MUSIC215 Exam

Politics

negotian of power relations

Self-determination

free pursuit of economic, social, and cultural development

Protest music

confronts power structures

Protest music can be a tool for

criticizing dominant figures, institutions, systems, events

expressing frustration

providing inspiration and uplift

building solidarity

galvanizing dissent

bringing change

Protest in the U.S.

parts of American ideology

colonists protested King George III = American revolution

free speech,but varying consequences

representation & visibility

folk music roots

Folk:

representative of ethnicity or community (cultural/racial identity)

associated with lower economic classes (class identity)

forum for social activism (political identity)

musically:

simple melodies, participatory

storytelling

fluid and variable performance (oral tradition)

lack of virtuosity, vocal training

usually left-leaning politics

Woody Guthrie

From Oklahoma, itinerant lifestyle

prolific songwriter

causes: labor movements, working-class rights

“common man” image

folk music has power

“I Ain’t Got No Home” 1940

Nina Simone

jazz pianist and vocalist from North Carolina

Conservatory-trained, crossed over to jazz (jazz falls under folk, popular and classical genres)

college campus circuit

Cause: civil rights, desegregation

“Mississippi Goddam,” 1964

Bruce Springsteen

songwriter/singer from New Jersey

wroking class background

rock music with socially conscious lyrics

huge fan of Woody Guthrie

causes: working class rights, veterans’ issues

“Born in the USA” 1984

Rage Against the Machine

Funk mental band from L.A.

activist background, donated concert proceeds to social organizations

Causes: Anti-authoritarianism, racial profiling, police brutality, U.S. domestic and foreign policy

“Killing In The Name,” 1992

lyrics aim at power structure

Victor Jara

Chilean poet, musician, theatre director, activist

Helped establish Nueva Cancion Chilena

Causes: Criticize dictator Augusto Pinochet, support election of Salvador Allende, Unidad Popular

Tortured and executed by Chilean army

“Ni ChiCha Ni Limona,” 1971

Russy Riot

Russian feminist art-protest colective ‘Guerilla performances

Causes: feminism, LGBTQIA+ rights, free speech, secularism, opposition to Putin

“Punk Prayer: Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!” 2012

3 members arrested, 2 sent to gulag

Punk

a musical genre that embraces a DIY, back-to-basics approach to rock music

cutlrual style or attitude defined by rebellion against authorirty and deliberate rejection of middle-class values

DIY Culture

creative & economic resistance

• community based

• underground clubs

• home recording technology

• mixtapes

Indie labels

• fanzines

• college & community radio

• posters

Punk in the U.S.

minimalist music

• few chrods

• No virtuosity

• short, fast songs

• distorted guitar

• scremed kyrics

• lo-fi recordings

lyrical themes

• anti-commerical

• social alienation

• anti-conformity

• satire

• rage

• shfiting the performance of white masculinity

The Ramones

First “real” punk band

NYC, 1974

outsiders and misfits

“Back to basics” rock and roll

Nihilism, twisted humor

catchy, pop-inspired melodies

1950s street-tough image

“Blitzkrieg Bop” 1976

U.K. Tour, “The British invasion in reverse”

British Punk

post-war, white, working-class

more political than U.S.

common targets: class system, aristocracy, government, mainstream media, conformity

The S3x Pistols

created by Malcolm McLaren, 1975

“Situationism” social and musical disruption

Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, Paul Cook, Steve Jones

Gave punk British national and cultural identities

“Anarchy in the U.K.” 1976

The Clash

formed in 1976

Joe Strummer, Paul Simonen, Mick Jones, and Topper Headon

Earnest, idealistic

punk, reggae, ska, jazz, folk, rock

gave punk social activist and political identity

Notting Hill Festival, 1976

X-Ray Spex

Formed in 1976

Poly Styrene, Jak Airport, Paul Dean, Pual Hurding, Lora Logic

Gave Punk feminist voice

“Oh Bondage, Up Yours” 1977

Punk’s Lasting Legacies

anyone can have a punk band (DIY, Punk is folk)

Come as you are

Scream your frustration as loud as you can

Alinated? Good, so are we

Race

a form of social identification and stratification based on shared physical and social traits

Racism and the Music Industry

recording industry racialized music

created hierarchies

segregation affects music-making

ongoing issues of ownership, access, and power

Griots (African-Based Spoken Word Traditions)

West African historians, musicians, and storytellers; “eyes, ears, and mouths of their communities”

Preaching (African-Based Spoken Word Traditions)

churches provide autonomy for Black voices, preachers use distinctive vocal stylings, call & response

