Music, Popular Culture, Identities

318 Pages·3.068 MB·English

by  Richard Young

Introduction
RICHARD YOUNG
When contributors were initially invited to submit an essay for this vol-
ume, the terms of reference provided were broad enough to give them
considerable latitude in the selection ofa topic. They were invited to focus
on any aspect of popular music: musical texts; song lyrics; dance; the con-
texts and forms of production, performance, diffusion, or reception; or
the representationof music in forms of expression such as literature, (cid:142)lm,
or theatre. The term “popular” could be understood in any of the senses
in which it is often used in discussion ofcontemporary culture: as a term to
designate folk culture, the cultural phenomena of subaltern groups, or
the commodi(cid:142)ed cultural products ofmass circulation. Contributors were
equally invited to pursue their interests in ways determined by their own
disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives. Yet, regardless of differences
in methodology, de(cid:142)nitions, or objects of study, it was expected that the
objective of all essays would be to demonstrate how the musical forms
of popular culture contributed to constructions of identity and the individ-
ual’s sense of self within a community. Essays would, accordingly, likely
focus on popular musics associated with social minorities or subaltern
groups or on the products of new cross-cultural formations, but they
might also deal with popular musical expressions that had become allied
with the projects of nation building or regional politics.
The result, now compiled in Music, Popular Culture, Identities, is an
eclectic set of sixteen essays, as varied in their content as the musical phe-
nomena they examine, which nevertheless succeed as a group in touching
all the bases identi(cid:142)ed in the invitation sent to contributors. It would not
be easy, however, to classify the essays in relation to issues in the study of
popular music they address, given that each reveals a variety of concerns
and would necessarily be classi(cid:142)ed in more than one category. The scope
of the volume may be appreciated, perhaps, in light of a taxonomy based
on geography and the musical forms discussed.
The (cid:142)rst essay in the volume, William Anselmi’s consideration of thirty
years of engagement and antagonism in the Italian popular music scene,
places us in Europe. Parvati Nair’s contribution on Spain and Claire Levy’s
on Bulgaria both address the musics of traditional communities and their
2 Richard Young
integration or con(cid:143)ict with the world at large: the former with respect to a
Spanish (cid:143)amenco recording project and the implications of its circulation
as “world music”; the latter in connection with the challenges created by a
surging movement towards westernization in the “new” Bulgaria that mar-
ginalizes the local. Two essays about Holland, by Adam Krims and Henry
Klumpenhouwer, respectively, complete the group with a focus on Euro-
pean musics. While Krims examines the distinctiveness of Dutch-language
rap in light of certain claims about cultural production and consump-
tion by Cultural Studies, Klumpenhouwer undertakes a consideration of
Boerenrock against the background of Dutch political debates and Marxist
theory on the relation between the countryside and the city.
Concerning music in other parts of the world, Keith Kahn-Harris’s
contribution on Extreme Heavy Metal in Israel analyses a scene whose
members react variously to conditions in their own country while also
participating in a global scene. There are two essays on South Africa.
Michael Titlestad examines representations of music in literature and
the capacity of jazz to create a hybrid language through which to heal
the trauma of apartheid. In a different mode, but still focused on the his-
tory of apartheid South Africa, from the perspective of a post-apartheid
society, Stella Viljoen’s contribution assesses the careers and status of
Johnny Clegg and Claire Johnson, two white musicians who had earlier
crossed the cultural-racial divide. A third essay about music in Africa, Lisa
McNee’s consideration of the career of Alpha Blondy in Côte d’Ivoire,
also confronts questions of musical hybridization in a context of political
authoritarianism.
Hybridity, in differing measures, underlies a group of essays about
popular music in Latin America. Daniel Chamberlain’s discussion of the
Mexican corrido is undertaken in the context of debates about national
identity and the role of the traditional ballad as one of the sites of its
expression. In an essay on dance in Cuba, John Chasteen calls attention to
its Afro-European elements, the place of contradanza, danza and danzón
in national identity, and the link between nationalism and popular cul-
ture. George Lang’s essay locates Bossa Nova in the context of Brazilian
Modernism and the capacity of Brazilian culture to absorb and reshape
received cultural capital according to practices that are a key to under-
standing national identity. Catherine Den Tandt offers a critique ofCultural
Studies approaches to the music ofthe Caribbean for its selective focus on
certain instances ofmass consumption, such as salsa, reggae or merengue,
while largely ignoring the presence of mainstream pop.
