wayne&wax

linkthink re: hip-hop, reggae, the US, jamaica, and anything else wayne wants to wax on

12.29.2005

downunder underground


the outbreak of "race riots" in sydney should have come as anything but a surprising development, especially for expatriate lebanese-australians or, say, anyone who paid attention to the recent insurrection in paris. indeed, given the similarities between that flare-up and the still smoldering cities of france, i'm surprised that no one has yet fingered hip-hop.

seriously though, how do we reconcile sydney's seemingly serious social rifts with what appears to be, if perhaps a more marginal subculture than the "surf movement," a downright vibrant hip-hop scene? maybe it's elementary: hip-hop's embrace on the part of certain australians makes plenty of sense against the backdrop of a pervasively, and sometimes explicitly, racist society. and though i wouldn't want to generalize too strongly about who constitutes the "hip-hop community" in australia (as if any such monolith ever exists), i think that the recent riots do call our attention to one partial answer to bakari kitwana's underlying, provocative question, why do white kids love hip-hop? because other white kids don't.

now, though that might seem a naive recuperation of what otherwise might be understood as fascination, fetishization, and appropriation, i think that we would do well not to forget the fundamentally anti-racist gesture implicit in anyone's serious engagement with the forms of hip-hop. even on the quotidian level of challenging the sartorial--or sonic--norms of an otherwise invisible whiteness, by embracing hip-hop white-kids-who-love-hip-hop can often productively animate public discussions and cultural politics around race. in many cases, too, the anti-racist gesture becomes more than that: it becomes a position, a practice, an ontology. of course, the same gestures can also be less than that, ending up rather empty when they fail to translate into any sort of meaningful action or movement toward change or when they fall into the familiar pits of romanticization and, once again, a reification of racial categories. or as ian maxwell puts it:
There is, indeed, a sense in which African-American blackness figures (and, it has to be acknowledged, is promoted, and promotes itself) to these Australian teenagers as an exotic, somewhat sexualized other. (x)
maxwell reminds us of the obvious in order to explain how hip-hop itself figures in australia's sense of itself as "cut through with ambivalences and anxieties about place and identity" (ibid.)--which is something of an abstract way of saying that australia is divided (and who's on what side again?) when it comes to making sense of a history of racist oppression, appropriation, and exploitation.

interestingly (for me anyway), australia is like many hip-hop scenes outside of the US in that its idea of hip-hop style often contains a heavy dose of reggae. one remarkable facet of this conflation between the two (which otherwise suggests interesting things about the ways that hip-hop and reggae travel outside of the US/caribbean) is the way that such styles themselves figure in artists' and audiences' negotiations of race and nation in such "glocal" contexts. (and though glocal is a terrible word and should be left to die in the obscurity of discarded neologisms, it does describe somewhat well the convergence of globally-circulating ideologies/forms and local contexts of reception and practice.) maxwell, for instance, discusses an artist who claims that his raggamuffin flow was "influenced by London ragga rap rather than North American rap, conceding the Afro-Caribbean 'roots' of that scene, but carefully distancing himself from charges of imitation or of subjection to a putative American cultural imperialism" (203). so we see how such overlapping (if not conflicting) identifications can become quite a tangle--binding and cutting even as they connect.



all of this is something of a preamble, though. a few weeks ago i got a buncha CDs from the sydney-based elefant traks stable. although i tried to approach the recordings with open ears, without fail the tracks would turn my thoughts to the state of australian hip-hop--and in particular how this batch of new recordings, though admittedly from one camp, reflects on the scene (and society) more generally, where it's been, and where it's going.

when i think of australian hip-hop in the abstract i think of a certain playfulness that comes with the distance of being on the other side of the world. for instance, one hears a generally ecumenical approach to sample sources (as exemplified by the avalanches, the turtablist collective who earned themselves no small distinction among the crowded field of well-endtroduced cut-chemists)--though one could see such an openness as simply consistent with an underground or "true school" ethos, which seems to mark much hip-hop outside the US. at the same time, though, austalian hip-hop also seems to be saddled by a degree of mimesis that suggests a struggle to find its own voice. this especially emerges in the rapping, where, perhaps in attempts to sound absolutely nothing at all like some crocodile dundees, too many MCs still resemble aussie stand-ins for stateside favorites. (if you like aesop rock, you'll love aussop rock!)

