Sasha on Shadow, Diplo, Eminem & Minstrelsy

And of course Brazilian DJs flew up to Miami in the 80s to get their bass records.

this just occurred to me re: SFJs posited "progression" of minstrelsy. When minstrelsy originated, the possibility of negative repercussions from the black community were non-existent. The black community was, by and large, powerless - ergo, their culture (and just about everything else) could be plundered with impunity. The rich white kid practicing blackface in front of his mirror had no reason to feel self-conscious because the potential for "punishment" on behalf of those he was stealing from/aping did not exist. This is no longer the case. Today, the rich white kid clumsily rapping in front of the mirror has a whole slew of potential repercussions bearing down on him. As such, he has to be less obvious, more subtle, more nuanced - blackface is clumsy and direct; DJ Shadow (I'm not bringin Diplo into this) can't afford that clumsiness or directness, hence the "from black face to no face". Again, the insecurity and self-consciousness of the performer is tied to power - who has the authority to claim "ownership" of the material and who is capable of enforcing said "ownership."

And Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker may have had a Kraftwerk record or two.

We can call this The Vanilla Ice Effect

(x-post)

Vanilla Ice is such a prime example of being self-conscious/aware of the "risks" involved - do blackface, get dangled out a window by giant, threatening black men.

also spend rest of life being pathologically bitter, suffering widespread media ridicule, etc.

Vanilla Ice's sin was to be successful, then to be dumb enough to meet with Suge Knight in a private location.

Though he's not on the billboard top 10 by any means, seems to me like Edan might be an interesting artist to factor into this debate.
The album cover for Beauty and the Beat consists of dozens of black and white cutouts of "golden-age" rappers, arranged Sergeant Pepper-style over a blobby psychedelic backdrop, with british mop tops pasted onto their heads. This guy's got the chutzpah to illustrate his album concept as literally as possible, embracing the awkwardness of the love and theft dilemma with open arms. He's a white, Jewish guy from Boston (born in Israel I think) making consciously "black" music, by sampling "white" music. All of the guest rappers on the album are black, whereas most of the vocal samples are white-sounding british people. "I See Colours" intercuts a "white" voice singing "I can see a rainbow" with a "black" voice singing the exact same line. I'm not familiar with the sample but I assume it was a British band covering an American blues song, and Edan's double duty is to cite the love/theft of the era, while committing plenty of it himself.
Lyrically, he's got some interesting lines that paint himself as a great mediator ("my power settled a clash between races"), and white superhuman aggressor ("with a hand so big I punched the sphinx in the nose"). Anyways, seems to me this is an artist who has progressed to a stage where he is not afraid of "directly aping" the music he loves, at the risk of being politically incorrect, and so is an interesting counterpoint to the artists SFJ brings up.

I think Al's comments upthread were on point. The article leaves me with a lot of questions, and it seems like its open to so many different interpretations, since many of the terms ('blackface' 'minstrel show') are never defined to fit the way he's using them.

where's the positive spin?

can't it be as simple as white people catching on?

If it's appropriation you're worried about, it's not like Diplo is taking food -- purple food, mind you -- off Cam'ron's table. I mean, we're not talking about the marginilization of the kinds of artists that Diplo is accused of stealing from.

You might say that the Beastie Boys are a better example of making money while other, more "legitimate" practitioners were not, but the answer to that is that it doesn't happen anymore the way it did -- the channels are so far stuffed with better things -- call them more "real" if you want -- that the beastie boys are an afterthought at best. We don't exactly have to worry about Kanye opening up for Northern State.

Because Sasha seems to be more concerned about performers and their personae rather than misappropriation and (white) people generally making money off of a historically "black" form, the paper seemed to me to boil down to the suggestion that people are staying outside of or on the margins of the game because "blackface" carries a stigma because of blackness rather than a stigma because of inauthenticity.

In my opinion it's the latter that presents the stigma WAY more than the former. Somebody like eminem is able to transcend the inauthenticity question because, as most people seem to agree, he is (or used to be) really good. Diplo, not so much -- either because he just doesn't have it, or he's too self conscious (as someone suggested above). Note that Paul Anka and everybody else have all set their signs on doing super white-guy versions of INDIE ROCK, where even Pat Boone does not fear to tread, not hip-hop.

