The readings this week covered a variety of topics related to the art of the Deejay. However, they all came back to some of our foundational questions around myths of origins, the role of certain influences, politics, and aesthetics. In preparation for the paper, I’ve decided to focus on some ideas concerning aesthetics and the myths of origin.
As a history major, we always discuss the importance of a balanced view of history, focusing ideas of continuity. With my love of jazz and blues I’ve always wanted to consider hip hop as a part of the broader scheme of African American Music. However, after reading Joseph Schloss and the Bartlett selection, some questions have been raised. We have talked about some of the strange origin myths that Dr. Schur has uncovered in his studies, Scotland, Kung-Fu, and others, but Bartlett’s contention’s seem to fall somewhere in between the two extremes. References to Ghanaian drumming circles, or the importance of the oral culture of religion in the slave south seem like some broad connections in my mind (395-397). I think one of the most profound points I have read in this class has been Schloss’s assertion that this type of study makes it seem as if Hip Hop was inevitable (26).
However, I think there can be a point of reconciliation, and it comes from the argument about the aesthetic element of sampling in hip hop. Not that sampling is anything revolutionary, many of the chord progressions in Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” album were stolen from the Miles Davis’s album “Kind of Blue.” When Kool Herc DJ talks about loving making people dance to The Monkeys or those music they though they hated, that’s sampling. But, in the broader sense of drawing off other cultures and influences, I think that sampling has to be considered a central element of hip hop. In my mind, you need to have Bambaataa, Kool Herc, and the influence of technology, you need the Bronx, and you need the availability of records to have any trajectory of Hip Hop, so in that sense it was a creation of that snapshot in time. I think the hunt for some sense of “this is where it started” looking at rag time, BAM, jazz could all be justified if the right research was conducted. Those arguments to me sound like someone saying “Isaac Newton is responsible for the first Model T” I mean yeah, he no doubt influenced it, but it took much more than the laws of motion to make a car, and it takes a lot more than Ghanaian drums to make hip hop. Once you accept the argument that sampling is part of the aesthetic foundation, I think this search for origins becomes misguided.
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I like this post, and I also liked the argument from Schloss that you discussed. I think sometimes scholars and academics become victims of "groupthink," accepting a conclusion or a myth about their field of study because it serves as an easy justification for something difficult to explain. Your description of hip-hop as a snapshot in time rather than an artistic phenomenon bound to happen due to oppression was very perceptive.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts.
Word. Well put, Tom. I agree with your skepticism towards the linear connection of African and slave traditions to hip hop. I think they are good arguments, and interesting connections, but ultimately I think they leave us with conclusions that overemphasize the "collective memory" of African Americans and undervalue the contextual "snapshot"/individual agency and aesthetic eye of early performers.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think the language you used when talking about Pink Floyd/Miles Davis is interesting. At what point is using someone else's chord progressions stealing? Direct copying? The essence of idea? Some combination of these two? I really don't know, but seems like it's full of political and economic, as well as cultural implications. I look forward to hashing out some of the realities of sampling and cultural production, especially as presented by Schumacher's piece.
It is interesting to view Pink Floyd stealing music. They are considered one of the first groups to go into "experimental" rock. Being a huge Pink Floyd fan, I find it hard to accept that they stole chords. But then, everyone steals chords to make music. To me, all music is spawned from someone else's music or lyrics. Its really just a huge circle of samping; originality is rather non-existent nowadays. People listen to other people's music, grow and are inspired, and then move on to make more music.
ReplyDeleteIt is rather hard to hash out what is theft and what is not in regards to music. I agree that sampling is an authentic aesthetic foundation. That is how hip hop started, musically, but it has strongly deviated from that original form. Personally, I would prefer that hip hop go back to sampling more, but that is just me.