Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Getting Back to A Great Old Article: "Global Culture and the American Cosmos"
As I was thinking during the past couple of weeks about this two-way global exchange of culture that manifests itself best in emerging new forms of global music... I kept remembering a great old article that I read, some years ago, about why the whole idea of "Americanization" as homogenization of world cultures is just a politically "correct" myth. That same article, as I recall, had described how non-northern or non-western cultures, which are often thought of as the passive victims of some western cultural colonization, are actually, especially these days, vitally contributing to the music, art, and intellectual life of mainland America itself (or at least certain parts of mainland America), in a dialectical kind of exchange-into-evolution that makes it impossible these days to say that any culture is really taking over or dominating another. And a couple of weeks ago, when I was writing about poverty chic, I really had this article in mind, especially when I said (actually during discussion in the comments section):
Also, there is plenty of appropriation going the other way - music from our area being sampled and reprocessed somewhere else, then fed back to us in a different form, which people from our area will (re)appropriate, etc.
But the name and location of that article remained a complete blank in my mind...until a couple of days ago, when I stumbled upon it, thanks to a reference in an article about reggaeton (the favorite music of my neighborhood) from the blog Wayne & Wax, which I had stumbled upon via a page referred to in another page of DJ /Rupture's blog, Mudd Up!... And the article that I had been thinking about was (maybe we should have a drum roll...or a just a nice dancehall riddim here...)
Global Culture and the American Cosmos by Orlando Patterson (copyright 1994).
Quoting briefly from the article:
The argument that Americanization is resulting in the homogenization of the world ignores the increased vitality of local cultures and ethnicities in recent times and the complexity of global cultural diffusion, in particular the extent to which so-called peripheral regions are increasingly contributing to American popular culture and to the world music scene.
And a little later:
In their comparative analysis of eight cultures, musicologists Deanna Robinson, Elizabeth Buck, and others have demonstrated, in my opinion conclusively, that "world musical homogenization is not occurring." As they put it, "even though information-age economic forces are building an international consumership for centrally produced and distributed popular music, other factors are pulling in the opposite direction. They are encouraging not only what we call ‘indigenization’ of popular music forms and production but also new, eclectic combinations of world musical elements, combinations that contradict the continuing constraints of national boundaries and global capitalism."
Although, one might add, this is just one of many ways that "centrally produced and distributed" culture is not being absorbed quite the way that our capitalist leaders intended it. Consciously and unconsciously, people find their own, unplanned uses for the products of corporations and the state, resulting in a kind of diversity and creativity from below that may make many leaders or bosses uncomfortable. (A good example of that is...the medium of communication that you're reading right now.) And if things like that did not happen constantly, the culture that we live under would be far more, unbearably oppressive than it already is.
But getting back to music and the article at hand... Patterson writes a wonderful history of the evoloution of reggae, which, he asserts, "more than any other musical form illustrates the comlpexity of global cultural interaction." In this history as Patterson relates it, Reggae began when "aspiring young Jamaican singers - including the teenage Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bob Andy, and numerous others - began singing imitations of American soul songs..." These imitations, Patterson asserts, were atrocious. However, "the imitations were so bad that they were unwittingly original." (Which is, of course, how a lot of great rock and pop music began...) And then these imitations got mixed up with an "infusion of the very African music of the Afro-Jamaican cults." And most people who know reggae probably can take it from there...
Strangely, some people in the present get offended when musicians who live in contemporary northern cultures do versions of reggae that seem (at least to these critics) to be inauthentic or unpure. For years, some people have complained about white electronic/techno groups who do that, as though these groups were violating some pure form that had always existed in one way from the beginning of time - obviously without the historic knowledge that imitation has been going two ways, back and forth, for many years. And recently, when I was reading some discussions about M.I.A.'s music, I saw accusations flying on two counts - that she was "ripping off" reggae-dancehall music (those people really need to read Patterson's article before going on anymore about that) and that she was ripping off baile funk - which is another music that started by ripping off and blatantly sampling American (Miami) sounds. (One song by M.I.A., "Bucky Done Gun," obviously samples from a very famous baile funk song which not only probably depends on those Miami beats (I would guess, though I'm no expert on that), but also blatantly samples from the theme to Rocky (which I can definitely recognize). So, who should be accused of ripping off whom?)
Anyway, anyone with an interest in global music, reggae, dancehall, dub, dubstep, rap, grime, baile funk, or reggaeton should read this article.
