Felicity Linville

Amine arrives at a time where rap music has turned from the nostalgic hip hop in the 90s lyricism and social commentary into only producing songs to make it a hit. Amine is a refreshing voice of joy; his positive up beat sound is much needed as us millennials are struggling to find our place in this crumbling climate. Amine is from Portland, a city who has never produced a notable rapper but that didn’t stop him from making it big. I make the following claim about Amine’s album Good For You: that his album addresses contemporary issues of racism. I will use specific examples of his songs REDMERCEDES, Caroline and Turf as evidence to support my argument that he deals with racism through his upbeat style.

Star and Waterman in their textbook about the Sources of Popular Music talked about how in the 1840s to 1880s blackface was a popular genre of culture, though they say it ended in the 1900s but moved onto more of a subtle appropriating I know that it continues today. Amine touches on this political context in his song “REDMERCEDES” in which the music video is him employing whiteface to make fun of white people trying to preform blackface.

A lot of people were angry at Amine for doing whiteface, but they failed to miss the point of commentary. The white characters he is playing during the music video act like fake black people, he is making the relationship between the theft of black culture and how ridiculous white people look while doing it. The whole music video for the song is hilarious and Amines originality shines through in the production. From dance moves from black artists, to saying the n-word “white urban youth culture, which sought to express its independence by appropriating black style” (Star and Waterman 13). Amine is coming from a larger social and historical context of the theft of black culture. The relationship between the politics of cultural appropriation and his style of preforming as an artist is, he adds humor and joy to a sensitive topic.

The white-faced characters in the video for “REDMERCEDES” walk into a black owned car dealership and the owner tells the clerk to watch them. This is a commentary of how when black teens walk into pretty much anywhere the white people are instantly on edge and watching them to make sure they don’t steal. Author Jeff Chang said in an interview “I’ve always listened to hip hop with that kind of an ear, listening for the seams and where the seams start coming apart, in terms of what it seems to be as popular music, as a critique of society and the economy, and the larger context of the right now.” (Riley 2012). During a video he reminds white fans while about to recite the lyrics to Caroline “Killa, westside if you ain’t black don’t say it” to not say the n-word because he knows that a lot of his fans are white and have been guilty of yelling it out during his concerts.

Amine is very conscious about race and the discussions society has been having about who has the right to spaces and words. He is very sly about incorporating the phrase into his performance, continuing in his happy mannerisms and the audience laughs along with him.  Combine this with his entertaining music video for “REDMERCEDES” really speaks to the way that Amine addresses race in his own goofy manner.

A lot of the way we think of hip-hop has to do with the feminist perspective and that Joan Morgan called “Hip-hop feminism;” it “is concerned with the ways the conservative backlash of the 1980s and 1990s, deindustrialization, the slashing of the welfare state, and the attendant gutting of social programs and affirmative action, along with the increasing racial wealth gap, have affected the life worlds and worldviews of the hip-hop generation” (Durham, Cooper, Morris 722). Portland has had a big issue of gentrification and not allowing people of color to move into decent homes. Amine in his song “Turf” he talks about out growing his home town but not only that he says “They kickin’ out the blacks and all the houses getting clones/I look around and I see nothing in my neighborhood.”

The rents in Portland have risen and a report published last April by the Portland Housing Bureau said, “the trends are especially troubling for the average Black, Latino, Native American, and single-mother households in Portland, for whom there are no neighborhoods in the city where they can afford to rent.” Amine is speaking to the larder social and historical context of the displacement and gentrification of blacks in Portland. Portland has had a history of excluding blacks, even having a law in its constitution that would not allow blacks form living in the state and punished those who remained.

The rhythms and upbeat style in Amines album Good for you is not only an entertaining listen but he also addresses contemporary issues of racism. Songs like REDMERCEDES, Caroline and Turf have served as evidence to support my argument. He gave hints in a New York Times interview that he would consider going into politics. His music is refreshingly joyful but also woke and is something our generation needs right now.

Citations:

Starr and Waterman, “Introduction” and “Streams of Tradition: The Sources of Popular Music,” American Popular Music (2008) online access at UW Libraries http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/gpo1267/american-popular-music.pdf
Bill Moyers Show interview, Theresa Riley with Jeff Chang, Q & A: Still Fighting the Power. 

