World Beat

GEOG 433: DAY 18

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-can-do/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.youtube.com/watch?v=FIZ38L-ALK8&list=RDFIZ38L-ALK8#t=0

World Beat• Some – such as the Amazones de Guinée (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c8LTQ2hEJI#aid=P-fOlN6dbAU) – break the taboo against women playing instruments. This also includes Zimbabwe’s Stella Chiweshe who plays the mbira, a male-only 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 mash-up of various styles of music – Jewish, Yemeni, North African, blues and jazz, and more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEG2SQ_BlAU&list=RDvEG2SQ_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).