This is exactly the argument she makes in the video. There are artists who are taking from black culture and not at all acknowledging its roots in the struggle for dignity by African Americans. That’s the problem…
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There’s a book for that!
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Except hip hop has it’s roots in the Caribbean too (literally, as DJ Kool Herc was Jamaican).
I never claimed otherwise, Jamaica probably contributed the rap aspect (toasting as they called it), though Jamaican instrumental music and rhythm had relatively little influence (which itself was primarily influenced by early american soul and rnb mixed with the local mento and calypso rhythms).
This has not always been true and black artists have tended to be the ones who lost out the most.
This was certainly true in the past, but was solved in part because white artists helped popularize and normalize the music.
Hip-hop was/is a quintessential remix art form. it was from people in a particular point in time, at a particular place. it was a convergence of ideas coming together. Although Kraftwerk’s music made it into a sample from a well known rap song doesn’t mean that Kraftwerk had much to do with that particular creative use of their work.
From what I understand, the original scene was primarily African American kids in the Bronx, and it migrated out from there. The first three djs were all black, and the first rap acts were black. This doesn’t mean whites weren’t there or participating, but that these forms emerged out of black neighborhoods and contexts.
Or white artists profited off of them. Remember Vogue by Madonna, in the early 90s? You know she got all that from the black gay New york voguing scene right? And it made her and her label a shitload of cash? Know what happened to the guys whose work she employed? Are they rich and famous, and wearing a grill and kissing Drake at Coachell? No.
Here, read some bell hooks, it will do you good (she mentions Madonna and Vogue in this article on Paris is Burning):
https://stjsociologyofgender.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/paris_burning_bell_hooks.pdf
The more I think about this sentence, the more problematic I think it is. Are you saying that culture is only legitimate when white people say so?
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So the actual problem is destructive, invidious exploitation, not appropriation. So why not say so?
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People alter the world around them. That’s what people do. It’s how we know we exist. The “acquisitive culture” takes the things people make away from them, and it hurts. You’re left feeling like you have no effect in the world, that you’re just a ghost wailing in misery. That’s alienation.
Because it’s often useful to be able to identify a particular form of a general pattern?
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It’s not either or, but both. Black culture has been appropriated and there has been exploitation of black artists historically (and today).
From a line in a book, written in 1977, about the recording industry that I’m reading right now, talking about RCA, the fact that other than having Elvis, they missed the boat on rock:
“Sam Cooke was with the company from 1958 until his death in 1964, but he was regarded as an r&b performer by the company. RCA made no real effort to promote him in other markets as they had Presley.” Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo, Rock and Roll is Here to Pay, Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977, 210.
R&B was what the “race records” became in the late 40s and 50s. In other words, he was ghettoized during his career because he was black, and it was thought that he couldn’t cross over. So who benefited from Elvis’ use of black music? Rock became overwhelmingly white with the rise of Elvis, Beatles, etc. We need to think about this fact and assimilate it into our world view when we discuss popular music.
In case you don’t know who Cooke is:
And:
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Hip-hop was/is a quintessential remix art form. it was from people in a particular point in time, at a particular place. it was a convergence of ideas coming together. Although Kraftwerk’s music made it into a sample from a well known rap song doesn’t mean that Kraftwerk had much to do with that particular creative use of their work.
Kraftwerk’s influence was a lot more than a sample in a rap song, if it weren’t for them (and YMO, and Funkadelic, and others), then Afrika Bambaata, Egyptian Lover, Cybotron, Mantronix, etc. never would have existed.
From what I understand, the original scene was primarily African American kids in the Bronx, and it migrated out from there. The first three djs were all black, and the first rap acts were black. This doesn’t mean whites weren’t there or participating, but that these forms emerged out of black neighborhoods and contexts.
For some reason most of the early music came from black artists, the culture was more than just the music though, and the music scene was pretty widely accepted in various neighborhoods from the start, but you also have to look at graffiti and breakdancing, which was incredibly diverse from the very start, it was all part of the same scene.
Or white artists profited off of them.