Aisha Durham, Brittney C. Cooper, and Susana M. Morris, “The Stage Hip-Hop Feminism Built: A New Directions Essay,” Signs, Vol. 38, No. 3

Critical Modes:

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/11/610424450/rapper-cardi-b-expands-her-musical-range-on-invasion-of-privacy

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/joji-ballads-1/

by Griffin Blum

            Throughout the course so far, we’ve discussed in great detail how artists from disadvantaged backgrounds or lower societal standing have had to fight for representation in the music industry. We’ve focused primarily on artists of color and women, but Frank Ocean presents a unique blend of characteristics that make his music truly significant. Shortly before Ocean ever released a studio album, he released a letter where he came out as bisexual. While he never explicitly placed a label on his sexuality, he implies throughout his music that the whole point isn’t about labels, but how it makes you feel. His second studio album “Blonde” is one of the most dense and powerful album’s I’ve ever heard, as it delves deeply into his upbringing, and how he dealt with the hardships of growing up as a black man, and the duality or fluidity he faces in regard to his sexuality. I will use evidence from the readings to discuss how Frank changed how his listeners viewed sexuality and personal emotions, much like women and people of color changed their own narratives in the past.

            Women have had it rough in the music industry to say the least, as any movement they made towards an independent voice in any genre is often met with backlash, or hesitation at the very least. “The paradoxical reality of the woman who finds herself in rock or soul or hip-hop is that the music offering escape is also an implement of violation.” (Powers, 2008) Many of the tracks in “Blonde” are Ocean casually delving into his past relationships during his youth, with men and women alike, and what he learned from those experiences. “Ivy” is about how he was upset about breaking up with a past love, but he doesn’t hold any grudges over how it ended, rather he feels thankful about the time they shared. This relates to Powers’ quote because while the population at large has generally became much more accepting of non-straight relationships lately, Frank nonchalantly states that no matter what type of relationship, the feelings between the parties is the same, and can be just as intense. People usually think of heteronormative culture we live in and how it needs to be abolished or torn down, while Ocean normalizes his fluid sexuality, because the same feelings are present.

            Singers from the past have always been influential in their musical style without getting recognition, much like Memphis Minnie’s powerful stage presence. “Through the smoke and racket of the noisy Chicago bar float Louisiana bayou, muddy old swamps, Mississippi dust and sun, cotton fields, lonesome roads, train whistles in the night…All these things cry through the strings on Memphis Minnie’s electric guitar.” (Hughes, 1943)Frank Ocean uses sheer scale and power to translate significant feelings in the listeners just like Memphis Minnie does. During the song “Self Control,” Ocean reaches a crescendo at the outro, while building up a sense of sadness and pity that his former love has moved on, and he fell victim to his feelings, losing his self-control. When the finale begins, a sense of frission, or goose bumps, overcomes the listener as his beautiful vocals and the melody complement each other allowing the listener to empathize with the same emotions as Ocean, whether you can relate first hand or not. These musical tools are very powerful, and when utilized correctly, give a song tremendous significance, especially if seen live like the description of Memphis Minnie describes.

            Lastly, Frank Ocean announced the release of “Blonde” in 2014, but the album kept getting pushed back until late summer of 2016 when it finally came out. He has talked on multiple occasions about the pressures the music industry puts on him, the fans and the record labels alike. In “Futura Free,” the final song on the album, he discusses why he took so long to release “Blonde,” and what he was afraid would happen if it got out too soon or kept it hidden from the world longer. The most important thing he mentions is that once he releases the album, it’s gone forever, so it really doesn’t matter how long audiences have to wait. Jennifer Lena discussed how hidden the histories of famous musicians is. “By attributing credit for bold innovations to single individuals, we have a fragile, thin explanation for the very complex world in which these innovators lived.” (Lena, 2012) Frank Ocean significantly changed the game for musicians, and how they’re allowed to express themselves in music, but the whole story of the innovation very rarely gets told in full, like people wouldn’t necessarily know the truth about what Ocean went through without Futura Free.

            In conclusion, Frank Ocean faced many large obstacles on his way to a music career, and they bear fruit with his second studio album “Blonde.” He still existed in a society that wasn’t fully ready to accept a queer musician, let alone one who would tell his story in such a way that his sexuality was hardly even acknowledged. But he simply let his product do the talking, much like women and people of color in the past have, as it speaks volumes far greater than hardly any other form of protest. “Blonde” is one of my favorite albums of all time, as it gives me emotions that no other media can, and Ocean’s uphill battle to getting it made is entirely worth the wait.

Critical Models:

How Queen’s Freddie Mercury Changed The Face Of Rock Music And AIDS Forever

Works Cited:

Hughes, Langston. “Here to Yonder: Memphis Minnie.” Chicago Defender, 1943

Lena, Jennifer C. Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music. Princeton University Press, 2012.

