Hip Hop: Bringing people together with music and experience

In class on Tuesday we focused a great deal on Grandmaster Flash. I had heard several of the songs in the selection Professor Kun played, but never altogether like this at once. The music sounded like a lot of the remixes I hear today on the radio. All the songs may have been different, but they were strung together and were connected through a constant beat that kept the flow of the music going.

 

Tricia Rose was also quoted in class by saying that “Hip Hop replicates and re-imagines the experiences of urban life.” Different music was strung together to create a new kind of music and in a way old experiences were strung together to create a new experience for Grandmaster Flash’s song. Part of the reason why I think people connect so well with music is because music stems from our own reality. The songwriters and artists create something that people can relate to and share their own experiences with each other. Music, while it all may be different, strings people together and each song made creates a new experience for new individuals every time a song is played.

 

I think this connects well with the reading One Eye Open because Jay-Z talks about how rap was made in a way that strings a beat and a bunch of different lines of lyrics together. Writing your own lines may be something that’s personal, but the music brings people together and creates a new experience.

 

Music is also something that is constantly evolving. Jay-Z talks a lot about how writing music is something that was constant for him. He describes in One Eye Open about his first influence from a kid at School named Slate who completely transformed through rapping. He thought to himself that he could accomplish the same thing and the words began to flow onto paper. He describes after seeing Slate, “that night I started writing rhymes in my spiral notebook. From the beginning it was easy, it was a constant flow. For days I filled page after page. Then I’d bang out a beat on a table, my bedroom window, whatever had a flat surface, and practice from the time I woke up in the morning until I went to sleep.”

 

Hip Hop is something that is constantly being transformed by those who create the music. It’s a constant flow of words, rhymes, rhythms, beats, and expression. It’s also something that comes from the inspiration of all different artists to make one sound or one genre that people can identify with. It’s all about the experience. 

From Mambo to Hip Hop

            This week in class when we watched a documentary and learned about the emergence from mambo and salsa to hip hop. Even though Salsa didn’t give birth to Hip Hop, both came from the same place: the south Bronx; and it’s the people that made them what they are. This documentary is basically “a Bronx tale” because it’s the center of where both salsa music and Hip Hop really started.

             Salsa Music was more than just the beats and instruments that came together to create the music, it was something spiritual to those who created and played it. Following World War II there was an influx of immigrants from Puerto Rico to this side of New York, and these immigrants brought their own musical influence. From the dancing to the songs, they used salsa as a means to help define who they were as a people. They could bring some of their old heritage to this new place and keep a sense of their old traditions with them. As a result it helped formulate their new identity in a new country. It was something that became new and hip. People wanted to fit in so they started talking differently and dressing differently to conform to the society created in East Harlem and the South Bronx. African-Americans and Puerto-Rican children grew up together in this community to help define this genre of music. This music helped transform the landscape of the world they created in these cities.

            Eventually in 1970 there was a fire that was said to have “spread like cancer.” It completely burned down the South Bronx. People were moving out of the neighborhood and migrating to wherever they could. However, they could not escape being a part of the South Bronx. The new place they moved to, even though it was west, was the new South Bronx. Because they had defined their neighborhood earlier, it was bound to follow them. By the early 70s it was an idea, not a place anymore and residents kept moving to avoid devastation.

            With a new neighborhood, though, came new developments in music. The use of DJ equipment came into the picture, and it is almost like Hip Hop rose out of the ashes of the fire in the South Bronx of 1970. People would flock to the park and dance to music played by djs. DJ’s took over salsa music, and salsa dancing transformed into break-dancing. Hip Hop was a “street thing”; it came from desperation and was used as the people’s need for an outlet. It was said in the documentary that, “their society was going to start Hip Hop or start a revolution.”

            In the end the cultural phenomenon’s known as Mambo/Salsa and Hip Hop were the cultural expressions that people used as their own medicine. It was the medicine they needed to help escape their environment and yet keep some of their history and identity close to home at the same time. 

Mexican-American Music in LA: Bringing People Together

In George Lipsitz’s  chapter entitled “Cruising Around the Historical Bloc: Postmodernism and Popular Music in East Los Angeles,” he addresses the fact that as more immigrants pour in to the United States, Mexican-Americans have had to learn how to stay true to their own cultural identity while at the same time assimilate and conform to American society.