They were certainly strongly influenced by them and so owed what came after that in part to them, but you can’t claim that the likes of Elvis, the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelen, etc. weren’t genuine artists, that they didn’t create their own unique forms of music, nor that they didn’t create their music with a genuine respect and admiration for their influences, this is the same with any musician (Bambaata etc, viewed Kraftwerk in the same light). They may have profited where black acts couldn’t in America at the time, but that was hardly their fault, and the very fact that they were successful clearly helped break down the barriers in radio and television broadcasting that prevented white american audiences experiencing their stuff directly.
Remember Vogue by Madonna, in the early 90s? You know she got all that from the black gay New york voguing scene right? And it made her and her label a shitload of cash? Know what happened to the guys whose work she employed? Are they rich and famous, and wearing a grill and kissing Drake at Coachell? No.
I’ve already talked about this and it has nothing to do with race. Black artists benefit from this kind of shit as much as anyone else these days. Madonna is a serial offender as well (e.g. she tried to cash in on Aphex Twin’s critical appeal in the late 90s, but he would only agree to do a track out of her making pig noises, lol).
The more I think about this sentence, the more problematic I think it is. Are you saying that culture is only legitimate when white people say so?
wtf?? I don’t even know how to respond to that shit.
All culture has been appropriated, that’s how culture works. Exploitation is a separate matter.
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Still, Black culture is. Just because it’s not reducible, it does not mean it doesn’t exist. By that standard no human culture exists.
And this is addressed in the video. Relative airy-fairy blurry-lined fuzzy-backed foggy notions are all we have when it comes to culture. That’s what culture is made of. That’s not an argument against this kind of dissection.
ETA (To keep from making seventeen separate comments at the same time):
@Mindysan33
No. You just blew my mind.
That is seriously one of my favorite songs of all time.
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Appropriation = Exploitation
Those words are often used to affect the same meaning. Google “cultural exploitation” and you get results that point or refer to “cultural appropriation.” That people choose “appropriation” more often is just a semantic quirk. What you’re likely referring to is variously described in the literature are culture acquisition, aculturation, and/or cultural diffusion. Take your pick. Those ideas are distinct from the process and idea known as cultural appropriation, as described in this video.
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Appropriation = Exploitation
Nope. Appropriation is taking something pre-existing and re-using it somehow. Exploitation is the same, but with explicit unfairness or abuse . The term ‘cultural appropriation’ may be used in a more negative sense by some people, but I reject that use of it. They are not the same thing.
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The whole, “I’m not playing your game, so I’m not standing in lava right now,” may have worked when you were six. When adults define a concept a certain way, it’s not considered engaging argument to be like, “NOPE! Not how I wanna use that word!” Do you understand the concept as defined? If so then agree, disagree, or equivocate, but don’t pretend you get to decide what it’s called. It’s obnoxious and doesn’t move any discussion forward.
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I’m not deciding anything, the words themselves have meaning, and it’s those meanings that I’m using. Certain intellectuals may try and inject their own ideology into a certain phrase, to try and paint a perfectly natural and generally beneficial form of cultural evolution as harmful, but it’s they that have to back that up and I’m under no obligation to accept it until they do.
That’s so not how language works.
While I don’t “accept” that pro-lifers are indeed “pro-life,” I don’t spend a million years arguing with the label on the jar before I start talking about why what’s inside it sucks.
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Language works by people agreeing amongst themselves what certain collections of sounds mean, the two words in question have different meanings in the English language by that definition. Some social theorist can come along and come up with some theory, and apply a label to it using the wrong words (your “pro-life” is an example of this in fact), but I don’t have to accept their label, and I don’t have to accept their argument. If this is getting too meta and you disagree with anything specific I have said about the issue (rather than the semantics), it might be more productive to respond to that.
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But that’s exactly how language gets politicised. Insistent terminology like “pro-life” is an attempt to frame the issue deep down, in the very terms that you use to talk about it. Like a linguistic Overton window. The aim is that by controlling the terms that we use to debate the issue, we also control the result. All very Newspeak. And it’s interesting to see when people do this with language, and what happens when people reject one set of framing for another.
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Regardless of if appropriation is right or wrong, I’m good using whatever excuse we can to eliminate cornrows from fashion. They’re awful.
