hadouken / problem of appropriation / hot topic MERGED

[sodiumnightlife]

If you actually take the time out to embrace the music and the culture and give it respect rather than send it up in some sort of ironic mockery, then you could be wearing leggings and a tutu and you'd be cool by me

that's good then! I have to say i am composing a grime ballet at the moment. Wiley's work on point is superb.

 

[hurricane run]

Why the precious attitude towards grime? It's jumble of appropriation. Bits of hip hop, garage, dnb, reggae, techno etc. To object to more appropriation seems daft. Hadouken et al shouldn't be criticised for running with the latest (or not) dance craze. Grime owes a lot to uk hip hop which originally was a terrible copy of new york, Derek B anyone? Becoming purist about music leads to pete seeger types holding axes.

 

[hurricane run]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Logan Sama
If you actually take the time out to embrace the music and the culture and give it respect rather than send it up in some sort of ironic mockery, then you could be wearing leggings and a tutu and you'd be cool by me

'the culture' the university(sic) of east london will be sending in the sociologists and anthropologists next. Nothing is immune from mockery if it's ridiculous ie. most grime videos with their low budget bling.

 

[nomos]

i don't know why this argument keeps turning back (here and elsewhere) to the notion that anyone holds a 'precious attitude towards grime.' i said clearly that my gripe is not with what anyone 'does' to grime. grime can take care of itself. the problem is ironic distantiation and mockery, whether cloaked or explicit. have the nerve to show that you really care for something for christ sakes, don't just wear it like a "more cowbell" t-shirt that next year you'll pretend you never owned.

 

[Sick Boy]

so, what's wrong with hadouken?
my 2 cents is that hadouken have pretty much got the right idea. indie music, in its pure form, is pretty boring. aren't most of us on here complaining about how boring and closed-minded it is? how it rejects any non-indie influences? how it's self-consciously removed itself from where the action is (the club, the dancefloor, the street?)
hadouken are, at least, not making that mistake. i don't think we can have it both ways: we can't complain about how closed-minded indie is, and then complian when it tries to reach out (or 'appropriate' other genres).

I disagree. My problem with Hadouken is the same problem I have with the post millennial identity crisis that has forced this indie rock crowd to become the most culturally empty parasitic youth group possibly of all time.

Indie kids, or hipsters, have extreme problems defining themselves culturally. A lot of them it seems have the idea that culture, or identity, or taste is something that can be bought. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking shit on people who like to be open-minded in their tastes, I like to think I fall into that category myself, I am talking shit on people who think that they have the ability to understand, relate to, and even CREATE THEMSELVES cultural product which they are far, far, far, far, far removed from.

They usually do this in the name of irony, keeping a distance between themselves and whatever it is they are trying to emulate, to keep it as a sort of hat-tipping. They are close enough to it insofar as they believe they are capable of reproducing and understanding it, but not close enough to be accused of taking it seriously, or actually being of that culture. This in most cases comes off as very condescending, reeks of dilletantism, and is often sort of racist.

Yes, if you're a middle class white educated hipster, then you likely have a lot of leisure time to read on wikipedia all day long about every genre of music, art, lifestyle, culture, fashion that you please. You also likely have the cash to go out and buy a new Era hat and a bandana to add to your regular get-up of skinny-jeans and whatever as your own "homage to hip hop" (because remember everybody, getting down with black culture means just BUYING the right things). Simply doing this, just makes you look like an ignorant wasteman. When you take it as far as deciding that your knowledge on all these things makes you just as capable of creating it takes the whole genre and culture for a joke.

In short, this "indie limey who keeps it grimey", will go to 7 Year Glitch or whatever those "grime" parties attended by zillions of white kids in scarves go to, but I imagine would never dream of actually going to one of those big, scary, wild nights they heard about where black men stab each other all night long and everybody has a gun.

Quite frankly Simon, I'm appauled that you, an avid writer on this culture, are condoning this sort of white-bread cultural appropriation.