Anyway, my point is that this reluctance of "white" performers -- if you agree that it's based on authenticity self-consciousness rather than "blackness" stigma, articulates some degree of progress insofar as it suggests the absence of misappropriation from the "black" people that are generally making the music in question (setting aside the question of whether the industry makes white non-artist people rich and etc. etc.)

Anyway, just saying.

lots of red herrings in this thread, too. for example, gareth says:

compare: the manix 12's on reinforced. the 4hero album

totally different case!! because diplo never made those manix 12's. the equivalent would be if 4hero got famous off djing hardcore records and made noodly techno in the studio right off the bat. for a while, at least, 4hero were making music that reflected the music they were playing in the clubs.

meanwhile, diplo's first outing as a producer features martina topley bird and vybz kartel! couldn't he have found someone a little more ... you know ... gully?

anyway i read SFJ's article the same was as shakey mo, except i don't think suge knight was acting out of cultural nationalism. and negative repercussions from the black community is a red herring, too, since they haven't been anywhere near majority consumers of hip-hop product for a really, really long time.

argh. "the same way as shakey mo". "anywhere near the majority consumers".

this thread should have been closed after the first response.

fair point vahid, well, ok then, how about dave angel? his album vs his fabulous mixtapes (check teh ravevtapes thread by the way, i put a 93 mix up)

ok everyone needs to realize that sasha is responding to a big book that sets lots of context for ideas of minstrelsy etc, and thus wanted to spend time talking about something other than what the book already did.

also i have my own problems with lots of the historic ideas about minstrelsy now prevelant in academia which i think are back-projecting more recent forms of cultural mishmashing back into a v. difft historic period and thus confuse matters quite a bit. but that's a whole nother axe to grind. however it does make sasha's point about trying to establish a continuum and then mark what and how things have changed a more interesting potential solution to this issue. but to talk about that, i think there needs to be more talk about the bigger issues of how things changed so we've got representation as indicating power (among many things) rather than the crude notion of representation AS power.

not sure if anyones said this already (i cant be bothered to scroll all the way up), but how can diplo and shadow be minstrels if their music is sounding 'white' compared to other hip hop? surely that disqualifies them from being received as the new al jolsons of rap as theyre not in 'sonic blackface'.

DJ Shadow and his Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Not a bad idea actually.

**The rich white kid practicing blackface in front of his mirror**

=

**back-projecting more recent forms of cultural mishmashing back into a v. difft historic period and thus confuse matters**

"**back-projecting more recent forms of cultural mishmashing back into a v. difft historic period and thus confuse matters**"

right...

not sure if anyones said this already (i cant be bothered to scroll all the way up), but how can diplo and shadow be minstrels if their music is sounding 'white' compared to other hip hop? surely that disqualifies them from being received as the new al jolsons of rap as theyre not in 'sonic blackface'.

-- ppp (pp...), May 28th, 2005.

I think the key quote of the Sasha piece here is: "In fact, I am more interested in the idea that Shadow and Diplo are not modern minstrels, and what kind of loss that might represent." I think he's saying that because these guys merely spin black music they like, but don't try to make music like that on their own records or make it a bigger part of identity, it's some kind of cheat or loss. Which is, I think, the most questionable idea of the whole piece.

It also doesn't help that he ignores any white rapper he doesn't like. First he admits that "making the distinction that Eminem is more blackface than, say, Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park, would not hold true in every theoretical showdown" but then says "wouldn’t there be more than two white rappers who regularly chart in the Top 10?" There are! Just not rappers that make his best of the year. And hip-hop != rap. "Hollaback Girl" is just as 'blackface' as "Just Lose It." I'm annoyed that he pulls a "these ideas have to get out to the PEOPLE!" in his rebuttal to this thread while focusing his ideas on artists like Diplo and DJ Shadow rather than ones that the people give a shit about, rather than my three interfriends.

that should be 'focusing his ideas on artists like Diplo and DJ Shadow, who only my three interfriends care about'

gah, you know what i mean.

haha, yeah, I understood what you were saying. good point.

