3underscore said:
Well all your points seem to be about self ligitimisation at the expense of anyone else who is making dubstep by sweeping statements.
If you look at the dubstep wars pictures, then try and apply your jurisdiction on culture and its use in music, you may notice you have pretty much ruled out all the people who created the sound.
Congratulations. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200.
I don't know what their culture is in any pictures i don't even know what most of the people who created the sound looklike but I bet i wouldn't not see many chinese, arabs or balkans using their native sounds outta london and making dubstep...
...we don't do cultural sounds in our beats you won't find a balkan flute, a chinese percussion or a morrocan string in there cos we aren't any of those ethnicities and would feel kinda stink about it if we did use em
you won't even find a polynesian sound on them yet and you won't in our guise as HELL_SD...
...yeah self ligitimisation of what we do and can only speak for us. We're the Dept of Hell Science, it's what we do, it's outlined in our charter. We're also dubmuggaz, we sneak up on it, give it the bash and take all its money
though most would say I'm a dumbugga and what money ???
bassnation said:
let me get this right, you are proposing a kind of racial segregation of musical influences, where you can't use a polynesian instrument unless you are polynesian, for example?
whereas you don't come from jamaica or london and you can happily use those ideas and sounds but that doesn't count, because dubstep is not cultural - its just people smoking weed, right?
either its all up for grabs, or none of it is. nobody has the right to ring fence ideas, thats not the way human society works.
dismissing dubstep as non-cultural music is not going to cut it as an argument. people live and breath the ideas, the shared language - its a culture to them, and being contemptous of that, whilst at the same time being defensive of your own cultural artifacts is inconsistent and unfair.
...and yes i suppose i am saying that
I am proposing a kind of racial segregation of musical influences, where you can't use a polynesian instrument unless you are polynesian, for example? but I would replace racial with ethnic/cultural and am prepared to make exceptions
it's like people walking around with Maori tattoos thinking they are some neo tribal cultural afficianado without possibly realizing that those symbols have meaning and ties to lands and peoples...hah take your tattoo and get the fuck outta here if you don't know the history !!!
Another example is who's to say that a flute sample used isn't from a local funeral dirge and totally out of context but it sounds cool when you're irie ??? does that make it fair game to abuse ???
i can't wait for the first american true white brother to use native rhythms and chants in dubstep, no really i can't
...so anyway tell me about this dubstep cultural ownership thing and define the culture for me and how you live it ??? how it differs from how we live in an urban environment ??? How do you live and breath an idea any differently from us ??? what are the traditions, values and icons underpinning dubstep culture ??? What jamaican or london sounds do you hear in our music that you think we use ???
I respect jamaican culture, my lady is white jamaican/meso american, I have studied a bit of rasta, have dreads and don't eat pork, so what if I drink a little and have the odd ciggy guess that makes me a hypocrite too but then again I don't claim to be rasta. Anything we use, we use knowing why and where it came from...
..if you listened to our shit you'd see we don't sound like anything coming out of dub or london so if you want to claim the word dubstep suh weet. We just make beats that can fit into and around dubstep but it's not true dubstep cultural music cos it doesn't come outta london ??? fine, we can buy that
I don't even buy that definition of culture from the dictionary cos that's a eurocentric definition and we don't define our culture by european standards...
...so no, it's not all free and none of it up for grabs. Indigenous cultures have the right to ring fence their cultural property, that's how society works in those respective societies and thats what most european colonists don't understand, is that you can't assimilate shit for your own purposes and expect the natives to be cool about it. Just cos you appropriate a few symbols, recreate or embellish the art, then pull some global nature of how society works bullshit, don't expect us all to buy it
so it's inconsistent and unfair well that's life...
Paul Hotflush said:
your outlook and attitude depends almost entirely on your surroundings and your personal reaction to them.
which implies culture, values and traditions which shape our identity and i don't identify myself as european, don't have a tradition of ripping off cultures and assimilating them based on a supposed god given right of cultural superiority, have values that are based on things like honesty, respect, integrity, nobility which doesn't exactly help in the music biz and react differently because of it...
...best thing anyone can do is not bring culture into it and the artifacts of culture which aren't yours to use unless you know exactly what the history of their use is and treat them with appropriate respect
for instance I don't have a problem with kode9's sinodub cos i remember his homage site to samurai culture so know that he does respect those traditions and maybe upholds those values therefore uses the samples he does with reverence and it comes across. When combining that with space apes dub sensibilites and spoken word from his culture it becomes something that is honest and resonates a lot more with me than some other stuff which does sound like it's just been tacked on more importantly that the rest of what surrounds it has been tacked on...
...one man's truth is only ever their considered opinion and you just got mine
BTW Inca March I have been listening to stuff over the years and everytime i hear something out of context I think of those places and those people who's music it is and wonder how they feel...
...and don't even think of mentioning spirituality or how being drunk fuck and wasted in a club brings you closer to god cos you can hear a flute sample that sounds like it has a spiritual vibe
yeah i got a lovely bunch of coconuts...
