Music Is Now - Music Blog of Alex Merced

#42
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I got an email from a fellow WBGUFM staff member, English Teacher and World Music Director, David Dears. This email was about the musical acts I chose for my highlights here at Music is Now! I thought I touched on a enough cultural and musical issues in my response for it be some good content for a post. So check it out:

ORIGINAL EMAIL

" Second, take note that I hate rap and hip hop, but I'll play even that if
it's not in English and I have on many occasions. What I'm getting at here
is the video from Eastern Europe with the babe in a Dallas Cowboy
Cheerleader outfit rapping in fake snow. I didn't find it less than
awesome because I hate rap but because it was in English. And not only
that, she was trying, I thought, to mimic to some degree African-American
rapper accents. This suggests that she is going for the money in the
American/Anglophone market. Of course, this is nothing new or
incomprehensible, but isn't this just part of the global homogenization?
And doesn't it seem that they are putting money before their art?
David Sears
Folk & World Music Director"


My RESPONSE:


- As far as why I post obviously commercially adapted music as Stereoliza, is cause it's quite interesting to me as someone who studies pop culture and marketing. One can see globalization as a homogenization of western culture on the world, but I think it effect western culture just as much. This dialogue between cultures to create new form and meaning is something that has always interested me.

While it may cheapen it for a lot of people since this dialogue takes place in the commercial sphere. Although, I think this speaks well for the world when people demand being supplied to involved influence form other cultures similar to the success of MIA and Gogol Bordello show world influence on western taste, I include Matisyahu, Nelly Furtado, and many more artists who may or may not be foreigns who've had success in this dialogue. Does this make the music itself good or bad, that's an opinion thing I guess.

In the case of StereoLiza, it's interesting to see she's on a label and the music she produces which is a real off the mark adaptation of western pop forms. If this were to be marketed in America, I think most people would laugh at her strong accent and the really poor performance of pseudo urban identity when she raps. On the other hand, this is actually quite a commercial success in Ukraine which shows their interest in western pop. In pop culture we study a lot appropriation for national identity... a lot. This is what this is, Ukraine adapting Western pop but in a sense creating something uniquely Ukrainian despite the forms being presented. like in countries like Indonesia where Dangudt is the commercial pop, most westernized influences usually tend to be seen as left of field instead of overtly commercial.

stuff like that just sort of interests me.
And doesn't it seem that they are putting money before their art?

I feel that living in growing global consumer culture that the financial motive are hard to separate from anything. The world today is fixated on the idea of what you love being you job which inherently typing the idea of what you care about with your finances. To me there is nothing wrong with this, this is just the reality of todays cultural context. I'm pretty sure there are few examples where artists compeletly abandon their love for music but isn't there much easier ways to make a living other than selling out? I mean even some of the most commercial artists struggle, there still do it cause they like what they're doing. Exceptions always exist of course, and I like to believe the resulting music is the result of a lot of peoples work and in the is separate from the artist themselves and changes in meaning over time.