On Mar 1, 2009, at 1:07 PM, grate.swan wrote:
Anyway I appreciate your dialoging on the issue here. I live in an
African American dominant community, so I am always finding my own
way
on a daily basis with these issues.
I am also often presenting
African American dominate audiences with their own musical history
> so
I have some Irish genes but I don't consider Irish music "my own
musical history". I don't feel culturally enhanced or having better
understanding of myself if I hear the Irish Tenors (I think more, WTF
am I doing in this audience with all these old people.)
Some (of rude nature) could perhaps make snide remarks about your
possible, perhaps hidden, vision of your role in bearing the burden to
educate blacks about their past. I can hear the inner minds of some
saying "WTF is this white guy telling me about what he thinks are my
cultural roots and part of my identity." I am sure lots of black don't
dig the blues the way you do. That's personal taste and preference.
They may dig the Irish tenors over delta blues.
There is one stage of world music. There is one audience. Its for all
of us, all of it is all part of all of our heritages -- whether its
blues, new punk, puccini, miles, robert johnson, the grateful dead,
bob marley, amedeus, trotaka, aretha, gershwin, gretchen wilson,
charlotte sometimes, alison krauss, muddy waters, robert plant, taylor
swift, lily allen or duke ellington.
We are all culturally enriched by so many variants on the thing we
call music. And it belongs to none of us but all of us.
Unfortunately many African-Americans don't see it that way.
I remember seeing a segment on TV where Paul Simon went into some
college or HS in NYC and was sharing his recent hybrid music on his
album The Rhythm of the Saints, which featured much inspiration from
African music and included a number of African musicians. A contingent
of blacks showed up and raised holy hell at his presentation, claiming
that whites had been stealing "black music" from blacks for a long,
long time, and that this was just another example. It didn't matter
how Simon tried to explain it, their 'tude was it was cultural robbery.