with regard to some recent releases from the elefant crew (who show no small promise as a professional, dedicated, and talented bunch), what stand out most for me are, perhaps unsurprisingly, the instrumentals, the beats-for-heads numbers. these aren't remarkable in their distinctiveness as an index of locality (i.e., their australianness), per se, but they certainly succeed on the same scale as their american and european counterparts. (which may or may not be the scale on which they should be weighed--i suppose i prefer several scales. it's a question of contexts and such.) don't get me wrong, ya herd? this is some well-crafted hip-hop--reverent, but not without a sense of play; inventive, if a bit conservative. it won't make the kiddies dance like fiddy does, i don't think, but it gives you plenty to listen to, especially, i imagine, if you're an australian youth looking to brandish a backpack like a badge of courage.

or, perhaps, a trenchant t-shirt?



at any rate, my favorite disc of the bunch is, without a doubt, pasobionic's empty beats for lonely rappers.



at times rather reminiscent of flack's blue beats mix, empty beats supplies the lonely rapper with no end of choice, chill, head-nodding beats. perfect for the living room or the lounge. (the kitchen, too.) fine for freestylin' or just plain stylin'.

pasobionic, "empty beat 2"

in a similar vein, unkle ho's roads to roma grabs odd sample sources from across the map and across various eras: klezmer, tango, mariachi, dixieland, mid90s dancehall, hawaiian slack-key, blues rock, you-name-it. at times, though, the parade of nations gets a bit tired. there's something a little too cartoonish in this soundgrab: such representations of ethnicity, although explicitly deconstructive in their kitchy connotations, can still serve to reify rather than subvert stereotypes.



but then, who am i to say what's a "proper" tactic of (anti-anti-?)orientalism? i think unkle ho certainly deserves a say. his mix of eastern signifiers and swing-era jazz on the following track perhaps presents a more complex picture of an imaginary australian soundscape than my cautionary reaction might imply. i'll leave it to you.

unkle ho, "grace of the guru"

if nothing else, the burgeoning hip-hop scene down under offers something of an alternative vision of australian society. with its vital and playful creativity, its outernational orientation, its (inherited) alignment with the rights of the oppressed, and its essential opposition to status quo racism, australian hip-hop can serve as the sort of grassroots social movement that its practitioners, as with so many practitioners of hip-hop worldwide, dream it to be. if it is to do so, though, aussie artists would do well to express to their fellow australians (and to the wider world) what it is they've learned from hip-hop and thus learned about themselves and their mates and their society. don't tell us what we've/you've already heard from def jux and such. tell us what you've heard on the beach, on the streets, in your head. tell us something we don't know. tell us something we don't see when we finally see y'all on TV. let us hear what the voices of the new new south wales really sound like. i have a feeling we'll like what we hear.

12.28.2005

pryor engagement

this is happening tonight. here. should be good. gloobic are more than just soso--they're like the fringe of electronic music: they always start from scratch. and soso's something else: multimedia remixology for the mass ave massive. plus, brynmore's DJing to boot.

12.26.2005

seeking souls subjects

do you download and/or upload music on the internets? lots of music? do you think about the ethics of it? how it has changed your habits or practices? can you articulate your reasons for doing so? would you like to?

if so, an ethnomusicologist friend of mine would like to ask you some questions. if you're interested in participating in what promises to be an illuminating study of the emerging ethics of music in the digital age, get at me (wayne at wayneandwax) and i'll put you in touch with my colleague (anonymously, if you wish).


[update: thanks to all who have gotten in touch. i've forwarded your info on to my colleague, who will probably be in contact with you before too long.]

12.22.2005

out in the street, they call it x-mas



got a big stocking mp3 full of jinglin' beats and festive remixes over at RM.

don't say i never gave you anything.

12.21.2005

scrooged and chopped



just posted a seasonal screw (or something) over at the riddimmethod. check it out.