Notably absent from the preceding narrative of the contents of this
volume are essays that focus directly on mainstream musical expressions
Introduction 3
of the U.S. However, the musical culture of North America, as almost all
the essays show in one form or another, permeates the popular musics
of the world. Indeed, the impact that U.S. popular culture has around
the world is, in some respects, comparable with what takes place within
the borders of the U.S. itself. Thus, the three essays concerned with the
presence of certain musical phenomena in the U.S. focus speci(cid:142)cally on
the issues of identity and exile expressed through popular music in trans-
planted communities. Murray Forman examines the role of Rap and Hip
Hop as determinants in the process of re-invention of identities under-
gone by Somali immigrant and refugee youths in Canada and the U.S.
In his examination of the popular culture created by Iranian exiles in the
U.S., Hamid Na(cid:142)cy argues that it serves a dual function, both as a means
of preservation of cultural tradition and as a guide to transformation
from ambivalent outsiders to productive citizens and consummate con-
sumers. Lastly, Viviana Rangil, in an analysis of two recent movies,
considers the consecration of the Tex-Mex singer Selena as a symbol of
community and nation whose life constitutes an identity narrative that
uni(cid:142)es Latinos while also being acceptable to Anglos.
In addition to indicating the geographical range collectively covered
by the essays included in this volume, the preceding narrative of its con-
tents will also have conveyed an idea of the diversity of issues in identity
addressed overall by contributors. At the same time, it will have con-
(cid:142)rmed that the notion ofpopular culture most frequently taken up is that
embodied in the creation, circulation and use of the products of the cul-
ture industry. More precisely, although there are notable exceptions, most
ofthe essays are concerned with music and identity in relation to the mass
circulation of cultural products through performance, especially through
audio and video recordings. As such, popular culture, considered as a term
that (cid:142)gures in the title to this volume, may also be taken to be the site in
which relations between music and identity are mediated. It is not a neu-
tral site, however, but an extraordinarily busy and diversi(cid:142)ed crossroads
(to borrow the term taken by George Lipsitz [1994] from Boukman
Eksperyans) where the many musical products of culture meet, collide or
pass each other by in encounters that may range from the accidental to
the highly determined. It is also a site where encounter results in fusion
and the development of new forms through hybridization.
For the most part, such fusions in the contemporary world result from
tensions between the local and the global, where global refers in the (cid:142)rst
instance to a dominant or dominating cultural discourse that has obtained
wide international circulation and recognition. Rap and Hip Hop culture
clearly (cid:142)t the bill with respect to several situations described in this
4 Richard Young
volume. Such tensions need not necessarily result in new forms, perceived
as local variations on an international theme, and not all essays are con-
cerned with the emergence of new varieties of popular musical expres-
sion. It is the case, however, that virtually all the essays are in some way
preoccupied with a local politics and the consequences of a contestation
ofthe traditional when it is confronted by potential change. The outcome
is not always the same, and the cases of assimilation of the global to the
local are as signi(cid:142)cant as those in which the local is re-shaped in accord-
ance with a globalizing trend. Without speci(cid:142)cally harbouring an inten-
tion to address the condition of globalization, either in the contemporary
world or in certain historical conditions, this volume has in fact ended up
providing a series of case studies that might contribute to and illuminate
the on-going debate on the degree to which globalization leads to a con-
formity and uniformity that diminish the autonomy of the local and the
capacity of communities to act locally.
The notion ofpostmodernism as the new imperialism ofthe late twen-
tieth century was certainly not the condition postulated primarily, from
their perception ofthe crumbling ofmodernity’s meta-narratives, by most
readers of Jean-François Lyotard’s 1979 essay, La Condition post-moderne.