And before anybody says it, no, I am not saying that I am some kind of skeng daddy and that's how I relate to grime and it should stay that way. I understand that in many respects I don't and could never relate to the lifestyle. It is an interest of mine, and I identify with and love a lot of elements of the end product. For this reason, I enjoy the music, but I know that doesn't immediately entitle me to pick up the mic.

 

[Logan Sama]

Is it bad if I wish death on anyone I see wearing skinny jeans, shit-stained Chucks and a shemagh when I am walking round Old Street/Brick Lane?

 

[gumdrops]

Is it bad if I wish death on anyone I see wearing skinny jeans, shit-stained Chucks and a shemagh when I am walking round Old Street/Brick Lane?

LOL

 

[MATT MAson]

Logan please don't make me bring up some of the outfits I've seen you in. We're having a serious discussion here.

 

[Sick Boy]

proving still stupider things can be done with music...

'borat breaks' - http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=31542

we had a go at the hadouken thing on the d.forum. my immediate thoughts:

i've been involved in indie scenes for short periods at a couple of points in my life. what eventually repulsed me both times (one of the things at least) was the attitude towards musics understood as 'black.' there was always an underlying or explicit disdain that came across either as outright mockery or, more insidiously, as some sort of ironic engagement - e.g. sticking a 'gangsta rap' in the middle of a band set. at a certain point it became cool to say you liked public enemy or native tongues or whatever, and i'd think "yeah, i remember you making racist comments to me about those things in high school." so i'm very suspicious anytime something like this pops up where a black/urban/etc. music is colonized by people who use irony to mock the thing they're borrowing and give them the escape hatch of saying "it was all a pisstake, of course we don't like that ghetto stuff." that and the fact that all of these indie-related scenes seem to be allergic to genuine sentiment. irony is a cultural plague.

i'd also be careful with the idea of 'real grime' though. the issue for me isn't one of dilution. i don't think hadouken can 'do' anything to the music they piggyback on. but there is a difference between this type of detached, ironic signifying and, say, the apparent sincerity (cultural, personal investment) of a band like the specials or the beasties (or at least what the beasties became).

This is what I'm talking about. Big up Nomos.

 

[Logan Sama]

Logan please don't make me bring up some of the outfits I've seen you in. We're having a serious discussion here.

I have three outifts

Hoody, Jeans and trainer with cap, swap jeans for shorts and hoody for t shirt/vest as weather applies

Shirt, jeans, shoes and smart-casual jacket

Suit

Go to town.

 

[tox]

If it makes any difference I read this on Chantelle Fiddy's:

Does anyone remember Dr Venom the garage producer? He used to get mash up on the regular at FWD, anyway, this is his band Hadouken who are expected to do alot this year.

Now I don't know much about FWD or this Dr Venom, but does that make it a little less of a mockery and more real for you Logan?

Personally I'm not into this Hadouken thing. I know where they're from probably better than most and I have to say their music makes me cringe. Nothing wrong in concept though and the idea of Indie with some Grime influence is actually quite cool. Patrick Wolf is a pretty good example of an indie artist coming through with some Grime/"Urban" influences at the moment.

 

[Logan Sama]

I knew he was Dr Venom from ages ago.

I never minded him back in the day because he seemed genuinely interested in the music and even made a handful of good beats.

I have no problem with any individuals.

Just the final group project.

 

[tht]

there is no good 'indie' and nothing good can come from trying to syncretise it with other genres, or as is usually the case appending a few affectations supposed to give the lustre of otherness

difficult to talk of specific instances, and hadouken for all i know may be an exception, however there does seem to be a (usually) tacit contempt towards black culture seeping through the indiekid affection for it, how can they introject a culture anipathetic, antithetic to their own tepid nonsense? the effect will be uneasily parodic, wittingly or not, the rage that's suffused through grime is far too focused for assimilation as just 'she love's me/she loves me not', as close as indie gets to dialectics

the slits (to give an example from the ancients) by contrast dismissed their own righful inheritance (always there as a fallback anyway) and fantasised that they could sublimate themselves within a culture very far from their own, even if you don't think that's possible

