Multiculturalism’s gone too far

[sadmanbarty]

Again, it’s this binary thing which is getting us stuck. In some respects rap is your and my culture in many ways it’s not.

Just because a concept’s malluable, it doesn’t make it redundant.

 

[firefinga]

Can you identify with something and make it your culture even if you have no ties to it beyond that?

On the surface, yes.

 

[droid]

 

[luka]

Again, it’s this binary thing which is getting us stuck. In some respects rap is your and my culture in many ways it’s not.

Just because a concept’s malluable, it doesn’t make it redundant.

We have to define terms though. If it's too baggy it's no use to anyone. Clickbait thread titles are a good resource but I think that at the moment you are allowing yourself a field of ambiguity that means vim, bless him, can see the title and think, ah, at last, we're undermining conventional liberal pieties and returning to the 19th century, or whatever the fuck it is he wants to do.

 

[luka]

On the surface, yes.

I mean these are live questions. It's why I want to make Barty work and not let him off the hook! This notion of cultural appropriation is in the background, these resurgent ethno nationalisms etc, this new identitarian notion of whiteness Barty is playing with. It's all in the air

 

[luka]

It's also to do with geopolitics (USA as global hegemon, culture as soft power/propaganda) and to do with economics (culture as commodity)

 

[luka]

(Suddenly I'm standing in a pub all alone. Where are my friends? They were here just a minute ago? Why didn't they say goodbye? They are my friends aren't they? Guys?)

 

[sadmanbarty]

So I’m going to stick deep tech and drill through a series of narrowly defined cultural sieves. Of course there will be exceptions to my generalisations.


Skin colour:

Deep tech- audiences and producers maybe equally black and white.

Drill- during its heyday punters were largely black. Even now the mc’s are at least 95% black.


Ethnicity:

Deep tech- African, Jamaican, Caucasian, smaller subsections if punters will be central Asian

Drill- African and Jamaican by and large


Class:

Deep tech- all

Drill- in its heyday largely working and lower middle class


Geography:

Deep tech- all over London and Essex, presumably was prominent in major cities throughout the uk

Drill- largely cantered around a contiguous patch of Sotheby’s London. Bits and pieces in north London


Education:

Deep tech- students and non-students

Drill- non students


Musical upbringing

Deep tech- everything from vybz kartel to arcade fire

Drill- Jamaican abs African music, rap and nuum


I could go on...

 

[sadmanbarty]

Stick jungle and garage through the same sieves and they’d be more multicultural under those definitions a that drill

 

[firefinga]

This notion of cultural appropriation is in the background

"Cultural Appropriation" is one of the most idiotic recent ideas - it's the absolute opposite of what pop-culture respectively the greatest pop music is about, namley cross-polination and resulting in something great and new.

 

[luka]

I would say that what multicultural Britain has typically done is take a space which doesn't 'belong' to any one (anyone, that is, in this country) narrowly defined group (so not reggae, Bhangra, Afrobeats, whatever) and use that as a space for communication, shared play and exploration. So acid house, rap, garage.

 

[sadmanbarty]

That’s absolutely brilliant.

It explains why America’s always the impetus

 

[luka]

"Cultural Appropriation" is one of the most idiotic recent ideas - it's the absolute opposite of what pop-culture respectively the greatest pop music is about, namley cross-polination and resulting in something great and new.

It can be taken to idiotic extremes and used in idiotic ways but initially it was just a way to kick back at the tendency (perceived or genuine) to put a white face on something which emerged from distinct, usually African American, communities and sell it to the masses. A feeling that record companies etc were reluctant to invest in black artists. So the sense here is that distinct communities create marketable culture without profiting from their own creativity. That in itself doesn't seem idiotic.

 

[luka]

That’s absolutely brilliant.

It explains why America’s always the impetus

i think it is a large factor in the turn to rap which begins with grime. Rap being something which in one sense belongs to neither African nor West Indian communities but in another sense belongs to both. It's part of what I was arguing in the Africans in grime thread, because black and British no longer means exclusively West Indian. There's this huge shift.

