Afro-Punk
My entry for the International Mixtape Project, July 2005:
This month’s mix was inspired by the documentary film Afro-Punk by James Spooner (see disclaimer below).
1. Gil Scott-Heron-Whitey on the Moon
2. Parliament-There is Nothing Before Me But Thang
3. Bad Brains-Pay to Cum
4. Fishbone-Behavior Control Technician
5. Fishbone-Asswhippin’ (interlude)
6. TV on the Radio-The Wrong Way
7. Antipop Consortium-Mega
8. Prince-Head
9. Divine Styler-Directrix
10. Konono No.1-Masikulu
11. Nina Simone-See-Line Woman
12. Jimi Hendrix-Love Love
13. Miles Davis-Willie Nelson (outtake)
14. Love-Gimi a Little Break
15. Rahsaan Roland Kirk-Black Root
16. Public Enemy-Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need
17. Living Colour-Memories Can’t Wait
18. Saul Williams-Twice the First Time
19. Sonny Sharrock-Peanut
20. Chambers Brothers-Time Has Come Today
I haven’t actually SEEN the film, funnily enough (in fact it has yet to secure distribution, though it has garnered great praise on the festival circuit).
This fact may point, as does my very conception of the project and the many creative decisions I made in its execution, to a touristic appropriation of subaltern cultural forms by one steeped in racial, economic and educational privilege.*
This I cannot deny. But the following is an attempt to frame this appropriation in a careful and responsible, even (I hope) an innovative and valuable way. It would be far more reprehensible, I believe, to have undertaken it without bothering to provide a context, or certainly without attempting to problematize my intentions.
I hope that you will see this as the sort of fruitful “creative misunderstanding” on which George Lipsitz has written much (as in the following example, which I present in my defense):
‘People make mistakes in any field of activity, including the practice of popular culture. But they are generally more curious, more resourceful, and more creative than their roles as consumers and citizens acknowledge or allow. Consequently, they often fashion fused subjectivities that incorporate diverse messages… they also display a remarkable ability to find or invent the cultural symbols that they need.’
--George Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism & The Poetics of Place (169).
I sincerely hope that my mix has managed to make some connections and point out some continuities that may enrich understanding of the complicated interplay of race, class, gender** and ethnicity on which popular music relies.
I also think it rocks.
* In any case, this, like my long-held ambition to write a book on punk and DIY theory, will probably someday provoke a REAL punk to kick all my teeth out. Or at least throw up on me. C’est la vie.
** As long as I’m at it, I might as well pony up to the rather un-feminist slant of the mix as well, particularly the run from Parliament and Bad Brains through to Prince, all of which songs are about, you would find if you paid attention, and for lack of a more precise term, pussy. Now pardon me as I must go gargle and put on some Le Tigre.
_________________________________________________________
Some Notes on Afro-Punk (the film, the mix it inspired, and that concepts they share):
When most people think of Black music they don’t think of punk rock.
--Jamila Clarke, Afro-Punk Seeks a Black Audience
‘When I first heard the Bad Brains, I thought, “Those white boys are bad;” when I found out they were Black, my world just stopped.’
--Angelo Moore of Fishbone, qtd. in Michael A. Gonzales, The New Danger
Given that punk rock is, as Spooner notes, Black music, this illustrates the redundancy of the modifier ‘Afro’ before the word ‘Punk’ in his title. This excessive and disruptive doubling invaginates rock’n’roll, creating ‘a law of impurity’ in which, as Jacques Derrida would have it, ‘the boundary of the set comes to form…an internal pocket larger than the whole.’ Such a law of impurity, dramatizing an inability to assimilate, a participation without belonging, helps unpack what it means to be punk to the punks.
--Tavia Nyong’o, Afro-Punk: The Danger of Safety
Popular culture routinely provides opportunities for escaping the parochialisms and prejudices of our personal worlds, for expanding our experience and understanding by seeing the world through the eyes of others. But it can also trap us in its own mystifications and misrepresentations, building our investment and engagement in fictions that misrepresent the lives of others and hide the conditions of their own production - the contexts of hate, power, hurt, and fear in which we live. Popular culture often reduces the lived experiences of gender, ethnicity, class and race that contain and constrain people to exotic stereotypes that serve to build dramatic tension and texture, but which elide history.
--George Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism & The Poetics of Place(160).
‘Rick, this is like Black punk rock. How can you waste your time on this garbage?’
--Russell Simmons to Rick Rubin, on Rubin’s involvement with Public Enemy; qtd. in James Porter & Jake Austen, Black Punk Time: Blacks in Punk, New Wave & Hardcore 1976-1983 (Part 1)
‘What many people don’t understand is, Afro-Punk is a state of mind; it’s not just about a style of music. When I think of Black punk, Miles Davis and Nina Simone come to mind.”
--Sasha Jenkins, qtd. in Michael A. Gonzales, The New Danger
‘Rock & Roll is Black music and we are its heirs.’