Verbal competition, trickster figure (African-Based Spoken word traditions)

battle of wits and words “signifying” self-promotion, toasting, the dozens

Black Arts Movement, late 1960s

associated with Black Panther movement

Asserting African cultural identity, resisting White Power structures

Poetry and jazz

Gil-Scott Heron - American soul and jazz poet, musician, writer

“The Revolution Will Not be Televised” 1971

Message-oriented Poetry

Nikki Giovanni

american writer, activist, commentator, educator

Ego Tripping

Music Precursors to Hip hop

Disco and funk

Donna Summer

James Brown

“Say it Loud” (Im Black and Im Proud)

Development of Hip hop

South Bronx, 1970s

Cindy Campbell asked her brother Clive, aka “DJ Kool Herc” to DJ her back-to-school party

Jamaican roots

Cindy Campbell: party promoter, organizer, graffiti artist, b-girl

Dj Kool Herc: sound systems, DJing techniques, “the break

Black and Latin innovators in technology & music shaped hip hop

House parties, block parties, homemade recording studios, mixtape trade

Original Components of Hip hop

DJing

MCing

Breaking

Grafitti

Commodification of Hip hop

Joe and Sylvania Robinson, Sugarhill Records

Sugarhill Gang “Rapper’s Delight” 1979, Hip hop’s first commercial hit

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “The Message” rap’s first political and social commentary

National Identity

People see their nations as extensions of themselves

for imagined communities, music:

• generates a sense of belonging and boundaries

• can connect us to a territory, despite the distance (important for disapora)

• often mediated through the experience of collective emotions

National music

• viewed as locally distinctive, has its originis in a specific country

• music corresponds with how the population conceptualizes its own culture

• regarded as both modern and traditional

• usually has connections to international trend and developments

• America’s National Music: Jazz

National Identity in popular music

Artists who sing about their nations as political entitites, either fondly or critically, look for a flag

Transnationalism

entending or going beyond national boundaries

Reggaeton

transnational music genre with various cultural origins and identities, created through migration and travel, eventually went global

defined by a singular rhytm: Boom-ch-boom-ch

developed in a flow of musical exchange primarily between Jamaica, Panama, NY, and Puerto Rico

Jamaica: Dancehall

• dance halls hosted dance parties in urban, mostly Black, working-class areas

• DJs played instrumental records of R&B, ska, rocksteady, and reggae through large speakers

• Toasting: Dj creates new lyrics for instrumental songs call “riddims”

• mainstream by 1980s

• Jamaican Patois lyrics = Jamaican working-class identity

• Lyrics often critical of Jamaican politics and government

• Shabba Ranks, “Dew Bow” became foundation for reggaeton

Panama: Reggae en Espanol

• Jamaican immigrants in Panama since mid-1800s

• Afro-Caribbean + Central American culture

• Dancehall reggae with Spanish lyrics sung by Latin American artists

• El General made SPanish dancehall internationally famous “Te Pum Pum” 1991

• considered original form of reggaeton

• Combination of sounds became extremely popular, esp. in PR

NYC, Hip hop

• intersection of Jamaican immigrants, Puerto Ricans and African Americans

• Djs, rappers/singers, producer

• combined hip-hop, reggae en espanol, dancehall, other styes

• shared experiences of class & racial marginalization and discrimination

Puerto Rico

• U.S. Territory since 1898

• PR are America citizens, disenfranchised at the national level

• Caserios: state-funded housing projects

• Racialized minorities marginalized, lack of access to job opportunities, health care, education

• Crime, poverty, violence, discrimination, police harrassment

Puerto Rican Underground Music

• Reggae rap underground

• Explicit, profane lyrics about life in El Barrio; often sexually explicit and misogynist

• DIY Culture takes shape

  • recording studios in apartments & garages

  • Neighborhood parties

  • mixtape trades

DJ Negro

Felix Rodrigues, from La Parla

Started producing in his home, 1990s

Launched Vico C, Ivy Queen, Daddy Yankee among many others

Opened The Noise in Old San Juan (freestyle rap, hip hop, reggae, turntables, dancing)

Vico C

Luis Armando Lozada Cruz, American rapper and producer

Born in NY, 1971, raised in Puerto Rico

First artist to rap in Spanish, spread throughout pR

Catchy lyrics, smooth flow, socially conscious

“La Recta Final” (The Home Stretch)

Ivy Queen

Martha Ivelisse Pesante Rodriguez: singer, rapper, songwriter, actress

Born in PR, 1972, lived in NY as a child

Joined The Noise group, 1995

Combined hip hop, reggae, freestyle rap, female-centered lyrics

went solo, 1997 “Somos raperos pero no somos delincuentes” (some of us are rappers, but not all deliquents)