actually 'Hollaback Girl' is probably MORE blackface than 'Just Lose It.' Eminem's whole deal was that he was raised in a mostly black neighborhood, 'this IS my culture,' etc. Gwen started in a goddamn rock band before goin' all Kelis on us (but haha then ska-rock is blackface too, ain't it?).

miccio there are white cheerleaders too, really.

these ideas need to get to the mainstream!

yeah white cheerleaders coined "hollaback"

small request: since these comments were delivered in a context an in response to very specific things could people who actually know and can illuminate on the context (or at the very least have read love and theft) post more and people who won't to pretend this has something to do with whatever they blog about post less thx.

miccio for a 'man of the people' you sure don't spend much time with them. leave the college radio booth. listen to less singer-songwriter wank. maybe actually get two parts of yr body to move at once.

damn, all it took was the word "hollaback" this time.

you do realize that getting personal in the same way every time I contradict you kind of takes the zing out, right? I mean I got defensive on the Dizzee thread (back before I provided you phrases like 'singer-songwriter' and you had that careerist fantasy) but now its just kind of predictable and sad.

and in case its not clear, I'm not saying I invented the term, just that I was using it self-deprecatingly about my own tastes before you made it your fallback in the face of dissent.

if you prick a hack, does it not bleed?

that one's kinda lost its edge too, dude.

yeah, but what about if you hack a...
oh wait, that's just gross.

You never mention how often I typo, blount. I'm actually a little self-conscious about that. Use that next time.

if you bleed a prick, does it not hack?

next comes the change of subject. like maybe what's on tv.

and then ned says there is peace.

miccio i could actually give a fuck about you, sorry, the world's got way too many backstabbing careerist fuxx to worry about any particular one (besides john bolton) right now. but if you toss out some lame indie/alt blogwank in the guise of 'populism' i'm gonna call 'shenanigans', sorry. invest in more tissues. get some fresh air.

oh you so do not have anything better to care about.

me, I'm at work watching an empty library. bored.

braves getting their ass kicked here.

and wouldn't you contradict the actual points made rather than do the same old 'yer all hacks' shtick. I mean if you wanted to get the truth out, rather than just swing at people who contradict you. Yer just pissed I made fun of a song you like.

So much time spent shit talking on this board. please. everyone on here is very nice.

