passionate about rock music, but she also has superior knowledge on music than most men, although she is repeatedly discriminated due to her gender, as she recalls times “dudes [were] standing in a circle busting out the rock talk refused to include me” (Moore).

            In a similar retrospect, I believe that Hip Hop spanned from people in the Bronx wanting to feel a sense of belonging and empowerment for getting your voice heard. Chang expresses his thoughts on the origins of hip-hop music, stating “a good amount of it speaks to the kinds of pressures that young people have been facing because of globalization” (Riley - Chang). Given the tough times for minority populations around the 80’s, hip hop gave them an alternative expression to gang violence that they could call their own – “if you were a fan of rap music, you could listen to artists from different cities and find out what was happening” (Riley – Chang).

           

Stevie Nicks – Edge of Seventeen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8-4tjPxD8

N.W.A – Strait Outta Compton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMZi25Pq3T8

I chose these two songs because I feel that they both accurately embody the readings that we had for this week. First, Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks accurately resembles some of the feelings that Moore was experiencing, with discrimination and frustration. The song to me, resembles rebellious nature and the feeling of not caring what others think, something that Moore had to learn with the increased number of hate she was receiving. Second, I chose Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A, arguably one of their most popular songs due to the message that is stated in the lyrics. The groups are not only speaking for themselves, but for all minorities that are experiencing troubles with regards to the judicial system. Similar to how Chang was explaining that hip hop can travel from city to city, N.W.A was raising awareness and showing young minorities from all over the United States that they are not alone.

AFRAM Blogpost #2

Here is a quote from Daphne Brooks "The Right to Rock" that stands out to me:

   "What this kind of writing did, however, was to both inscribe a particular  kind of historical narrative of past musical innovations that were suffocatingly narrow and establish a lexicon of taste that would  perpetuate that narrowness for years to come" (Brooks 43).

From this quote, I can feel how intentional is for the white group to forge a narrow story of musical innovation and put all the credits to themselves. It's almost like how a political party consolidate its power by telling the evil story of another party. With limited fact conveyed by the group in power, the general public will never have the opportunity to uncover the truth and give the credit to those who deserve. For me, it's kind of scary to see how the narrative can change how the public perceives certain things. And it reminds me to be careful of telling a story since I could influence how another view certain thing depends on my narrative when telling a story. I could unintentionally tell a story with limited facts & narrow narrative that shape the narrative of my audience to the subject. And as the story goes from one to another, the same bias narrative may be popularized in society. I believe this is the way of how the narrative of white superiority in rock music formed. The most detrimental effect of such way of storytelling is that the marginalized group may not be incentivized to create musical innovation without the recognition from public and history.

Given how the society is still full of biased stories and narrative, I grew strong appreciation to people who devote themselves helping the marginalized group to reclaim their lost glory and document their history for the future generation. A quote from  A Spy in the House of Love  By Ann Powers described the tasks of reclaiming the lost history.

   "For both feminists and pop critics certain tasks are fundamental:  reclaiming lost history and unacknowledged pioneers; championing contemporary figures otherwise overlooked by the mainstream; noticing patterns that reinforce negative perceptions; and speaking truth to the powers-that-be who've trivialized, repressed, or otherwise wronged the parties we champion" (Powers, 40). 

From this quote, I feel a sense of heroicness of helping the trivialized community regain their voice in history. In a broad sense, I believe it's every single individual's wish to leave a trace of existence in history. People would naturally like the world to recognise what they have done, especially for things that are ground-breaking and revolutionary. Unfortunately, some group of people have their traced being removed as a result of repression. Thus, I really look up to people who spend their lives documenting history, revealing the true past, and inspire the future generation to join their effort of correcting historically wronged narrative.


Below are songs I found relevant to this week's topic:

Who Did It Better? - Little Richard vs. Pat Boone
This video clearly shows how Pat Bonne's style is heavily influenced by Littel Richard. Yet Pat did not show even the slightest degree of appreciation and instead claim the influence on his innovation.

Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines ft. T.I., Pharrell (Official Music Video)
GOT TO GIVE IT UP - MARVIN GAYE

Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines heavily lends the influence to Marvin Gaye's Got to give it up yet thick had publically defend himself saying he did not steal anything in his song. I think this song just shows how the phenomenon of narrow narrative and half-story are still prevent in our society.