12.14.2005

finger food

12.13.2005

killing fi stop



today the new york times published an editorial strongly condemning not just the murder of jamaican AIDS-outreach worker steve harvey but the implicit sanctioning of anti-gay violence by the jamaican government and police.

this seems to me a better target than singers or DJs, many of whom will affirm the obvious biases of their audience just to sell a record, get a forward, or book a show. certainly, given the degree to which the jamaican public adulates its star entertainers, having a few artists break from this tacit--and often not so tacit--approval of homophobic violence would be a step in the right direction. at the least, showing some courage on this most jerk of knee-jerk issues (bible schmible, cultcha schmultcha) might embolden some of their peers or fans to do the same.

despite persistent performances to the contrary (bad man nuh bow), beenie man deserves some credit for recently clarifying his stance on the issue. but he would do well to tell his fans back-a-yard the same thing he tells journalists from foreign when they ask him about the whole bun-battyman thing: "I cannot be against man that have consensual sex. If two big man want to have sex, it's their perogative, that's my opinion."

still, for all of their sway in the realm of cultural politics, DJs are not elected officials and are not looked upon as leaders in the sense that prime ministers and MPs are (though i recognize that many jamaicans have, for good reason, lost their faith in politicians' ability to lead). thus the times is right to suggest that those who are in power should set an example by repealing jamaica's archaic anti-sodomy laws (inherited from the brits, natch)--not just for the sake of gays and lesbians in jamaica, but for human rights workers of all stripes, for sex-workers and other at-risk communities, and for jamaican society as a whole.

i mean, shit, even texas has 'em beat on that count. seen?

[do you bun what i bun? get the mashup rundown over at riddimmethod.]

12.10.2005

giffords!!



thanks to the ever generous 893, now u can mean competitor too!

12.08.2005

any myspace people here?


ghislain runs the voodoo down

got a little review of last week's lady sov / master ghis show in this week's phoenix. 300 words isn't nearly enough to discuss all i'd like to, so i point you to jake's and kevin's and OTD's reviews for elaboration and balance.

in the end, hoodies or no, i'll take rappin' mallrats over singin' mallrats anyday. but a little more ch-ching and a little less ch-chat would've been preferable.


lady sov blurring boundaries

12.06.2005

curios



  • sinead o'connor hasn't simply released a reggae album; she's come out as a rasta. sense some contradictions there? according to this article, she's comfortable with them. hell, the pope-pic ripper even says she's still catholic. maybe it helps that, for sinead, rastafari "isn't a religion"?!

  • for the reel irish-jamaican connection, you must hear eek-o'mouse get seriously jiggy (ok--maybe not so seriously) with some rad trad irish players. fun stuff.

  • woebot reveals that the bollywood-reggae connection far precedes computer paul's relick of that dj quik beat for "addictive". always wondered where those haunting melodies and indecipherable lyrics on "bird in hand" came from. amazing answer. my next question: where and when and how did singer sam carty see the 1950 film from which the song comes (or, if not in the context of the film, where and when and how did he hear the song)?

  • i stand corrected on the south rakkas' use (or not use) of fruityloops. i was fooled by a familiar bass tone and voice processing--of course, such things are generated in very similar ways by a plethora of programs today. didn't mean to offend. but i can't see any shame in that game anyway (save for the silly name--conceived, no doubt, in a moment of PLURified weakness. [but correct me if i'm wrong.]). anyhow, you'd do well to check the south rakkas dudes' new riddim (chink uzi?! is that a dig at some fellow floridian riddimists?), not to mention their wicked refix of beck's "black tangerines".

  • finally..

  • i've observed this irony before, but i can't resist: babylon police academy sounds sorta redundant, don't?

12.02.2005

nightlights on the river charles



it's become something of a tradition for us to take a walk along the charles, from river street to weeks bridge and back again, in between thanksgiving dinner and dessert. last year our entire party was unbelievably soaked by a perfect storm, catching us just as we were furthest away. this year we were treated to a mercifully calm and hazy night, full of beguiling reflections.

the photos below are less a credit to any sort of talent, i'd say, and more to shaking hands, sheer serendipity, and the delayed-exposure/"night"-setting on our camera. (and also to becca, who took some of the shots.) you can see them as a slideshow here.