Underground to Reggaeton Latino

• too explicit for mainstream

• perreo-sexualized dancing, women nearly naked

• PR government criminalizes underground music, arrests producers

• producers win freedom of speech

• Senator Velda Gonzalez tries to censor it “constructive feedback”

• remains hypersexualized

“Nivel De Perreo” J Balvin, Ryan Castro

• Cleaner, mor epolished albums

• Airplay on Latin & hip hop radio stations in NY

• PR artists tour other Latin American countries

• Albums become hitmakrers

• Primed for crossover markets

• more artists emerge late 1990s/early 2000s

Sam Dunn

M.A. in anthropology

Jamiacan popular music in the 20th century

Mento (Jamaican folk, homemade instruments, fusion of African and European music)

Jazz (tourism, U.S. military bases, radio)

R&B (radio & tenement yards, variety shows)

Alpha Boys School

• founded by nuns, 1880s

• orphanage & industrial school

• Sister Mary Ignatius Davies (record collector, music lover, saxophone teachers)

• graduates became professional musicians

Sound Systems

• enlarged for outdoor crowds

• liquor stores, neighborhoods, dancehalls

• lucrative, competitive

• toasting

Jamaican Recording Industry

• First American Jazz and R&B, then Jamaican music

• focus on heavy, danceable beat

• jamaicans create labels and recording studios, 1950s

• sonia Pottinger, leading figure

What was the first Jamaican recording label?

Federal Records

Ska “Freedom Sound”

• Jazz + R&B + Mento + Latin

• upbeat tempo, prominent horn section

  • sexophone, trombone, trumpet

• Off-beat (1-TWO-3-FOUR)

• First recorded ska song: “Easy Snapping” by Theo Beckford

The Skatalites

• studio hornsmen & vocalists

• many were Alpha Boys

• solidified ska as a genre

• Regular live giges

• Recorded covers & then originals

• Doreen Shaffer (QUeen of ska)

• Don Drummond “King of Ska”

Ska & Class

• lowbrow music

• uptown vs. downtown

• High-class vs. low class venues

Ska & Jamaican Independence

Ska as Jamaican national music

Locally-distinctive, originated in Jamaica

corresponds with how population conceptualizes its own culture

both modern and traditional

Connected to international trends and developments

Authenticity vs. Image

Ska & Gender

Hypermasculine

• highly competitive

• sexual prowess

• swagger

• rebellion

• rude boys

• songs

“Rudy, a message to you” Dandy Livingstone, 1967

Decline of Ska

• Death of Don Drummond

• Heat wave, 1966

• Rocksteady

• Reggae (Rastafarianism)

• “War” Bob Marley 1976

Reggaeton Identities

• African & Latino cultural heritage

• Racialized by Euro-dominant cultures

• working-class

• male-dominated/hypermasculine

• women marginalized and hypersexualized

• modern reggaeton is now associated most prominently with PR, REGIONAL IDENTITY

• MULTICULTURAL IDENTITY

Reggaeton becomes mainstream

Daddy Yankee, “King of Reggaeton”

credited with bring reggaeton to English-speaking market

“Gasolina” 2004

Made reggaeton global

Don Omar

King of Kings highest-ranking reggaeton album in U.S. charts

“Salio el sol” (the Sun Rose)

Male Privelege

album sales decline due to piracy, music industry decline, royalty disputes

A New Latin Crossover Era

• on -demand streaming and social media brings reggaeton back to mainstream charts

• “Despacito” Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee

• most liked, most viewed, most streamed song of all time

• Colombia becomes new hub for reggaeton

  • J. Balvin “Mi Gente”

  • breaks Despacito record

Reggaeton Gender Identity Issues

• hypermasculine

• Latina women are marginalized, hyper sexualized, largest rate of sexual assault

Becky G

• sings in spanish and English

• embraces multicultural Latina identities to create communitiy

• normalizes women in power and negotiates alternatives to hypersexualization

• “Bella Ciao” 2021

Reggaeton Class Identity Issues

• Reggaeton came from working-class communities

• lyrics often critical of establishment, discrimination, etc

Bad Bunny

• speaks in Puerto Rican Spanish

• working-class identity, LGBTQIA ally, Puerto Rican cultural and regional identities, social activist political identity

• maintains cultural heritage, brings change, negotiates alternative, reinforces shared values, creates community

