GEOG 433: DAY 18
World Beat
Housekeeping Items
• Originally Doug, Steve, and Kate will present on Thursday. Anyone
else want to go today?
• I have belatedly put the two O’Brien chapters on reserve. Sorry for
not having done so earlier.
• Today we will focus on world beat, as filtered through O’Brien’s
lens, which primarily focuses on women. Before we start, I want to
play a better example of bebop than the one I played before
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmroWIcCNUI), and also give
Wayne a chance to play his hip hop song; then I will finish up my hip
hop lecture.
• In one of the two articles on Pete Seeger in the folder it mentions
that the Suzuki Foundation compiled a list of environmentally
relevant songs on its web site: http://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-cando/playlist-for-the-planet/enter-playlist-for-the-planet/.
World Beat
• World Beat (or World Music), as a
distinct ‘genre’, was hatched in 1987
as way of marketing music that
otherwise fell through the cracks.
Miriam Makeba, one of the earliest
non-Western musicians to be
commercially successful, beginning in
the late 1950s, didn’t like the label: “I
hate when they put artists in
categories. What is world music?....
What they want to say is Third World
music. I resent that. Where did jazz
come from? Africa. And people have
stolen from jazz. Africa has
contributed to every sphere of music,
yet we’re sold as something separate.
It’s a way of keeping us in our place.”
World Beat
• A challenge facing women “world beat” artists is the fact that
women are often not welcome in music. Angelique Kidjo’s
parents, who encouraged her to follow her muse, were often
told they were putting their daughter into prostitution. A second
challenge is deciding how much Western influence to allow into
their music without losing their roots.
• Kidjo, from Benin, gets quite angry when people accuse her of
not being sufficiently traditional. She says: “Journalists ask me if
my music is still African – what do they know about it? You got to
the market in Africa, it’s not only traditional music. When I was
ten years old I was listening to the Stones, the Beatles, Hendrix.
People didn’t say you should only listen to African music.” She
also notes that there just isn’t the infrastructure to have a
worldwide impact if one stays home.
World Beat
• A number of women artists have
challenged patriarchy in their respective
countries in an overt way and blazed a
trail for those who followed. Others are
somewhat more circumspect – following
the traditions of being jalis or griots (itself
unusual for women) -- but still carving out
broader female niches.
• O’Brien’s chapter profiles a number of
such artists – many from Africa, but also
from elsewhere.
• An example of an attempt to blend roots
music with Western influences.
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
FIZ38LALK8&list=RDFIZ3
8L-ALK8#t=0
World Beat
• Some – such as the
Amazones de Guinée
(http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=5c8LTQ2h
EJI#aid=P-fOlN6dbAU)
– break the taboo
against women playing
instruments. This also
includes Zimbabwe’s
Stella Chiweshe who
plays the mbira, a maleonly instrument and
one once outlawed by
Christian missionaries.
World Beat
• Many artists, once signed by major record labels, face the problem
of companies not knowing how to market them, despite the
growing sales of the genre in recent years
• Throughout recent history, women have often played important
political roles. Miriam Makeba of South Africa was an outspoken
advocate for freedom and had her passport revoked in 1960 while
out of the country. Others – such Yvonne Chaka Chaka – tried to
stay under the radar, but still had an important effect on people.
• The founder of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti of Nigeria, was such an
outspoken critic of the government that eventually he lost
everything, including members of his family, and died a broken
man.
• Music played an important role in the ending of apartheid, as
chronicled in the film Amandla! A Film in 4-Part Harmony, and as
well as we will see later mobilizations by Western pop and rock
musicians helped free Nelson Mandela and popularized a boycott
of the notorious Sun City resort.
World Beat
• The chapter mentions numerous other significant artists –
Cuban émigré, Celia Cruz (on the right side of the spectrum),
and Mercedes Sosa of Argentina (on the left, anti- U.S.
imperialist, side of the spectrum).
• Of special mention is Gloria Estefan, who was enormously
successful commercially, but made no effort to hide her Latino
roots. Even pop singer, Linda Ronstadt – whose father was
Mexican – recorded several albums of Spanish language
songs.
• Other ‘ethnic’ artists, such as Enya, have also made it big by
transcending her original Irish roots. I will play some other
examples later.
• Brazilian music – starting with Carmen Miranda in the 40s –
has also been huge, influencing jazz in a major way. Antonia
Carlos Jobim, the author of “The Girl from Ipanema,” says he
cringes every time he hears a Musak version of the song
passing through an airport.
World Beat
• At the recent Chutzpah Festival in Vancouver, a number of
bands were featured, including Yemen Blues, who do a mashup of various styles of music – Jewish, Yemeni, North African,
blues and jazz, and more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEG2SQ_BlAU&list=RDvEG
2SQ_BlAU.
• Additional samples I will play for you are:
“Flick It Up and Catch It” by Jim Sutherland – an example of
contemporary Celtic
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O_KWh-HVh4)
“Liza” – a piece of soukous music from Zaire by Kanda
Bongo Man
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMginjVq9do)
“Spirit of the Forest” by Martin Cradick and the Baka
Pygmies of Cameroon, and
Alan Stivell, a famous Breton musician from France
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYFWyQggIa0).