Powers, Ann. “A Spy in the House of Love.” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, vol. 12, no. 1, 2008, pp. 40–43., doi:10.1353/wam.0.0013.

By: Dalia Perez

The Columbian singer-songwriter Shakira debuted her first album in 1990, at the young age of thirteen. Over the years she has experimented with a variety of rhythms and genres influenced by her Arabic and Latin background. Shakira has also stated that she was heavily influenced by the music she listened to growing up. In my critical review, I will argue that Shakira’s latest album El Dorado, fuses a variety of rhythms and genres influenced by her cultural backgrounds and musical interests to express her personal experiences to her audience as well as redefining sexual norms in the track “Chantaje”.  

  Shakira has been known to fuse together a variety of rhythms throughout her musical career to shake up the pop industry since she is labeled as primarily a pop artist. The track “What We Said” featuring MAGIC! has a mixture of the Jamaican and Latin-influenced rhythm dem-bow and a bit of African guitar. This proves the point Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman made in the book American Popular Music that “musicians in Latin America developed a wide range of styles blending African music with the traditions of Europe. Caribbean, South American, and Mexican traditions have long influenced popular music” (Starr & Waterman, 10). Aside from “What We Said,” the track “Perro Fiel” also has the dem-bow rhythm with Latin pop. She also fuses the rhythms of R&B with Latin pop in the track “Trap”.  

Shakira’s personal experiences with her partner Gerard Pique played as her main inspiration for this album. Pique encouraged Shakira to continue making music and to hold off retirement stating it was not her time to retire because she still has a lot to say. Piques support of Shakira’s career reminded me of  Jennifer Lena’s article Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music in which she states, “In music scenes, the sources of practical support are the most diverse of across all genre forms: artists often rely on family members, friends, and non-musical employment to support their creative labor” (Lena, 2012). Shakira heavily relies on her personal experiences in life to influence her lyrics in her music. The track “Coconut Tree” is an example of this in which she describes a trip she took with Pique to a private island away from the public eye and she described the feeling of where she first fell in love with him. Another example is the track “Me Enamore” which is a song Shakira wrote about falling in love with her partner Pique. She describes that her life completely changed after she first met him and mentions they fell in love with each other and had a family. The track “Nada” is also about her partner Pique, but this song brings me back to the old Shakira the rocker with the red long hair. In this track, Shakira dives back into the genre of rock n roll to express how everything in her life means nothing to her including the money and fame if Pique is not by her side. “Nada” brings Shakira back to her roots to when she stated in the music industry with her earliest albums being heavily influenced by the music she listened to growing up referring to rock in which she stated Led Zeppelin as one of her favorite rock bands.   

In this album, Shakira also redefines sexual norms in her song “Chantaje” expressing women as being dominant and in control of their sexuality. This song is a collaboration featuring  Maluma a Latin pop heartthrob in which he describes Shakira as being a tease and being mean because she goes around teasing him by the way she goes on about her life and the way she moves her body in a sensual way. Shakira responds by saying that she is free to do what she wants and go out at night and that she is the one that carries the pants in the relationship. She also makes it clear that she does not belong to him or anyone else. Throughout the music video, Shakira is shown wearing a variety of risqué outfits and dancing in a sensual matter. This proves the statement Anna Powers made in her article A Spy in the House of Love that “women also seem more willing than ever to participate in their own objectification” (Powers, 43) which is clearly seen in the music video for “Chantaje”. Though it is also important to note that there is a difference in “self-abuse” and in “self-celebration” and Shakira is all about “self-celebration” which is proven with her “Chantaje” by expressing that women are free to do what when they want to and should not be confined to sexual norms about women.  

Shakira’s latest album truly showed her audience what holds importance in her life and has opened her personal life to her audience by sharing personal experiences about her love life. She also experiments with a variety of musical genres composed of a variety of rhythms influenced by her musical interests as well as her Latin and Arabic cultural backgrounds to shake up popular music. Lastly, Shakira has also redefined sexual norms by expressing that women are free to do what they want by continuing to participate in her own objection as a form of “self-celebration” throughout a variety of her lyrics and music videos.  