somebody told me i should post on this thread so i said fuck it why not- look yall this is pretty basic shit, sasha is a smart dude but i dunno all that new yorker garbage must be gettin to him if he thinks that this is some kinda new racial recontextualization blackface shit. nobody gives a fuck about diplo, he is corny mp3 internet blog music. now i wouldnt lump shadow in with that even tho i wouldnt give two fucks about his music now cuz hes comin from a different scene, that 90s cali/bay underground with groups like latyrx and jurassic 5 and them. it was a genuine hip-hop scene not some rock critic hipster nerd dj fuckin around with street cred and black identity to make money off black folks music. that dude who writes for murder dog and dissed hollertronix a while back was speakin the truth right there, when he said that shit like the hollertronix website and all that is like when white colleges go out of their way to put black faces in their pamphlets and shit. its the opposite of back when black jazz artists had to put white people on their covers to sell records. here is where 'blackface' is comin from now- this is a bunch of new skool white uncomfortable liberals who are dying for that black cool but dont actually want to fuck with black folks or black culture in anything but the corniest most removed way. they want the sheen of it, they want black culture the extra-small t-shirt, part of that new generation of 'all genre' music nerd whose favorite shit about rap music is slang and novelty and a big one-up GOTCHA to their corny rock music friends ('actually i was listening to LIL JON!'). these muthafuckas will be the first to talk about bling bling benz kitted out knuck if you buck thowed and all that shit but when it comes to what a rapper is actually sayin they could give a fuck. its just a big mish mash of the weirdest 1% of shit that rappers actually say. now i have not heard any of diplo from hollertronixs solo shit but i read about it on the 1000 white rap blogs who are up on this shit and it sounded like it would be some garbage. at least back in the day dj shadow seemed like something different. i first read about him in vibe magazine, their end of the year issue for 96, they were talkin a bunch of bullshit about him expanding hip-hops boundries and shit. but it was still connected to rap music, he came outta a rap music crew and had respect for it. i dont know about if he does now, i have not fucked with him in a long time so i couldnt say. his earlier shit just seemed like he had been fuckin with production so he wanted to do some shit like david axelrod and isaac hayes and all that. madlib does the same shit now with all that blue note yesterdays new quintet shit, and so does pete rock kinda. i think alot of cats would do this if the market was right, generally 90s production dudes either updated their sound for how rap is now or they secretly wanna be making instrumental music. but this new internet rap nerd mp3 generation, i dont think its like that. its a conscious attempt to separate from rap music and black folks in general. what has diplo given back to the rap community at all? he basically steals music from southern artists and slightly repackages so its ok for corny white hipsters. i know white dope dealers who do the same shit- go to the poor black part of town, cop some cheap shit, and take it back to rich white folks with the price jacked up. theyll buy it cuz theres a white face on it, they dont have to fuck with any black folks. the problem is, music isnt dope. there are rappers in georgia who are strugglin to make a dollar, even artists who have gone platinum and been on top of the charts. its hard times right now, big market. for this rich white hipster to be stealin music from folks who worked hard on it, and to "fix" it for a corny rock audience, that shit makes me sick. they make instrumental albums to prove that they arent "really" like that. look at how diplo has gotta mix it with all this trendy rock music and other shit like that, sayin rap music is not good enough to stand on its own so you gotta prop it up with a bunch of bullshit. if he loves the shit so much why not just drop a rap mixtape? why not get in the rap mixtape market?? its not like that forbids white folks, except you have to actually deal with rappers and black people and deal with the fact that it might not just be trendy clued-in internet kids who listen to your shit. there are all kinda white folks in the rap scene and its not some kinda blackface shit except for this new hollertronix audience. these dudes just cant accept actually havin to commit to rap music or the culture or that maybe white folks dont deserve to be makin money for copy-pasting a bunch of mp3s and burning it to a cd-r with a corny graphic on it. everybody knows white people have got the most $$ in this country still. you can make major dough by fuckin with what white folks wanna hear, look at all those new rock bands out now with their super hip fashions and shit like that, its more 'cool' than any of that shit used to be even just like 5 years ago. until youre conscious of your place in rap as a white person you should not be fuckin with it, there is a racial history to this shit. you can get accepted 100% but you cant just make it a one-way thing. when has this muthafucka done anything for rap music? he has taken food out the mouth of rappers, thats it.

but you just said his whole audience = corny white folks who don't really like rap, so it's not like they're going to buy any of those records anyway, right? (i'm not going to bat for diplo's record, but that argument looks like a regular old anti-poseur line with a race card stuck to the front of it)

I'm amazed how much of this thread seems to sail right by SFJ's point, except for somebody to call it "the most questionable idea of the whole piece" - and since it's his *argument*, that's what it kinda oughta be. I heard Sasha's question, as posed in the context of the panel, as being whether the reason that Diplo *isn't* a more important artist is that he doesn't have the courage to back his love of black music (more in ref to southern hip-hop than to baile funk btw) with more brazen theft. You can call this a lack of talent but maybe talent includes having the sheer politically incorrect nerve to do what you want whether you have the "right" to, or not. Now, there's a weird kind of accusation of false consciousness involved there, which is difficult to process, but I found Sasha's suggestion provocative that right now there's a politesse involved in the progressive-white side of racial relations that might hobble artists' ability to get down'n'dirty with it, and that individdles like Eminem who are willing to go for it and suffer the attacks are super-rare. "These dudes just can't accept actually having to commit to rap music," nah said, and he had a lot of good points. but I think Sasha would agree with them. he was saying that publically a lot of whites aware of the history of this dynamic wonder if they have the right to make that commitment, and so they end up half in, half out, and that's not much use, or worse.

The comeback to this would be, I think, that a shortage of white rappers might be a small price to pay to see a black-dominated culture finally to get to take a dominant place in American entertainment, and it might be smart not to try to rush past this stage in the name of integration, lest that end up being just a shortcut back to white hegemony. I mean, Eminem's good, but the reason he got so much bigger than nearly all other rappers was not because he was that much better than all other rappers, y'know what I mean?