blissblogger said:the thing about black music is that even when it's raw'n'ruff it's supertight
yes
blissblogger said:also in re UK soulboyism and jazzfunk fandom, it's as much a white thing as a black thing...
whites participate in and contribute to every area of black music -- but it's still black music -- cf. thread on "urban music"
and when it becomes more of a white thing than a black thing then it's no longer black music -- it's something else -- call it "deracinated" or "gentrified," though these terms are too pejorative -- i.e., there's a lot of deracinated black music that i love
blissblogger said:i would say that a more crucial determinant is class, slickness and foregrounded skill connoting 'qualiteee', 'the finer things in life', aspirationalism etc
yes -- this is the connotation
but i don't think that the middling classes prefer the one and the working classes the other
(which is not to deny that early jungle was a working class music movement -- merely that working class people often like slick sounds, and middle class people often like ruff n raw sounds)
blissblogger said:i think music's history is all about creative misunderstandings/misreadings by white folk of black music...
certainly the modern history of pop music in the usa and england
and certainly a great deal of the music i like is along the lines of "creative misreadings" of black music by white people
i.e., i'm more of a musical anglophile than a fan of black music as such
i.e., there's a very weird exchange from black america to white britain to white america
or more recently, black atlantic to white britain to white america
blissblogger said:and i don't really know if it's possible or desirable to somehow achieve a kind of preconception-free translucence of mind whereby you don't bring anything to the table when you listen to something
it's neither possible nor desirable
w/ language everything is explained in terms of something else
even so, w/ the commercial dominance of hip hop r'n'b in the states for the past 10 years, i wonder if that will allow the younger generation to have a more direct claim over black music -- or if the relationship will always be somehow "appropriative," i.e., trying to figure out and understand that which belongs to someone else