Patterson also goes on to discuss what all the cultural cross-fertilization/hybridization/general mixing up means in broader terms. He talks about three different kinds of cultural America, "traditional," "multicultural" and "ecoumenical" and argues that an "ecumenical" outlook is the appropriate one for dealing with the broader culture at the present time. (He says multiculturalism has its uses but they are limited, as its all-accepting cultural relativism can lead to ironic tolerance of extreme intolerance. Which is something that makes a lot of sense, I think.) This ecumenical culture would result from the interaction of different cultures in a constant exchange or dialectical relationship - like what happens in the development of the best new global music(s)...
Also, there is plenty of appropriation going the other way - music from our area being sampled and reprocessed somewhere else, then fed back to us in a different form, which people from our area will (re)appropriate, etc.
But the name and location of that article remained a complete blank in my mind...until a couple of days ago, when I stumbled upon it, thanks to a reference in an article about reggaeton (the favorite music of my neighborhood) from the blog Wayne & Wax, which I had stumbled upon via a page referred to in another page of DJ /Rupture's blog, Mudd Up!... And the article that I had been thinking about was (maybe we should have a drum roll...or a just a nice dancehall riddim here...)
Global Culture and the American Cosmos by Orlando Patterson (copyright 1994).
Quoting briefly from the article:
The argument that Americanization is resulting in the homogenization of the world ignores the increased vitality of local cultures and ethnicities in recent times and the complexity of global cultural diffusion, in particular the extent to which so-called peripheral regions are increasingly contributing to American popular culture and to the world music scene.
And a little later:
In their comparative analysis of eight cultures, musicologists Deanna Robinson, Elizabeth Buck, and others have demonstrated, in my opinion conclusively, that "world musical homogenization is not occurring." As they put it, "even though information-age economic forces are building an international consumership for centrally produced and distributed popular music, other factors are pulling in the opposite direction. They are encouraging not only what we call ‘indigenization’ of popular music forms and production but also new, eclectic combinations of world musical elements, combinations that contradict the continuing constraints of national boundaries and global capitalism."
Although, one might add, this is just one of many ways that "centrally produced and distributed" culture is not being absorbed quite the way that our capitalist leaders intended it. Consciously and unconsciously, people find their own, unplanned uses for the products of corporations and the state, resulting in a kind of diversity and creativity from below that may make many leaders or bosses uncomfortable. (A good example of that is...the medium of communication that you're reading right now.) And if things like that did not happen constantly, the culture that we live under would be far more, unbearably oppressive than it already is.
But getting back to music and the article at hand... Patterson writes a wonderful history of the evoloution of reggae, which, he asserts, "more than any other musical form illustrates the comlpexity of global cultural interaction." In this history as Patterson relates it, Reggae began when "aspiring young Jamaican singers - including the teenage Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bob Andy, and numerous others - began singing imitations of American soul songs..." These imitations, Patterson asserts, were atrocious. However, "the imitations were so bad that they were unwittingly original." (Which is, of course, how a lot of great rock and pop music began...) And then these imitations got mixed up with an "infusion of the very African music of the Afro-Jamaican cults." And most people who know reggae probably can take it from there...
Strangely, some people in the present get offended when musicians who live in contemporary northern cultures do versions of reggae that seem (at least to these critics) to be inauthentic or unpure. For years, some people have complained about white electronic/techno groups who do that, as though these groups were violating some pure form that had always existed in one way from the beginning of time - obviously without the historic knowledge that imitation has been going two ways, back and forth, for many years. And recently, when I was reading some discussions about M.I.A.'s music, I saw accusations flying on two counts - that she was "ripping off" reggae-dancehall music (those people really need to read Patterson's article before going on anymore about that) and that she was ripping off baile funk - which is another music that started by ripping off and blatantly sampling American (Miami) sounds. (One song by M.I.A., "Bucky Done Gun," obviously samples from a very famous baile funk song which not only probably depends on those Miami beats (I would guess, though I'm no expert on that), but also blatantly samples from the theme to Rocky (which I can definitely recognize). So, who should be accused of ripping off whom?)
Anyway, anyone with an interest in global music, reggae, dancehall, dub, dubstep, rap, grime, baile funk, or reggaeton should read this article.
Patterson also goes on to discuss what all the cultural cross-fertilization/hybridization/general mixing up means in broader terms. He talks about three different kinds of cultural America, "traditional," "multicultural" and "ecoumenical" and argues that an "ecumenical" outlook is the appropriate one for dealing with the broader culture at the present time. (He says multiculturalism has its uses but they are limited, as its all-accepting cultural relativism can lead to ironic tolerance of extreme intolerance. Which is something that makes a lot of sense, I think.) This ecumenical culture would result from the interaction of different cultures in a constant exchange or dialectical relationship - like what happens in the development of the best new global music(s)...
