nehal

isms20090128: black merda

last week, i spent some time on an interesting online music journey. it started off with finding rufus thomas (to the stepfather of soul, i’m very very grateful for the music you have introduced and re-introduced me to). i was excited to find another black country singer. now i’m not a hardcore diehard country music fan. i do enjoy country (bonus points to those of you who actually knew that). i did work at a country music station for a while which was a lot of fun. awesome people, good, if slightly pop-py music. but i do enjoy black country music, and love finding music that goes beyond charlie pride. for those of you who don’t know, “twang is not a colour” is a good introduction to the genre.

and if you’re starting to get intrigued, you should definitely look into the music some more. but here’s another freebie: rissi palmer. a bit too sugary for my particular country tastes, but i will support her because she plays the guitar and has black people in her videos. oh, and at some point last year, she was all over the country music charts. check out country girl, it’s fun!

ok, so i’m totally digressing on what i started off with. was looking for rufus thomas. took a detour through terry callier ( does anyone have a copy of nujabes’ modal soul? please let me know).

and on and on and on and on.

after meandering like that for about half an hour (i know, shortest attention span ever), i finally discovered black merda. and don’t know how i didn’t know about these brothers before. brief history - touring with motown artists, picked up a hendrix album and became “the first black rock band”. get this - they called themselves black merda to draw attention to the lynchings and violent murders of black youth in the south. eddie kendricks (yes, that kendricks) showed up at some point in their history. black merda relocated to detroit. and someone somewhere posted “the folks from mother’s mixer” (thank you!!!). and i’ve been playing “over and over” on repeat. there’s something about that song that messes with my heartbeat.

i’ve been telling all my music nerd friends about black merda. i’m going to harass all the deejays i know to play their music at jams (and i don’t care if you tell me you only play r’n’b) . i’m going to blatantly ask all the producers i know to sample them in their beats. i’m going to call in every single favour i am owed in the toronto music scene because i am now on a one-woman mission to get black merda touring again. to see them live would be so validating, you just don’t know.

for you. check the next post.

isms20081210

i’d been avoiding busta rhymes’ “arab money” track ever since it came out. i just thought it would be some really ignorant ish, something i didn’t really feel the need to expose myself to. i mean, i cringed every time i heard palin say eye-raq, until i discovered that if i wanted to avoid being annoyed, all i had to do was switch the channel which she came on (a larger-than-necessary expenditure of energy as my remote does not work). so if something annoys me, or i think it’s going to annoy me, i simply don’t expose myself to it.

a couple of days ago, a friend asks me, “what are they saying in the chorus?”, and played me the original release with busta and spliffstar. they weren’t really saying anything. it wasn’t as offensive as i thought i would find it. i mean, the first release says a lot more about the ignorance of busta (which i found disappointing, as i had really given the man more credit than that) than it does about arabs. i’m really not that sensitive that i’m going to get insulted every time an american says “a-rab”, however, i’m totally going to judge them.

the day after, i was actually defending “arab money”, saying it wasn’t worse than other examples of rappers misappropriating arab culture (jay z, wyclef jean, noriega, etc.) or east coast rappers’ love affair with anything remotely related to kung fu. or the current jamaican fetishism that’s going on in hip hop.

but then i heard “arab money”, the remix.

and i was mad offended.

i thought i was down, vowing to die for the protection of free speech. i didn’t have to agree with what someone else said to argue that they had every right to say it. i mean, i still am, except now i’ve added a caveat. with rights come responsibilities, and although the right to free speech covers a lot, i don’t extend it to cover blatant disrespect with the intent to start controversy. there’s a responsibility to respect others.

this is all because the song’s hook includes t-pain singing the first two lines of the quran to a beat and other rappers brag over it. it’s mad disrespectful.

oh, and i hate the fact that commenting on or challenging the fact that busta (or t-pain or ron browz or whomever) took something that is sacred to millions upon millions of people and used it as the hook on some jiggy track means that i’m getting all up in it because people can’t do anything un-islamic. it doesn’t. i did have a strong visceral response to hearing the quran used in that way. but to write this, i tried my hardest to remove myself from responding from a place of gut feeling, and moved somewhere more rational.

so here’s my argument: free speech/artistic license is a beautiful ideal. it means (or should) that you are able to say what’s on your mind or in your heart without fear of persecution. it means that you have a voice. it means you can point out the problems with the system, talk about what’s going on, ask questions, demand answers, and make art that upsets the status quo. but, if you have the right to free speech, you also have to acknowledge that you have a responsibility to respect.

hip hop knows free speech. and it also recognises the power of languages (“these are the words that i manifest”, “word is bond” etc.). yet rappers persist to distance themselves from responsibility once they put their music out, but cry out “free speech, artistic license, blah blah, y’all” every time they’re criticised for their content. this hypocrisy has got to stop. if you can’t own your words, if you can’t take responsibility for your artistic output, if your intent is not respectful, then in my opinion, you’ve given up your right to free speech. and commercial success. unfortunately, i’m not going to be agreed with here, as lack of integrity has never been a deterrent to success.

i’ve already seen busta in concert twice. i won’t be seeing him a third time. and that makes me sad because he’s a talented lyricist and an excellent performer.

ps - and on a side note, muslim and arab are not synonymous. a person can very very easily be one and not the other. i happen to be both.