 

However, adapting to the melting pot we call America has not been, and is still not easy for those that are immigrants. In our country barriers have been put up based on race and socio-economic status. Mexican-Americans in particular have had to confront these barriers and become accustomed to the racial prejudice and discrimination that existed and still exists today in America. One way that Mexican-Americans have overcome this is through their music. They know this kind of climate (one that is intolerant and unfair) is one that they have to exist in if they want to live here, so they recognize the issues they have to face, and use their previous culture and Mexican identity to move past the bigotry and form a new social identity. “Masters of irony in an ironic world, they often understand that their marginalized status makes them more appropriate spokespersons for society than mainstream groups unable to fathom or address the causes of their alienations” (Lipisitz, 135). They use their experiences and write and sing about them. A few voices then become one main voice of a whole population that people can relate to, which in turn makes their music popular, even in mainstream society. For example, instead of looking at the term “cholo” as derogatory, a group called The Pachucos “embraced the cholo image, [and] flaunted their alienation by openly identifying with one of society’s most despised groups” (140).

 

In addition, Mexican-Americans have also taken music from other sources and transformed it and made it their own. The ability of musicians to learn from other cultures played a key role in their success as rock-and-roll artists (Lipsitz, 140). One person that pushed boundaries by not just taking music from other musicians of different ethnic backgrounds and making it his own, but also by being the only white drummer in a black band was Johnny Otis. He said in Lipsitz’s chapter that “this society says no white kid can stay in black culture, but see, that culture has captured me” (141). Though mainstream society may have tried to alienate people by their race or class, at the same time music is definitely something that can push past the racial barriers to bring people together.

 

Los Angeles is such a diverse place that people are bound to come into contact with each other and find things in common even though people are so different from each other here. Music does a good job of bringing people together because music is something that almost everybody has access to and can find or make it on their own. Ritchie Valens did a good job of  bringing “the folk traditions of Mexican music to a mass audience via rock and roll, but his music also reflected an extraordinary blending of traditions and styles from other cultures” (143). I think this is exactly what music is all about. Music is a way for people to write, sing, dance, play, and basically translate their emotions, feelings, and reality into something that is easily accessible for us all to enjoy.

 

When I moved to Los Angeles one of the first things I became aware of (because I have a car and drive a lot) were the different radio stations. Coming from Norfolk, Virginia I didn’t see or know a lot of Mexican-Americans or listen to that type of music, and when I turned on the radio “latino hits 96.3” was one of the first stations I noticed. Though the station may have played different music than I was normally used to, it made me think about how even though the music was different it is still what makes up America. Mexican-American music or chicano music “is a music that’s as much Mexican culture as it is American” (Lipsitz, 150). All music may be different in our society in the US, but it’s still American. Just like the people in our society; we all come from different backgrounds but we are all American. 

Long Live Queen Selena

In class on Tuesday we started to talk a little bit about Selena. I’ll admit that I don’t really know a lot about Selena, but I do remember that she left a big enough legacy for a movie to be made about her. This movie was the one that Jennifer Lopez was featured in that helped her rise to stardom after her performance granted her fame and success. I also remembered that Selena died tragically after the President after her fan club shot her. What I didn’t know was how much of an impact her death actually had on the Latino community.

Selena was the “Queen of Tejano” music in the latino community. Though she may have been born and raised in Corpus Christi as an American citizen, her identity was one that was not primarily American. She was known as a “Latina celebrity” (Paredez, 63).  She was young, beautiful, provocative, and helped to redefine the “Texas-Mexico border culture” with her music and social image (Paradez, 63). Her death had such an impact that she was compared to Elvis Presley, the king of an entire genre of music: rock and roll.

Selena’s music and character were used as ways to help give Latinos a presence and a drive in America. Selena epitomized the American dream to her community and even in her death her memory lived on and had an effect on the public. Her impact was so big that even radio talk-show host Howard Stern had something to say about her death. His comments about her were racist and appalling, but they generated a significant response from people all over. His words relay the tension that was building as a result of the growing presence of Mexican-Americans in the U.S. and how people in America felt inferior about it.

People’s responses to her death were extremely vivid and the industry of commemoration was one that definitely capitalized on this tragedy. The difference with Selena was that ‘all young people, not just Hispanics, can identify with her. It’s the story of an American family’ (Paradez, 74). One thing that I thought was interesting was that after her death musical theatre was one venue that tried to remember her through production. Though Hispanics may not have had the money or the proper knowledge on etiquette to attend the theatre, they still made the effort to go see Selena and remember her.

Selena’s history of struggle and resistance that led her popularity and ultimate success in America and beyond helped give the Latino community a greater presence. It gave them hope, it gave them happiness, it gave them the idea that they too can have the American dream. Her legacy will continue to live on.