Afram Blog Post 2

In Jack Hamilton’s “How Rock and Roll Became White,” and Jeff Chang’s Q&A with Theresa Riley, “Still Fighting the Power,” the ideas of oppressive systems is discussed, and more specifically the change in the systems of oppression in the music industry. Hamilton discusses the idea of rockism in the era of rock and roll and how systematic racism within popular music at the time was able to oppress marginalized artists and ensure the success of white men in the industry. Hamilton writes, “This belief does not hold up under basic scrutiny: All musicians are influenced by other musicians, and throughout American history most musicians worth hearing have been influenced by musicians whose skin is a different color than their own” (Hamilton). This shows one of the systems in which white artists were able to ‘justify’ their theft of songs, performance style, and economic gains from marginalized artists for their own gain. However, as Hamilton points out their claim doesn’t really hold up when examined closer. Chang talks about the similar issue but focuses on the new systematic oppression forming in the industry with the war on youth and the development of the hip hop genre. More specifically Chang says in the interview, “Although not all hip hop is exclusively political, a good amount of it speaks to the kinds of pressures that young people have been facing because of globalization, changes in policing and the incarceration of youth and oftentimes, the breakdown of institutions and structures in the communities that hip hop comes from” (Chang). Here Chang outlines the newest systems of oppression for marginalized artists. He also goes deeper into who is being impacted by this war on youth, “....with the rise of a new generation and what we have called the war on youth, which is the increasing use of the state to establish punitive measures to contain and incarcerate large numbers of young people of color” (Chang). Chang’s account for the issues dealt with in the hip hop community exemplify the systematic oppression that Hamilton outlines within the music industry. While the system in Hamilton’s piece is still present today it has also evolved to include the aspects of oppression that Chang discusses in his Q&A. 

DJ Selections:

“Feeling Good” Performed by Nina Simone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Y11hwjMNs

“Feeling Good” Performed by Michael Bublé :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edwsf-8F3sI

Nina Simone first released her version of the song “Feeling Good” in 1965 and Michael Bublé released his version 40 years later in 2005. While there were many other covers of this song done, Bublé's version is astonishingly similar to Simone’s version of the song. Bublé follows the same voice patterns to a tee that you hear in Simone’s singing of the song. These versions exhibit the claim that Hamilton made in his article “How Rock and Roll Became White,” and how musicians are influenced by other musicians but are ironically -- not coincidentally-- influenced by people of color. Bublé’s performance of “Feeling Good” exhibits just this argument. Bublé was more than influenced by Simone’s performance of the song, he practically copied Simone’s vocals; this was the point that Hamilton was making in his article, influence and theft don’t have a defining line between them.

AFRAM Blog Post #2

When reading Jack Hamilton’s “How Rock and Roll Became White”, it became very evident that rock-and-roll culturally segregated by the 1970’s in America. Hamilton described how “Rock and roll became white in large part because of stories people told themselves about it, stories that have come to structure the way we listen to an entire era of sound” (Hamilton, 2016). I am specifically interested in the role that mainstream media played in this process. Hamilton described how “In 1985, Back to the Future featured a climactic sequence in which history is altered so that Chuck Berry’s “sound” is retroactively invented by a Van Halen–obsessed white teenager”, exemplifying and echoing the media’s distortion of rock-and-roll history. (Hamilton, 2016). Mainstream media in the 1960’s and 1970’s was largely made up of television, film, and radio; all of which were dominated by a white male presence. This mainstream media generated by white men for white men resulted in widespread false narratives, that with the exception of Jimi Hendrix, painted the most influential rock-and-roll artists as white. I find it particularly interesting that this same white male driven media that drove the segregation of rock music in the 1970’s in many ways simultaneously led to the birth of hip-hop. In Theresa Riley’s Q&A with Jeff Chang, Riley and Chang discussed the use of hip-hop as an alternative media source that gave its listeners a perspective on cities and the country that were left untold by the dominant white male media sources. Chang described it as “if you were a fan of rap music, you could listen to artists from different cities and find out what was happening in those cities, whether it was how young people were feeling about the police situation, how young people partied or danced” (Riley, 2012). I think that much of the racial biases associated with music are based on the context of mainstream narratives previously written predominantly by white men. I am hopeful that as mainstream media continues to become more representative of minority populations, the narrative surrounding popular music will more accurately reflect the influence of black artists on various genres, including ‘historically white’ genres, such as country.

Personal Playlist
HUMBLE - Kendrick Lamar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvTRZJ-4EyI
No Black Person is Ugly - Lil B: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83p69JhDnwU

In HUMBLE, Kendrick Lamar samples a FOX News host who claimed “Hip Hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years.”, in what I imagine is an attempt to push-back against the white male driven media's view of black artists that has long been pervasive from as early as the development minstrelsy. Lil B raps in his song about a media driven by white people that has portrayed beauty exclusive of people of color. Both of these songs hint at a cultural progression towards calling out the mainstream media for how it has and continues to portray black artists in the popular music scene.