Critical Models: 

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21867-lemonade/

https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/ariana-grande-thank-u-next-album-review.html

Works Cited: 

Ann Powers, “A Spy in the House of Love,” Women & Music, Volume 12, 2008 (PDF) 

Jennifer Lena, “Music Genres,” Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music (Princeton Univ. Press, 2012) (PDF) 

Starr and Waterman, “Introduction” and “Streams of Tradition: The Sources of Popular Music,” American Popular Music (2008) online access at UW Libraries http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/gpo1267/american-popular-music.pdf (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

by Griffin Blum

Hip-hop music has always been one of the most influential genres of music in modern history, as it dissects the struggles of the common person. “Hip-hop music in its infancy has been described as an outlet and a voice for the disenfranchised youth of marginalized backgrounds and low-income areas.” (Wikipedia) This has always been the overarching theme for hip-hop, and it’s the primary force behind how it’s evolved over the years. Hip-hop is a megaphone for those who have felt oppressed and relegated in society one way or another. Rap is the form most associated of hip-hop, and it’s a tool used to describe how daily lives transpire for people with disadvantaged backgrounds, prominently being people of color. It reached a level of use where Chuck D referred to rap as “CNN for Black People.” Jeff Chang discusses how marginalized people used it to transfer information. “If you were a fan of rap music, you could listen to artists from different cities and find out what was happening in those cities, whether it was how young people felt about the police, how they partied or danced, all of the stories not getting reported by the media.” People of color created their own line of communication, which at its basest form, is exactly what music is supposed to be. What made hip-hop so unique, however, is that everyone at some point in their lives, likely when they’re young and not fully integrated into society, feels slighted and marginalized, and hip-hop successfully translates that feeling into a universal rallying cry. While the subject of the actual song may not apply to everyone, the principle of fighting for what they believe and their social standing will transcend time.

Two examples of songs that display this aura of fighting for their voices and a reflection of the surroundings are “Fuck the Police” by NWA and “Changes” by Tupac Shakur, as both reflect the emotions of the inner city residents, points of view not usually represented by the national media at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jOqOlETcRU

Works Cited

“Hip Hop Music.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music.

Riley, Theresa. “Still Fighting the Power.” BillMoyers.com, 21 Sept. 2012, billmoyers.com/2012/05/18/still-fighting-the-power/#.VKsGHnJzchg.email.

By: Dalia Perez

Hip-Hop has served as a source of expression for many individuals facing hard times in their life since the 1980s. According to Wikipedia, hip-hop “formed during the late 1970s in New York City” (wiki) but it did not truly develop until the late 1980s. During the 1970s, hip-hop served as a voice for those unrepresented and marginalized in America and as the years go on hip-hop continues to give people a voice to express the pressures they are facing in America. According to the article Still Fighting Power by Theresa Riley the author of Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation Jeff Chang expresses that if you were a fan of hip-hop “you could listen to artists from different cities and find out what was happening in those cities” (Riley,202). This shows that hip-hop artist used their music to express what was going on in the world in terms of what they were going through in their own life. For example, an artist by the name of Toddy Tee released a hip-hop song about police brutality in black neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Overall, hip-hop has given people the ability to express what they are experiencing in the world in terms of critical issues that people should be worried about like police brutality. Two examples of hip-hop songs that express critical issues people are facing like police brutality and racism are This is America by Childish Gambino and The story of O.J by Jay-Z.  

Felicity Linville           

When I think of hip-hop, I most definitely think of politics, the two go hand in hand for me. Especially in 2019 when rappers like Kanye are going to the white house and helping make prison reform bills to help incarcerated women. Hip-hop, no music in general is a way that artists and listeners make sense of the world. It reflects our anger, our happiness, the pressures we face and the disappointment of society’s structure. Author Jeff Chang said in an interview “Although not all hip hop is exclusively political, a good amount of it speaks to the kinds of pressures that young people have been facing because of globalization, changes in policing and the incarceration of youth and oftentimes, the breakdown of institutions and structures in the communities that hip hop comes from” (Riley 2012). This claim is thought provoking and makes me think of artists like Lil Peep that became popular because of his open discussion about anxiety and depression. A lot of the way we think of hip-hop has to do with the feminist perspective and that Joan Morgan called “Hip-hop feminism;” it “is concerned with the ways the conservative backlash of the 1980s and 1990s, deindustrialization, the slashing of the welfare state, and the attendant gutting of social programs and affirmative action, along with the increasing racial wealth gap, have affected the life worlds and worldviews of the hip-hop generation” (Durham, Cooper, Morris 722). Our countries police system and social welfare is set up in a way to maintain white supremacy, both authors point out that hip-hop is a way to talk about topics like our political climate and spread it throughout our communities. Cardi B is another artist that comes in mind that connects these two pieces perfectly, she is a woman of color who is pro sex and is involved in our current political climate. She was just recently asked to give a talk to democrats after tweeting about immigration. I hip-hop has always being an avenue in which we can hear the voices of communities of color and I hope that never stops.

