Originally posted by Hot Pepsi
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Cultural appropriation
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Last edited by Gangster Octopus; 23-08-2018, 12:01.
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Elvis was a poor white boy from Mississippi, if he was appropriating then so was Paul Simonon, which seems a little bit bizarre to me. What's he supposed to do, start screaming so he can't hear the jump blues being played by the neighbours?
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Originally posted by Jah Womble View PostIt undeniably 'was' cultural appropriation - but a lot of the radio stations at that time simply weren't playing what they termed as 'race music'. I think that the difference here is that it, over time, opened up a market for original R&B - which surely has to be looked upon as a good outcome.
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Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View PostIt's because England colonized India, not the other way around.
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Originally posted by Reginald ChristThe first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title was popular music, specifically Elvis Presley and The Beatles. I'm almost certainly guilty of harbouring unexamined prejudices and blind spots regarding the cultures and movements that inspired much of the art I love. When I started listening to pop music from the last century, in many cases I didn't bother to investigate the artists that inspired the (white) musicians I listened to. It probably didn't even occur to me until much later that, for example, Presley was playing essentially black music redressed to be palatable for a white audience. Was he (and The Beatles, and pretty much every white guitar band from that period) guilty of cultural appropriation? Honestly, I don't know for sure but I would imagine so. Was there ever an effort on behalf of their entourages and record companies to say to their fans, "If you like what these guys do, you'll absolutely love what these guys etc etc"? It's not a comfortable thought. But then again these things never are. How many things do we do each day and take for granted that they're untainted by oppression or appropriation?
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...ything/374081/
http://nodepression.com/article/houn...-black-artists
I recall seeing something else about this and it interviewed Chuck D - of course, Public Enemy's fight the power has "Elvis was a hero to most. But he never meant shit to me you see. Straight up racist that sucker was." - Which isn't fair. Chuck D said he was more just angry about how Elvis is remembered so fondly and widely whereas so many black artists of the time, or earlier, are barely remembered at all. That's not really Elvis' fault, though he probably could have done more to redress the imbalance. And it's not like he didn't contribute anything new to the genre.
And Little Richard has said that Chuck Boone's shitty cover of Tutti Frutti - the epitome of whitewashing - ultimately helped sales of his records. That's a credit to the fans who were wise enough to figure out what was going on. But at that time, as far as I know, white artists - or their handlers, at least - didn't do as much as they could have to use their star power to help black artists.
I'm not sure about The Beatles. By the time they really hit it big, they weren't doing Chuck Berry covers any more, and when they were doing Chuck Berry covers, I suspect their audience were familiar with the original, so it wasn't like they were taking credit. I'm not really sure. It's been a long time since I read a Beatles biography.
It may have got better later on. In interviews, at least, Clapton always talks about the bluesmen he loves and that probably helped sales of their back catalog, such as it is. But he still got very rich and Tory and they died in obscurity, so he probably didn't do enough. And black people begin to disappear from the history of rock and roll, except for Hendrix, after the mid-60s. There are multiple reasons for that, but racism and record labels unwillingness to market black artists to a mostly white audience is certainly part of the story.Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 23-08-2018, 15:56.
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Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post'Welsh Cakes' have a particular recipe, though. If one follows it, one can make them anywhere, obviously: my (Welsh) mother made a batch for my US school class in Laramie just before we left to return to the UK.
Jamie Oliver would probably get it wrong and sell them as 'Jamie's Punked-Up Drop-Scones' or somesuch...
Originally posted by Reginald ChristThe first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title was popular music, specifically Elvis Presley and The Beatles. I'm almost certainly guilty of harbouring unexamined prejudices and blind spots regarding the cultures and movements that inspired much of the art I love. When I started listening to pop music from the last century, in many cases I didn't bother to investigate the artists that inspired the (white) musicians I listened to. It probably didn't even occur to me until much later that, for example, Presley was playing essentially black music redressed to be palatable for a white audience. Was he (and The Beatles, and pretty much every white guitar band from that period) guilty of cultural appropriation? Honestly, I don't know for sure but I would imagine so. Was there ever an effort on behalf of their entourages and record companies to say to their fans, "If you like what these guys do, you'll absolutely love what these guys etc etc"? It's not a comfortable thought. But then again these things never are. How many things do we do each day and take for granted that they're untainted by oppression or appropriation?Originally posted by Flynnie View PostElvis was a poor white boy from Mississippi [...] What's he supposed to do, start screaming so he can't hear the jump blues being played by the neighbours?
You could accuse the radio stations and record companies of looking for "black music redressed to be palatable for a white audience" – Sam Phillips was after a white artist who could sing 'black music' when he signed him to Sun Records; then after Elvis cut That's All Right and it got played by Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips, the latter interviewed him on air and was careful to ask him what school he'd been to, knowing full well the answer would identify him as white to listeners who might be assuming he was black from his voice. But the young Elvis didn't play his music the way he did because he was trying to repackage it 'safely' for a white audience – he just played what he heard and liked, mashing up all his R&B, country, gospel and blues influences from both his black and white neighbours without discriminating (in either sense) over what came from where.