 

[tht]

sickboy and nomos good on this btw

the difference between my thoughts and theirs would be that white kids may be able to do their own fake grime qua grime, and it might not be shit (this is completely theoretical!)

that is, the sound of grime is not the possession of anyone, although the subjects usally are

indie and grime are completely contradictory, i can't concieve how indiekids invested in their (to use a cliche or two) hegemonic mor scene-above-all-others could just dip a toe or a foot into another pond without creating shit by another name, shit with a slightly different flavour

there would have to be a wholesale abandonment of the sonics as well as the culture, since the two are by now concrete and inseparable (another thing that was different in the olden days)

 

[petergunn]

this feels somehow appropriate...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/25/AR2005082501818.html

i remember seeing posters for this party (before the article) in williamsburg and just thinking how terrible it was.

i guess the problem is, today's indie kids just don't have a good track record using black music and the problem is down to their usage of irony.

like, when the fucking people from the Talking Heads made Tom Tom Club, you could tell they were coming from a place of genuine love and respect, with Hadouken i think the jury is still out, as this thread proves.

technically, i guess it shouldn't matter as

a) it's sour grapes, you can't change it, it's like complaining about the weather

b) the end result is what is SOUNDS like and although i am personally not much of a fan, i could see this getting decent results on the dance floor when djing...

 

[Logan Sama]

sickboy and nomos good on this btw

the difference between my thoughts and theirs would be that white kids may be able to do their own fake grime qua grime, and it might not be shit (this is completely theoretical!)

that is, the sound of grime is not the possession of anyone, although the subjects usally are

indie and grime are completely contradictory, i can't concieve how indiekids invested in their (to use a cliche or two) own hegemonic mor scene-above-all-others could just dip a toe or a foot into another pond without creating shit by another name, shit with a slightly different flavour

there would have to be a wholesale abandonment of the sonics as well as the culture, since the two are by now concrete and inseparable (another thing that was different in the olden days)

And thus, the creature christened 'Nu-Rave' made it's first tentative steps onto the muddy river banks, with it's newly formed flipper-legs struggling to propel it's gasping body through the silt.

 

[nomos]

it's like complaining about the weather

yeah but culture isn't the weather is it? one can influence it and should feel some responsibility towards it.

 

[petergunn]

yeah but culture isn't the weather is it? one can influence it and should feel some responsibility towards it.

you're less cynical than me...

there are so many stupid companies throwing their money behind the youth oriented market, that it's almost impossible to change it on a large scale. all you can do is have your little sub-scenes and complain.

 

[Sick Boy]

you're less cynical than me...

there are so many stupid companies throwing their money behind the youth oriented market, that it's almost impossible to change it on a large scale. all you can do is have your little sub-scenes and complain.

Well, specifically in music, with the digitizing of physical product making for infinite cost-free inventories, the ability to sell product without geography being an obstacle or dictating how it must be sold, and the long tail theory screaming at the music industry to start considering that small niche markets might now be able to generate more-than-decent amounts of wealth without worrying about having to enter the "hits" market, it is becoming an age where sustaining, cultivating and turning profit out of "little sub-scenes" independently and without compromising to fit within a standardized marketing system is becoming increasingly possible!

You should be excited. If there is a time to care about this stuff, it's now.

 

[shudder]

Why are people saying that Hadouken stance toward grime is one of ironic detachment? Especially given Logan's comment that as Dr. Venom the Hadouken dude was pretty sincere in his interests? I mean, I can understand people being uneasy when hadouken's *fans* take that sort of stance. I guess I've seen some people who both espouse some "gangster rap"-isms, but also think that rap is stupid (i.e. ironic hipster appropriation).

But to be honest, that doesn't at all seem to be hadouken's stance, nor the stance of most indie-ish ppl I know who like rap music. In fact, *all* of my friends listen to some (by Dissensus standards) pretty tame/lame white-bread guitar music (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Beirut), and genuinely dig, say, the latest TI single (they don't know much about grime, but I slowly feed them, and they usually love it).