Archive for category Music
“One big room / Full of bad bitches”
Posted by Nav in Cultural Theory, Music on June 7, 2011
If your reaction to the above song – Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci” – is anything like mine, you’ll hate it on the first listen, then not be able to get it out of your head and will then proceed to listen to it over and over and over again. What? Totally normal behaviour and not weird at all.
‘Course, the question is this: what is it doing here? I’m not sure. Something about it intrigues me. Perhaps because it’s so alien. Or perhaps because it’s not alien enough.
But! Let’s discuss!
Register the Register/ But Inflect that Dialect
You know what’s weird? The way Kreayshawn’s register both does and does not ‘match up’ with her inflection/accent. By this I mean that the stereotypical generalizations one walks into the song with don’t quite fit. While rhyming, moments of ‘West coast valley girl’ pop up, while at others they seem to disappear entirely behind… hm, what to call it? I guess “the hip-hop inflected accent that people say isn’t about race but totally is in how it signifies, especially in terms of its layered, ambivalent, now-it-has-cultural currency-and-now-it-doesn’t-ness”? Yeah, that.
Let’s talk about bitches, bitches.
This song and its refrain of “1 big room / Full of bad bitches” seems to be the best argument – or maybe just the most recent one – for the feminist reclamation of the word “bitch”. Discuss.
More to the point, “I’m full of swag and it’s pumping out my ovaries” seems as phallogocentrically feminist as it’s gonna get, doesn’t it?
“Why you lookin’ bitter? / I be looking better”
There is a tiny, infinitesimally small part of me that wants to be an 18 year old girl so I too can adopt the weird Parkdale-Williamsburg-Oakland style exhibited by Kreayshawn’s hype girl – who I assume is her DJ/producer? I could probably look things like that that up, but it’s all waaay better as a mystery.
Cultural Appropriation
*sirens* WHITE GIRL RAPPIN’ WOO WOO *sirens*
Hm, this one is messy. To me, the thing about cultural appropriation is not the ownership of culture, but is more about how the circulation of images/ideas can either reaffirm the links between racial identity and assumptions of potential or challenge them. Another important aspect is privilege. To be able to take on or take off markers of cultural identity – but not be able to do the same with skin colour – causes all sortsa problems.
I don’t really care about issues of “stealing” culture. But the necklace of a “Native American head”, a la the Cleveland Indians logo? That throws things off. It’s one thing to repurpose a sign when its multiple valences have been altered by history. It’s quite another to do so when social and systemic prejudice against Aboriginal Americans remains unforgivably high. So, yeah, fuck that noise.
At the end of the day, though: I guess the thing with cultural appropriation is this: there is no neutral music, and there is no neutral language. So the only responsible thing to do is to address the politics that the ‘disparity’ between identity and aesthetic production that the act of the utterance itself produces.
When Das Racist rhyme about the litany of artists who have sung in “Fake Patois“, they do so in their own fake faux-Jamaican/Caribbean patois. But they also talk about a lost bit of Jamaican history: Shaun X. Bridgmohan who is “the first Jamaican in Kentucky Derby”. So, deliberate or not, the song leaves you in a perfectly appropriate suspension between the impossibility of authenticity but the significance of the discourse of authenticity.
Yeah, Kreayshawn doesn’t do that.
The female gaze
The song seems to ricochet back and forth between two ideas: one if that ‘we are so full of swag, we don’t need your items of conspicuous consumption’ – the insanely catchy “Gucci Gucci Louis Louis Fendi Fendi Prada/ Basic bitches wear that shit so I don’t even botha’” – to explicitly invoking the culture of surveillance and performance of teenage girls: “Bitch you ain’t no Barbie / I hear you work at Arby’s”.
That contradiction, however, is perfectly captured by Kreayshawn’s, um, meditation on the legitimacy of Kat Stacks, in which she seems to speak in contradictions. I didn’t understand it at all, but that’s why it’s perfect.
Again, I’m assuming Kat Stacks is a person who exists, but this is all much better when it remains enigmatic and full of possibility
Conclusion
Was this my usual attempt at recuperative analysis, a la Transformers 2? Or self-satire? Or am I just inappropriately obsessed with a song not at all aimed at me?
Yeah. It’s definitely one of those.
More to the point, isn’t this what should have happened years ago? When the signifier just detached of its own accord and started floating around, full of so much swag it removed itself from history?
Edit: Oh! I forgot a link to this: “On Kreayshawn and the Utility of Black Women“, which not only starts with a Zora Neale Hurston quote (!), but also has this line – “It’s like tumblr made a video,” said one tumblrite, speaking of the white Cali hipster aesthetics of Kreyashawn’s Gucci Gucci – which is the most perfect encapsulation ever. Seriously, look at the visual style of the chorus section – it’s a Facebook photo album, right?
Wax Interlude: Warpaint
Posted by Nav in Music, Uncategorized, Wax Interlude on December 1, 2010
When I was younger, at least part of the thrill of new music was the way it seemed to open up aspects of the culture I lived in. There was something more to a great new track than just the song itself; it was the sense that, in some inexplicable way, the world was full of more possibility.
For some reason, I got an oddly similar feeling listening to Warpaint, a fourtet from LA. I don’t know why, really. But, as I mentioned on Twitter, this song “Elephants” manages to be somehow ethereal and gritty at once – and just so so great.