            

Music as a Melting Pot

Blog Post Week 9

 

For this week’s readings, in You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down: Stories by Alice Walker, we learn about a woman named Gracie Mae who had a knack for songwriting. Two men come to her house, J.T. and Traynor, who then proceed to buy one of her songs. This song ultimately becomes a huge hit, leading Traynor to great popularity and fame. He became known as the “Emperor of Rock and Roll.” Gracie Mae may have written the song, but Traynor received national credit for it. It’s like she said herself, “if I’da closed my eyes, it could have been me. The children didn’t call it my song anymore. Nobody did” (7). Traynor came to her later because although he had been singing this song all over the country, he still never knew what it really meant. He wasn’t singing something that was his own; he used Gracie Mae’s talent to publicly claim talent for himself. He also followed this in his personal life. He talks about his marriage and describes how “it was like singing somebody else’s record. I copied the way it was sposed to be exactly but I never had a clue what marriage went” (13). Traynor was copying other people because that’s what he thought he had to do; it’s what he was taught. As a result, he felt lost and alone. Once he realized this it made him angry, and when he brought Gracie Mae to perform with him onstage one night the audience didn’t even care. The audience was the same as he had been: naïve and superficial. The real meaning of the song itself didn’t matter, just that it was a hit. He gets upset and exclaims “you need an honest audience! You can’t have folks that’s just gonna lie right back to you” (17). But throughout his whole career he was lying to his audiences, singing songs that weren’t his and the guilt caught up with him.

            In the second reading Ned Sublette describes the popularity of latin music in American culture. In the 1950s Cuban music had a huge impact on what was called “rock and roll” music back then. The hit song “Louie Louie” may have seemed like a major rock and roll hit, but inadvertently it was a play on the latin cha-cha-cha theme. “White” Americans may have coined the term “rock and roll” music but their influence came greatly through African-Americans, and even African-Americans were obtaining their style from latin dance music. Like Sublette said, “without cuban music, American music would be unrecognizable.”

I think what we can take from the readings is that music is something that has changed and evolved tremendously over time. What we call “rock” music now is not what was considered “rock” fifty years ago. When I think of rock music I look to Linkin Park and Green Day: bands that are all male, white and American, with music that people can “jam” out to that is loud and reminds me of teen angst. Back in the 50s rock and roll was stemmed from latin dance beats, African drums, and black soul and jazz themes. Though what we label as “rock” now is a lot different 60 years later, both ideas of rock have some similarities. I think that all music is a play on each other; a push and pull with different instruments, beats, rhythms, and the like. It's takes several people to make a song. From a composer, to a songwriter, to a producer, to a lead vocalist in a band, they all come together to make music. All are influenced by each other. Whether it’s an artist using another songwriter’s work to be famous and perform, or the combination of different cultures to make a common sound and popular hits on the billboard, both use each other consistently. Rock and Roll is a genre that has developed and grown over the years using many different influences to come together. Just like how American culture is called the “melting pot,” American music does the same. 

In Starr and Waterman's American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3 Chapter 6 talks about the Swing era in the 1930s and 1940s. At the beginning of the chapter when it starts to talk about how swing music played into American culture at the time it reminded me a lot of our discussion in class on Tuesday about the Grammy's. Music in general gives us insight about the culture that we live in, just like how "swing music music provides us with a window onto the cultural values and social changes of the New Deal era" (p. 121). I totally agree that music is a reflection of what goes on in our society. I think in this generation people, especially musical performers, are trying to push the limits to what they can say on television and sing in songs. Basically, they're trying to see how far they can go publicly with raunchy material. I think it's pretty evident in popular music today. Every time I listen on the radio random parts of different songs are being edited because there is foul or obscene language that is not appropriate to be played in the daytime. Even during the Grammy's some performances had to be edited for their content on television. Dr. Dre and Eminem's performance was one of them, along with Cee Lo Green's hit song "Forget You." The actual undedited version of the song is called "Fuck You." As our culture develops and is shaped throughout the years new boundaries are being broken to go along with social change. 

