[lbo-talk] South/North culture etc.

ravi ravi at platosbeard.org
Tue Nov 20 08:06:48 PST 2007


On Nov 20, 2007, at 3:22 AM, Tahir Wood wrote:
>
> Well, yeah. What an extraordinary debate. Haven't you people settled
> the 'national question' there yet? Something on the music part that
> has
> not been observed here so far is that the blues resembles African
> music
> hardly at all. I remember reading one of those blind jukebox articles
> some years ago and someone played a Lightnin' Hopkins (TX's finest
> in my
> opinion) track to Jack Bruce. After having correctly identified the
> artist he went on to say something like, "I can imagine this music
> being
> played all over Africa in the old days". Dead wrong. There is no
> African
> music that sounds vaguely like that, with the partial exception of Ali
> Farka Toure, who was influenced by the blues anyway. Also blues is
> even
> less popular amongst Africans than it is today amongst black
> Americans.
> The fact is that it is American music not African;

Yes, because black people are American, not African, if you want to put it that way (but then again, also note the point I made earlier about some of the theories regarding the sources of the blues). Which doesn't say much at all, as far as I can tell. It doesn't matter whether Jack Bruce or other non-LBO individuals are dead wrong or dead right. Black people do not have to seesaw exclusively between some essentialist Africanity and American culture/roots (where America == white). A few things have already been covered:

* The things thus far celebrated as Southern cultural contributions have turned out to be primarily the work of black artists.

* It is probably true that these artists used the language, technique, training, etc available in the environment that they lived in.

* It has been suggested that their music however is not an outgrowth, a natural progression, of the white culture from which it took language, technique, etc, but a response to it.

* If that suggestion be true, then, it is strange to appropriate their work as a part of Southern culture or output. The Indian National Congress was founded, among other things, on enlightenment'ish ideas, and founded by a British company man (so to say). One does not therefore claim that the successful Indian freedom struggle and the victory that it represented for humanity is a product, a feature, of British culture!

I apologise if I sound cross,

--ravi



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