--Black Rock Coalition Manifesto
This month’s mix was inspired by the documentary film Afro-Punk by James Spooner (see disclaimer below).
1. Gil Scott-Heron-Whitey on the Moon
2. Parliament-There is Nothing Before Me But Thang
3. Bad Brains-Pay to Cum
4. Fishbone-Behavior Control Technician
5. Fishbone-Asswhippin’ (interlude)
6. TV on the Radio-The Wrong Way
7. Antipop Consortium-Mega
8. Prince-Head
9. Divine Styler-Directrix
10. Konono No.1-Masikulu
11. Nina Simone-See-Line Woman
12. Jimi Hendrix-Love Love
13. Miles Davis-Willie Nelson (outtake)
14. Love-Gimi a Little Break
15. Rahsaan Roland Kirk-Black Root
16. Public Enemy-Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need
17. Living Colour-Memories Can’t Wait
18. Saul Williams-Twice the First Time
19. Sonny Sharrock-Peanut
20. Chambers Brothers-Time Has Come Today
I haven’t actually SEEN the film, funnily enough (in fact it has yet to secure distribution, though it has garnered great praise on the festival circuit).
This fact may point, as does my very conception of the project and the many creative decisions I made in its execution, to a touristic appropriation of subaltern cultural forms by one steeped in racial, economic and educational privilege.*
This I cannot deny. But the following is an attempt to frame this appropriation in a careful and responsible, even (I hope) an innovative and valuable way. It would be far more reprehensible, I believe, to have undertaken it without bothering to provide a context, or certainly without attempting to problematize my intentions.
I hope that you will see this as the sort of fruitful “creative misunderstanding” on which George Lipsitz has written much (as in the following example, which I present in my defense):
‘People make mistakes in any field of activity, including the practice of popular culture. But they are generally more curious, more resourceful, and more creative than their roles as consumers and citizens acknowledge or allow. Consequently, they often fashion fused subjectivities that incorporate diverse messages… they also display a remarkable ability to find or invent the cultural symbols that they need.’
--George Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism & The Poetics of Place (169).
I sincerely hope that my mix has managed to make some connections and point out some continuities that may enrich understanding of the complicated interplay of race, class, gender** and ethnicity on which popular music relies.
I also think it rocks.
* In any case, this, like my long-held ambition to write a book on punk and DIY theory, will probably someday provoke a REAL punk to kick all my teeth out. Or at least throw up on me. C’est la vie.
** As long as I’m at it, I might as well pony up to the rather un-feminist slant of the mix as well, particularly the run from Parliament and Bad Brains through to Prince, all of which songs are about, you would find if you paid attention, and for lack of a more precise term, pussy. Now pardon me as I must go gargle and put on some Le Tigre.
_________________________________________________________
Some Notes on Afro-Punk (the film, the mix it inspired, and that concepts they share):
When most people think of Black music they don’t think of punk rock.
--Jamila Clarke, Afro-Punk Seeks a Black Audience
‘When I first heard the Bad Brains, I thought, “Those white boys are bad;” when I found out they were Black, my world just stopped.’
--Angelo Moore of Fishbone, qtd. in Michael A. Gonzales, The New Danger
Given that punk rock is, as Spooner notes, Black music, this illustrates the redundancy of the modifier ‘Afro’ before the word ‘Punk’ in his title. This excessive and disruptive doubling invaginates rock’n’roll, creating ‘a law of impurity’ in which, as Jacques Derrida would have it, ‘the boundary of the set comes to form…an internal pocket larger than the whole.’ Such a law of impurity, dramatizing an inability to assimilate, a participation without belonging, helps unpack what it means to be punk to the punks.
--Tavia Nyong’o, Afro-Punk: The Danger of Safety
Popular culture routinely provides opportunities for escaping the parochialisms and prejudices of our personal worlds, for expanding our experience and understanding by seeing the world through the eyes of others. But it can also trap us in its own mystifications and misrepresentations, building our investment and engagement in fictions that misrepresent the lives of others and hide the conditions of their own production - the contexts of hate, power, hurt, and fear in which we live. Popular culture often reduces the lived experiences of gender, ethnicity, class and race that contain and constrain people to exotic stereotypes that serve to build dramatic tension and texture, but which elide history.
--George Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism & The Poetics of Place(160).
‘Rick, this is like Black punk rock. How can you waste your time on this garbage?’
--Russell Simmons to Rick Rubin, on Rubin’s involvement with Public Enemy; qtd. in James Porter & Jake Austen, Black Punk Time: Blacks in Punk, New Wave & Hardcore 1976-1983 (Part 1)
‘What many people don’t understand is, Afro-Punk is a state of mind; it’s not just about a style of music. When I think of Black punk, Miles Davis and Nina Simone come to mind.”
--Sasha Jenkins, qtd. in Michael A. Gonzales, The New Danger
‘Rock & Roll is Black music and we are its heirs.’
--Black Rock Coalition Manifesto