In this week's reading by Starr and Waterman in their book American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3, the beginning of chapter three really peaked my interest. The beginning of the chapter describes how technology and the music business progressed in the 1920s and 1930s. Right after World War I, the record industry massively expanded and declined (because of the Great Depression) with the invention of the phonographic record. Sales for this record were continuously increasing until eventually "total national sales of phonograph discs surpassed those of sheet music for the first time" (43). Then in 1925 "electric recording" was a way to promote the new "microphone" to help performers with their acoustic sound and music. Next came the radio network. Radio was able to "link the smallest towns to the biggest cities and provided a source of excitement for working people" (45). In 1927 the first "sound film" was developed and music became linked with the entertainment industry. Music was something that became a definite part of feature films. This made me think a lot about today and how we use new technologies to make music. One in particular is "auto-tune." Auto-tune is a device that can alter someone's voice. There is even an iPhone application called "The T-Pain app" that people use to alter their voices and mimic the way people sing. It outrages me to see how people don't genuinely use their own natural talent anymore to make music. They use computers and different devices now instead of creating music with instruments the old-fashioned way. One person especially made me think just how ridiculous the use of auto-tune really is in this generation. In her song "Money Can't Buy You Class" reality television star Countess LuAnn sings on Bravo's hit show "The Real Housewives of New York City." Once you hear her you can clearly see that she can NOT sing. But with the use of auto-tune she can completely change her voice to make a hit single. 

Here is her single: 

 

This is what she actually sounds like:

Week #4 Blog Post.

 

This week in in the readings there was a lot of talk about the start of "blackface" and minstrelsy. Snyder says in his article, "Taming the Bower Boys," that, "minstrels affirmed the worth and dignity of ordinary white Americans by creating inferior blacks to whom whites--no matter how down or confused they were--could always feel superior" (p. 6). I think it's extremely sad that men in our society at that time felt the need to do that. By dressing up in costumes and wearing black make-up painted on their faces they were able to use comedy, dance, and show to make fun of black culture in order to essentially make themselves feel better about their own social status. Today I think we may do a little bit of the same in hip/hop and rap music, but in a different way. Rap and Hip Hop artists today use the word "nigger" as a form of endearment to say to each other as African-Americans. In a sense I think it makes them feel better about themselves because "nigger" used to be such a derogatory word. It still is considered derogatory today, but if African-Americans use it in a new way it almost seems acceptable, and shows how far they have come from slavery and what that word meant in the past. Either way, when white American's used to use blackface, and now when African-Americans changed the meaning of the word "nigger", through image and language both are a means of using a mask to make each other feel better in the society we live in. 

Week #3 Blog Post

Leroi Jones in his book, Blues People, talks about how “colonial America was the complete antithesis of the African’s version of human existence” (p. 4). Africans came to America for a better life and were in turn treated less than human beings. The African’s sole purpose in America was, for the most part, to provide the cheapest agricultural labor possible to procure (Jones, 1963, p. 3). Basically, their main role was to serve as slaves. When they were working in the field music would help them pass the time. I believe that in a way, singing became almost a version of therapy for them; to sing about what they were doing would help the day move faster. All in all music was a way for them to progress with the future. Over time our music has evolved, but it’s necessary for us to remember the past. We talked about artists like Leadbelly in class who sang, “pick a bale of cotton.” Listening to songs like this help us remember our history and see how far we have come from the times of slavery. Artists today sing about it in their music because the singing is a version of therapy for them as well. They can move on and progress into the future by accepting the harsh times in early America. Music will keep evolving like this, and fifty to a hundred years from now different music artists will be singing about our reality now as a means of accepting our culture to move on with their future too.  

Post for Week #2

 

Michael Ventura states in his article, "The DNA of Pop," that "the music we know as American, and that increasingly we separate into sharply defined categories (often according to race and class), is in fact a tapestry of cultures and DNA's 'little pieces' that go back to the beginning of time, an amalgam of affinities bridging what some still claim cannot be bridged" (November, 1994). I completely agree with his idea. In class we discussed how you can't talk about music without talking about race and ethnicity. People in America may identify with one specific race or ethnicity, but in the end they are American. They don't call America "the melting pot" for no reason. All kinds of people from different backgrounds come together to create their own culture: American Culture. In a way, music is extremely similar. The DNA of music may come from all different parts but it is all still music. Like Michael Ventura said at the beginning of his article, "it is a small world after all" (November, 1994).  In addition, one common theme throughout history in American music is the recycling of different sounds and influences to create "new" music. Basically new music comes from old music, with its own taste and style incorporated. For example, Elvis "had taken the moves and beats of the 'Big Boy' Crudup and Wynonie Harris and combined them with a singing style based mostly on Dean Martin, of all people (Ventura, 1994). For years people have been moved and influenced by music from the past and taken bits and pieces of old style and put together their own tastes and style with the old to create new music. This isn't just one common theme for Americans though, it is a common theme for music all over the world. Without it, the DNA of Pop wouldn't exist, and for that matter the DNA of all music probably wouldn't exist either.