My other favourite track, “Undertow”, just seems to float along dreamily. It also explains why the end of my last post drifted off into the sappy. (Insider information for SiW superfans! Send $19.99 now for your behind the scenes DVD in Technicolor 3D!)
Wax Interlude: “Vinkonur”, Ólöf Arnalds
Posted by Nav in Music, Wax Interlude on September 22, 2010
Ólöf Arnalds is an Icelandic singer, whose voice you may recognise from electronic outfit Múm. Her solo work, however, is far more eclectic, such as on her new album, Innidunr Skinni, which is all Icelandic folk music.
I’m not sure why, but this song – Vinkonur – utterly charmed me.
A Study in Contrasts and Other Lame Blog Post Titles
It’s true that The Books’ new album is pretty fascinating . Like in “Cold Freezing Night”, my favourite track off the disc, The Books have become experts at weaving strange, catchy soundscapes of ‘found poetry’ and music.
And the new Lali Puna album isn’t bad either. I guess it’s pretty standard as indietronica goes, but it’s pleasant, and the kind of thing well-suited to late-night listening now that the weather will soon get colder.
But what does it mean, as white hairs sprout sporadically in my beard, that this is the sort of song I find myself listening to most?
(Hint: It’s “Dark Clouds” by Sarah Harmer, off the unabashedly poppy Oh Little Fire).
(Hint #2: The Books’ label, Temporary Residence, houses all kinds of great acts, including the now defunct Sonna, who are one of my favourite bands ever.)
A Random, Stupid Thought About The Attention Economy
Posted by Nav in Culture of Technology, Music on August 18, 2010
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing sitarist Irshad Khan play at Harbourfront.
Like all Indian classical musicians, Khan has spent his entire life practising and playing his instrument – and it showed. His capacity to produce a sweeping range of emotions, moods and tempos was pretty amazing. Also like many Indian musicians, he would often lose himself in the moment, swaying his head and exclaiming out loud.
And occasionally, between refrains of incredible complexity, many of which he was improvising on the spot, he would lean in towards the microphone and say to some audience member “please, no photos”.
Then, as if there was no break, he would resume his intricate playing.
I have a couple of theories of why this stark difference from Western classical exists. They mostly have to do with the musical performance as an event produced within a pre-existing social space – like how famed bansuri player Hariprasad Chaurasia plays down at Sukhna Lake in Chandigarh on summer mornings, while people jog past or do yoga or go for a stroll.
More generally, it just feels like it’s a different way of thinking about intense mental work and ‘distraction’. Is the discussion around attention and focus constrained by a (Western) emphasis on solitude and the kind of focus and interiority it could bring? This was the crux of Sven Birkert’s The Gutenberg Elegies, right?
So, are we ignoring the cross-cultural dimensions of attention, and instead focusing only on the historical?
Bonus: I couldn’t write this and now not post some Hariprasad Chaurasia vids. That would be cruel! He’s my favourite classical Indian musician. The first one is the more traditional raga, long and in-depth; the second is a shorter, more accessible piece.
Wax Interlude: The Radio Dept. Will Make You Happy
Posted by Nav in Music, Wax Interlude on April 30, 2010
It’s true that I already put this on Twitter. And it’s also true, as you point out, that “Nav this isn’t your fucking Tumblr”. But I couldn’t help but share a song that not only opens with an exhortation to KRUSH KAPITALISM, but is just so full of so much joy.
“Heaven’s on Fire” – The Radio Dept.
The Post-Ironic in Practice: Die Antwoord
Posted by Nav in Cultural Theory, Music on April 22, 2010
So, for a couple of years now, I’ve been yapping about something I call post-irony. It’s likely that, simply out of ignorance, I am mistaken, and it’s just old-fashioned irony or Jamesonian pastiche or something else. But whatever I’ve called it, the thing that has intrigued me so much is the indeterminacy of contemporary culture – of the impossibility of deciding whether something is sincere or ironic without first Googling something.
My two key examples so far have R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet and Heidi Montag’s music career – so take it with a grain of salt (as if you don’t already).
Still, watch this Die Antwoord video and tell me: without knowing anything about them, could you tell whether its parody or sincere expression? Performance art or… well, something else? Is the chorus a feminist critique? Or its opposite?
‘Cause dudes? I have no fucking idea what to think about anything anymore.
By the way, get to the end. ‘Cause that’s when it gets extra-awesome.
Edit: It occurs to me that the cultural distance works to either further or exacerbate the indeterminacy – i.e. is this normal for ‘them’? Are they aware of ‘our’ culture and are playing with it? Which seems more than just North American narcissism – part of Buzzfeed’s whole shtick is that it uses non-American as fodder for entertainment. This feels like another of those things that is very ‘contemporary’ – in the face of so much access to difference, is the response to reinscribe the cultural hierarchies that we supposedly moved beyond?
Wax Interlude: New Caribou Album
Posted by Nav in Music, Wax Interlude on April 22, 2010
Swim by Caribou – the follow-up to Polaris-winning Andorra – is out now. Odessa is the first track. Pitchfork review here, and the video is below.
Cinnamon Chasers: Best Music Vid In A While
Look ma! I’m link-blogging! But this is a fun video. [via]