Nevertheless, a decade later, the meta-narratives had already been recon-
stituted, after a fashion, and the idea of the postmodern as a stage in an
economic and cultural continuum that fosters conditions under which
a global economy and culture assert themselves is an essential element
of the time-space compression envisaged by David Harvey (1989) as the
force underlying cultural change and the movement towards global inte-
gration. Harvey’s position, however, is not without critics, especially among
those who recognize that the same forces driving globalization may also
be martialled to oppose it. More recently, in Transnational Urbanism:
Locating Globalization (2001), Michael Peter Smith examines some of the
theoretical foundations of globalization in urban studies and opposes
them with a “transnational urbanism” that gives greater emphasis to the
importance of place, human agency and cultural practice. For Smith
“‘culture’ is an ever-changing product of human practices rather than a
re(cid:143)ection of ‘deeper’ economic imperatives” (11) and among the examples
he offers are:
…the formation of a cross-border political coalition of inter-
national unions, NGOs, and transnational grassroots activists
who successfully imposed restrictions on a major transnational
corporation; the enmeshment of the recently deposed Suharto
regime in Indonesia in the contradictions of neoliberalism
Introduction 5
because of transnational pressures “from above” and “from
below” and the political impacts of a recent round of anti-IMF
protests in Seoul, Korea, which directly challenged IMF aus-
terity policies imposed on the South Korean state and indir-
ectly contributed to the creation of an international political
climate that has forced both the IMF and the World Bank to
reconsider their rigid pursuit of the neoliberal global govern-
ance agenda. (13)
Many of the issues in contemporary culture underlying the debate in
which Smith engages have hitherto been more densely theorized in rela-
tion to urban studies than with respect to the study of popular music. Yet,
given the character of popular music as a cultural practice, its inherent
connection to a sense of place, and its function both in human agency
and the expression and formation of identity, the possibilities that trans-
nationalism offers as a suitable line of enquiry for examining the forms of
contention between the local and the global that have surfaced in the
essays contained in this volume seem very engaging.
A line of enquiry equally compatible with such possibilities is that pur-
sued by Néstor García Canclini in several publications, of which the (cid:142)rst to
obtain widespread attention was Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and
Leaving Modernity (1995), originally published in Spanish in 1990. The loca-
tion of Canclini’s writing in Latin America makes it especially relevant as
complementary reading even for the essays offered here not focused on
Latin America because he is writing from a space that, by virtue of its post-
coloniality, inherently pits the local against the global while bringing into
play considerations that are not necessarily perceived by those writing from
the perspective of North American or European academies. In the most
recent of his books to be made available in English, Consumers and Citizens:
Globalization and Cultural Con(cid:143)icts (2001; (cid:142)rst published in 1995), Canclini
begins his preface with the statement that he intends to examine globaliza-
tion “as a process of fragmentation and recomposition” and he adds that
“rather than homogenize the world, globalization reorders differences and
inequalities without eliminating them” (3). His remark not only amounts to
a de(cid:142)nition but also very pointedly re-focuses the question ofthe postmod-
ern dissolution ofmodernism’s meta-narratives. Moreover, the de(cid:142)nition is
one with which contributors to this volume could easily identify, at the
same time as they might (cid:142)nd their positions compatible with the central
issue ofCanclini’s book, namely the relationship between consumption and
citizenship. As much as any contemporary cultural practice, popular music
is bounded by the production, marketing and consumption of a cultural
6 Richard Young
product. At all stages of this activity, it may also be intensely political, not
just in the way that social acts are of themselves political, but through
its engagement with a particular politics of place and its identi(cid:142)cation
with social classes or groups. In the interplay of the global and the local,
whether in the music of Spain, Holland, Africa, or transplanted commu-
nities relocated in North America there occurs that “process of fragmenta-
tion and recomposition” ofwhich Canclini writes and from which, we might
claim, identity is reconstituted in relation to its place and changing trad-
itions in the context of prevailing patterns of consumption. In Michael
Smith’s terms: “the contingent construction ofpolitical identities as solidar-
ities and oppositions…formed in and through people’s interactions in
particular discursive spaces” (11) on a transnational scale.
Yet, to return to the contents of this volume, although I have sought in
the preceding remarks to identify some elements of cohesion and com-
monality, this is, in the end, a relatively arbitrary collection of essays writ-
ten around connections between music, popular culture, and identity that
continue to intrigue numerous scholars of varying backgrounds and dis-
ciplinary interests. In light of this circumstance, I have not attempted to
order the essays according to any criterion save that of the alphabet. I am
grateful to all the contributors for making their work available and for
their collaboration in the editing process, especially their patience with
the time taken to bring this volume to completion. Thanks are also due to
Myriam Díaz Diocaretz, who never lost faith in the project, and to past
and present colleagues at the University of Alberta, particularly members
of the University’s Institute for Popular Music, for the opportunity to
exchange ideas. I am especially grateful to Christopher Marsden for his
typographical expertise and preparation of camera-ready copy. Without
his work and collegial collaboration, the contents of this volume might
have languished longer on a hard drive in Edmonton. Above all, my
thanks to Trish for continuing and unconditional support.
Works Cited
García Canclini, Néstor. Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural
Con(cid:143)icts. Translation and Introduction by George Yúdice. Minneapolis:
University ofMinnesota Press, 2001.
——. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. Trans.
Christopher L. Chiappari and Silvia L. López. Foreword by Renato Rosaldo.
Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1995.
Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of
Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1990.
Introduction 7
Lipsitz, George. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the
Poetics of Place. London: Verso, 1994.
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans.
GeoffBennington and Brian Massumi. Foreword by Fredric Jameson.
Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1984.
Smith, Michael Peter. Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers, 2001.

From cantautori to posse: Sociopolitical
Discourse, Engagement and Antagonism in the
Italian Music Scene from the 60s to the 90s
WILLIAM ANSELMI
The passage from one Millennium to another is always ripe with speci(cid:142)c cultural
endeavors prone to mark and/or highlight historical transitions as to what the
future holds. This particular process, as far as our cultural age is concerned, seems
to favour the end of history (as in Francis Fukuyama and others); a passage into
a system which voids the lifeworld (as in Habermas) of its historicity. A critical
reading of the Italian music scene in its antagonistic and engaged forms in the last
thirty years can perhaps contribute to elucidating what this process entails. From
the role and practice of the cantautore(engaged singer-songwriter) emerging in
the 60s and continuing until today, to the appearance of the posse(of American
derivation, but part of a speci(cid:142)c anthro-political territory and mixing of genres
such as rap, reggae, hip hop, dub, ska and raggamuf(cid:142)n), in the late 80s, the Italian
engaged and antagonistic music scene provides us with an alternate reading of
recent Italian socio-political history. Such a practice, an alternate interpretation,
can be utilized by the reader to dispel the chimera of pseudo-hegemonizing views
with regards to our present, modern times. This essay, while presenting a speci(cid:142)c
history of the line that ties the cantautori to the posse, also focuses on two speci(cid:142)c
albums: Fabrizio De Andr’s Storia di un impiegato(Story of a bureaucrat, 1973)
and Claudio Lolli’s disoccupate le strade dei sogni (unoccupy the streets of
dreams, 1977).
Framing a Discursive Device…
As epistemological and ontological constructions go, the End of the
Millennium is ideal for different cultural assessments. There seems to be
an innate need to evaluate all possible histories and to hegemonize their
contents within a single discourse of non-History. Although, most often,
these attempts can be critically deconstructed because of their non-
resolvable contradictions, still a praxis that endeavours to resolve the Past
10 William Anselmi
absolutely is a portentous mechanism of control. It is a praxis that col-
lapses historicity within the static circle of recycling, re-enactments and
re-issuing meant to commodify reality in an on-going series of mediatic
practices. This process seems to be all encompassing, (cid:142)ltering into every
aspect of the lifeworld – with each passing unit of time. It should come
without surprise that the present revival ofthe seventies with its “culting”
of favourite programs is being accompanied by recycled newscasts, as in
the case ofCP24broadcasts in Toronto, decade-old newscasts represented
and consumed anew, not for their immediacy-bound content, but for a
negative nostalgia which surreptitiously congeals into “chronic infantil-
ism,” the consumption of the present as the only past and/or future.1In
a previous work Kosta Gouliamos and I have identi(cid:142)ed this process,
sarcastically, as a nostalgia for the future, a modus operandiby which a linear
timeline is deconstructed into a gravitationless spin, the better to act as
a reifying mechanism:
With the abolition, or the complete realization of the time
frame of linearity, the future is envisioned as that which moves
out ofthe present alienated conditions. Then progress becomes
de(cid:142)ned according to a nostalgia for the futurewhich is participa-
tory in the millenarian discourse. This pseudo-mythical quality
of capital gives rise to the inde(cid:142)nite postponement of self-
realization. The schizophrenic subject is reduced to imaginary/
illusory identity and participation in consumeristic rituals.
(122–23)
Certainly, although pronounced, this is only one of many ruses by
which the cultural world is voided of historicity. Rewriting subjectivity is
the scope: the past collapsed in the static present so as to erase the future
has as a corollary the curious spectacle that the different (alternative
1In an article in The National Post, “When old news is good news,” we read: “No,
CP24’s producers aren’t trapped in a time warp. The old news items are part of
the latest TV craze – nostalgia programming. ‘Ifit’s old it’s hot.’” Ofcourse, this
nostalgia practice is driven by an economic discourse, as we (cid:142)nd later on: “Due to
the explosion in cable and satellite channels, the demand for cheap, ready-made
programming has never been greater. Since CP24 already owns the rights to the
City TV news library, Rewindcosts ‘absolutely nothing’ to produce. None ofthe
former anchors receive residuals, so the advertising revenue generated by Rewind
is pure gravy.”