In Kanye West’s song “New Slaves”, he talks about capitalism and how that has turned us all into slaves of the system. He also talks about his mother grew up during segregation and how that continues today when sales clerks do not allow black kids to touch anything in the store because the employees think they will steal it. Tupac Shakur’s song “Keep Ya Head Up” is another hip-hop song rooted in politics, as in the Durham, Cooper, Morris piece they talk about “misogynoir the hatred of black women and girls,” his song is about empowering and respecting women, especially women of color (730).

By Sarah Byron

Jack Hamilton’s “How Rock and Roll Became White and how the Rolling Stones, a band in love with black music, helped lead the way to rock music’s segregated future” and Gayle Wald’s “Rosetta Tharpe and Feminist Unforgetting” both address the systematic erasing of influential black artists from music history’s memory. Hamilton writes about how white musicians and audiences rewrite the narrative of music, and in the case of rock and roll, praise bands like the Rolling Stones for creating the genre even though black musicians created rock and roll long before the Rolling Stones took the stage. Hamilton writes, “by far the most common way that the whitening of rock-and-roll music has been discussed is simply not at all,” highlighting how Rock and Roll die-hards have no interest in remembering who came before the Rolling Stones.

Wald’s piece of Rosetta Tharpe attempts to remember what has been forgotten by examining the use of biography to “un-forget”. Wald writes, “[biography] taught me that biography can be a crucial tool of ‘un-forgetting’: a process which, in the best cases, resists the totalizing and exclusionary strategies that have rendered a person invisible and un-accounted for.” The biography is Wald’s way of rewriting the past and bringing to light the memories and contributions of the incredible Rosette Tharpe, a musician that was removed from popular music’s history.

These videos showcase Rosetta Tharpe’s incredible talent. It’s clear to see why she was referred to as the “godmother of rock and roll”.

By Sarah, Felicity, Griffin, Kira

Kira Smith

Before the internet, print was the main way to write about music (a relic of an idea today considering the way most of us consume media: the internet). But beyond editorials, billboard hits, and “The Top 1000 Albums of This Decade SO FAR” lists, individuals could still (occasionally) share their narratives on the progression of music. 

Back in the days of print, Langston Hughes wrote about Memphis Minnie’s performance on the icebox. He praises her powerful music, but also takes the opportunity to criticize the venue and its owners, white men, who profit off her talents. Of these men, Hughes writes, “They never snap their fingers, clap their hands, or move intime to the music. They just stand at the licker counter and ring up sales on the cash register. At this year’s end the sales are better than they used to be” (Hughes). While these men are not moved by Minnie’s music, Hughes recognizes this monetary success is not everything, that “Memphis Minnie’s music is harder than the coins that roll across the counter” (Hughes), that her influence is something beyond mere capitalism – it’s humanism. In his poetry, Hughes expands the archive, exposing the club owners for the thieves they are. 

There have always been alternative stories regarding music history, digital media has just made them easier to create, consume, and care about. As Tara McPherson urges:

“Our field has taught us that technologies are not neutral tools, and that they powerfully influence social systems. Thus, it is imperative that we be involved in the design and construction of the emerging networked platforms and practices that will shape the  contours not only of our research, but of social meaning and being for decades to come,” (McPherson, pp. 123)”.

Our ability to communicate online, via this relatively new technology, is not optional: it’s something we all must do to keep these alternative narratives of music socially relevant. Much of this class focuses on “expanding the archive” of stories told about music, applying new perspectives to current and old content to reshape the way we think about this content as a population. In this way, we rewrite and often challenge the popular narrative surrounding the great influences on music.

DJ Selections:

These covers of the same song, Moon River, across more than 50 years demonstrate the sonic influence of new technologies, as well as the evolving context of a song through the lens of different artists’ experiences.

• Moon River by Frank Ocean (2018)
• Moon River by Opus Orange, Komoti (2017)
• Moon River by Frank Sinatra (1964)
• Moon River by Jerry Butler (1961)
• Moon River by Audrey Hepburn (1961)

Citations:

• Hughes, Langston. “Music At Year’s End.” Chicago Defender, 9 Jan. 1943.
• McPherson, Tara. “Introduction: Media Studies and the Digital Humanities.” Cinema Journal, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 119–123. Winter 2009, doi:10.1353/cj.0.0077.