Reggaeton Race Identity Issues

• has Black roots

• dominated by White or light-skinned Latinos, Afro-Latinos face systemic racism and marginalization in Latin America

Sech

• one of few Black artists with mainstream visibility in Spanish-speaking music industry

• showcases Panamanian cultural identity in order to maintain that cultural heritage within reggaeton

• “Sal y Perrea”

Run-DMC (Hip hop)

• middle-class, college-educated, from Queens

• “new school hip-hop” fused with rock, drum machines, minimalism

• “Rock Box” 1984

• “Walk this way” aerosmith and Run-DMC

NWA

• West Cost regional identity for hip-hop

• Pioneered gangsta rap

• urban street life

• Prison toast tradition

• protest songs

• “Fuck Tha Police” 1988

Gangsta Rap characteristics

• hypermasculinity

• misogyny

• Homophobia

• hypersexuality

• egocentrism

• profanity

• poverty, drug addiction, violence

• struggle, frustration

• predominantly white male mass audience

• commercially successful subgenre of hip hop

Women in hip hop

• marginalized

• objectified

• devalued

Trap

• From Atlanta, GA

• T.I. Trap Musik

• rapid hi-hat, kick drums, booming bass, element sof EDM and gangsta rap

Who was the first Chinese Metal band

Tang Dynastry

Megan Thee Stallion

• Megan Javon Ruth Pete: rapper, singer, philanthropist from TX

• viral freestyle videos on social media

• first female rapper signed to 300 Entertainment

• advocate for Black women & BLM, mental health

• Image as sexually dominant “bad b1th”

Childish Gambino

• actor, comedian, singer, writer, producer, director, rapper and DJ

• graduated from NYU '

• community and Atlanta audience appeal

• “This is America”

  • debuted at #1 on Billboard

  • Directed by Hiro Murai

  • Choreographed by Sherrie Silver

  • themes: gun violence. race, racism, entertainment, American culture

Indigeneity

• people, places, practice

  • First peoples status to land

  • land - Identity

  • Indigenous Peoples are heterogenous

  • not monoliths

Settler-Colonialism

• European colonization of North America

• Settler-colonialism is a structure, not an event

  • Settlers are here to stay

  • logic of erasure

  • exploitation

#No DAPL Movement

• movement started by youth from Standing Rock Reservation

• against Energy Transfer Partners over Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)

Issues:

• Political - violation of treaties

• Environmental - threatens water supply for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

• Philosophical - killing mother earth

Lakota Philosophy

• Mitakuye Oyasin - we are all related, interconnectedness, relationship with living beings, land, and cosmos

• Mni Wiconi - Water is life - respect for water, prophecy that the 7th generation will have water problems

Protest approaches from Standing Rock

• non-violence

• prayer

• guidance from Lakota and Dakota spiritual leaders

Music and Standing Rock

• Lakota music

• Indigenous forms of music

• popular music

• provides glue for protests

• created spiritual and cultural uplift for water protectors

• prayer songs rendered at Standing Rock

• songs of resistance

Popular music as visibility and solidarity for Standing Rock

Gained attention of broader American public

delivered messages via hip hop

spread through social media through #NoDAPL

forged solidarity with Native and non-Native peoples

• Prolific the Rapper, Halluci Nation, Taboo, Indigenous Artists, Shaileene Woodley

Music scene

fluid and changeable cultural space characterized by the building of musical alliances and the drawing of musical boundaries (local, translocal, virtual)

harDcore

louder, faster, harder version of punk

development of punk (neighborhoods, high schools, college campuses, record stores, small venues, indie labels, college radio) cultural and social rebellion

The Bad Brains

• inspired British punk, Rastafarian spiritualism

• Positive Mental Attitude PMA

• pioneers of harDCore

• Ex. “Pay to Cum’ 1980

Ian MacKaye

• Teen Indies, 1979

• inspired by Bad Brains

• Minor Threat, 1980

• 930 club admission policy, don’t have to be 21

• ‘Straight Edge” 1981

• COfounded Dischord Records, 1980s

• Archivists of DC punk

Riot Grrrl

• punk is a hypermasculine genre, riot grrrl is a grassroots feminist movement of young women that came up in 1990s that focused on created production

• Goal: put female musicians in a position of power, give punk a feminist identity, challenge the marginalization and treatment of women and girls in popular culture, brings attention to critically important issues of women and teens, challenges popular notions of feminisity

• Normalized female anger in popular music

• diversified gender in pop

• continues to influence and empower people

Bikini kill

• Riot Grrrl pioneers

• Girl bands as cultural resistance

• “Rebel Girl” 1993

• targets sexism and violence against women