Edit: Heh, I hadn't seen Reed's post above when I wrote this, but I think we're on the same wavelength too.Last edited by Various Artist; 23-08-2018, 16:24.
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Agree with most of that - Sam Phillips wasn't making the rules as to what could be played on US radio, of course.
Originally posted by Reginald ChristOh, absolutely. I'm not disputing otherwise. It's just that I'm still at the stage where I'm trying to reconcile the fact that there were undeniable cultural positives that eventuated from things that, today, would be viewed dubiously.
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Originally posted by Various Artist View PostAnd that would be fine, when you think about it. If he buggered up the recipe but then tried to sell them as 'Welsh Cakes' despite them not being Welsh Cakes, though (nor Welsh cakes, if you see what I mean), that would the point that he crossed the line. Which, of course, is what he's done with the 'Jerk Rice'.Last edited by Jah Womble; 23-08-2018, 17:42.
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It's virtually impossible for it to happen in a country like the US because popular music is consumed through so many different channels.
Even if Clear Channel or similar oligopolists decided to act against their commercial interests and ban acts from commercial radio, that would have nowhere near the "total blackout" effect it would have on audiences in the 50s or 60s.
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Originally posted by Benjm View PostI was a bit startled to read that JO is punting his not-jerk rice out at £2.30 a pop. For comparison, Waitrose own brand microwave rice is 67p a packet, Tilda branded flavoured stuff £1.60 (and usually on offer).
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Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View PostSome poor lass from the US got lambasted on Twitter for wearing a Chinese-style silk dress to her prom. Not sure what the power dynamic was there. The Korean War maybe?
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One thing that has to be remembered about Elvis though is that the music was kind of incidental. in 1956 he looked like an alien from the planet Sex. He could have been singing schlager. In fact, that's exactly what he did at one point. Elvis would be really good looking today. God alone knows what the impact of that must have been in the fifties when people were only starting to stop looking like picasso portraits. But the Music he played was the music he heard growing up in the place he was from. I think there comes a point where you can't really be culturally appropriating if it is the culture of the place where you grow up in.
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Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View PostOne thing that has to be remembered about Elvis though is that the music was kind of incidental. in 1956 he looked like an alien from the planet Sex. He could have been singing schlager. In fact, that's exactly what he did at one point. Elvis would be really good looking today. God alone knows what the impact of that must have been in the fifties when people were only starting to stop looking like picasso portraits. But the Music he played was the music he heard growing up in the place he was from. I think there comes a point where you can't really be culturally appropriating if it is the culture of the place where you grow up in.
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**Yep, I said it. Call me the reincarnation of Chris Rock. <whispers> Wait, what?
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Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View PostThe charge against Elvis isn't really accurate.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...ything/374081/
http://nodepression.com/article/houn...-black-artists
I recall seeing something else about this and it interviewed Chuck D - of course, Public Enemy's fight the power has "Elvis was a hero to most. But he never meant shit to me you see. Straight up racist that sucker was." - Which isn't fair. Chuck D said he was more just angry about how Elvis is remembered so fondly and widely whereas so many black artists of the time, or earlier, are barely remembered at all. That's not really Elvis' fault, though he probably could have done more to redress the imbalance. And it's not like he didn't contribute anything new to the genre.
And Little Richard has said that Chuck Boone's shitty cover of Tutti Frutti - the epitome of whitewashing - ultimately helped sales of his records. That's a credit to the fans who were wise enough to figure out what was going on. But at that time, as far as I know, white artists - or their handlers, at least - didn't do as much as they could have to use their star power to help black artists.
I'm not sure about The Beatles. By the time they really hit it big, they weren't doing Chuck Berry covers any more, and when they were doing Chuck Berry covers, I suspect their audience were familiar with the original, so it wasn't like they were taking credit. I'm not really sure. It's been a long time since I read a Beatles biography.
It may have got better later on. In interviews, at least, Clapton always talks about the bluesmen he loves and that probably helped sales of their back catalog, such as it is. But he still got very rich and Tory and they died in obscurity, so he probably didn't do enough. And black people begin to disappear from the history of rock and roll, except for Hendrix, after the mid-60s. There are multiple reasons for that, but racism and record labels unwillingness to market black artists to a mostly white audience is certainly part of the story.
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[QUOTE=Jah Womble;1467769]Wooden Heart wasn't a million miles away from schlager, tbh.[/QUOTE
Wooden heart is actual 100% pure authentic schlager. "It's now or never," is italian schlager. He had a rough couple of years.
There's a lot in what Gero Says but also a lot of people who might have objected to his non-white musical influences, would barely have considered him white
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