 

[thirdform]

Thirdform’s drill stuff:


1) as far as it having social resonance and familiarity (ie. grime as pub music) to me it’s astoundingly resonant; it’s very much speaking to and encapsulating lived social experience. Then again I live near where it’s all happening, as a reckless younger man I socialised with the kind of people who make drill, etc. You went to a white school and hang out with ash sarkar, so possibly you don’t have the same reference points.

2) drill rapping is very uk. It comes from a tradition that includes fast chat and the morse code style of so solid. There’s all sorts of intricate rhythmic ticks that make it English. The sense of humour’s incredibly English. The vocabulary. The lyrics read like those funny Jack the Ripper letters.

3) whether you like it or not as long as it’s unprecedented- there’s never been music like it before- then it is innovative. If you showed me a whole swathe of hessel audio tracks that pre-empt drill then I’d have to reconsider.


What this all really boils down to is that I said something rude about dubstep or squatter techno* at some point and accidentally offended you. Ever since then you’ve had a single-minded determination to caricature or delegitimise my aesthetic propensities. You’re in a constant search for a ‘gotcha’ moment that never materialises. There’ll come a time when you’ll see that the message I bring is as wholly true and faultless as that which the angel jibreal revealed unto Mohammad. Until then you’ll feel nothing but anguish and suffering. Relent. Let me embrace you in my south London tresillo bosom . I am father Stalin now. I am the glory of the motherland. Surrender to my relentless perfection.


* or more likely Luke’s said something like “Barty thinks tabla’s are for squares” and you’ve believed him.

I didn't go to school with ash sarkar though. and no, you're chattin out of ur arse. I went to school with some of the nts lot. get it right.

 

[thirdform]

Well that’s that then. I thought they were.

well you can fuck off then.

 

[thirdform]

Can you identify with something and make it your culture even if you have no ties to it beyond that?

Which is what I was trying to get at with danny l and barty's take on drill. the tie they're trying to make is a south london one. that's crap. that's about as nonsensical as being into it in toronto or talking about woolwich drill. his codes, his personality, his manners of speech, the way he talks about music, they are all hardcore continuuum. you don't talk about drill like someone in the drill culture. you talk about jungle like a junglist, albeit a shit one who has only listened to 30 jungle tunes, but you're still nuum through and through. noone can take that away from you.

 

[thirdform]

As for innovation.

You can't talk about innovation when you say loski or headie one sound jungle-y. jungle didn't sound like funk. the beats were too mathematical and chopped up for that, too military prototype. they didn't sound like dancehall either, apart from ragga samples and the trissillo as a template, but that's a standard template in musics that hit on the 1-3 as opposed to the 2-4. it didn't really sound like hip hop either, it was too manic and ecstatic for that. for obvious reasons it wasn't techno proper. it was truly a new paradigm. It was an actual rupture. drill isn't. You could listen to drill in 2006 and even in 1998 it would not sound strange to anyone. jungle in 1986 would be utterly incomprehensible. it just wouldn't make sense. same with uk garage and acid. there is no way you could expect dark garage in 88.

 

[sadmanbarty]

thirdform, i joke around with you, i called you the new corpsey, i've routinely said you were brilliant. i like you. i think you're great. genuinely. the forum is so much better with you on it. it has an energy and mischief and excitement that you bring to it. I. LIKE. YOU.

i've either done something or do something that annoys you. maybe i said i didn't like some music you do or something. whatever it is i didn't mean it as a personal insult. if i said "dubstep's shit" that in no way is meant to imply that you are. i think you're great.

relax. stop being insulted by everything i say and do. i love you. you're my zarqawi. i'll bomb an embassy for you. mashallah

 

[sadmanbarty]

well you can fuck off then.

that was more to calm luka down. he's been all weird on the futurist and this thread and it was making everyone uncomfortable. i had to surrender, give him some room to breath and get him back to his old self.