Sasha on Shadow, Diplo, Eminem & Minstrelsy

Maybe Diplo is a good test-case in what I'm thinking about here: how do you think it would work if, instead of associating with M.I.A., he was making a record with a white rapper or vocalist from Philly? How would it have worked in process, and how would the reception have gone?

(NB Matos the Diplo album was maybe further marred by being a little boring, even within the post-Shadow genre.)

based on this - http://www.indiana.edu/~teleweb/T101/independent.html - El-P says Fantastic Damage sold less than 50k in a year, surely RJD2's audience is smaller than that.

That's my inclination, too. Doesn't anyone here subscribe to the SoundScan database? This is like the millionth thread when we've tried to guess the relative sales figures of particular albums.

RJD2: Definitely. I felt like I've played the consistency game. After Dead Ringer came out, there was the Soul Position record, the Diverse album, the Aceyalone record, all this s**t I did was basically normal Rap music, where I was doing this simple Rap beat thing and it was fun and cool, 95 beats per minute, chop your s**t up, whatever. F***in' moron music. I like it, but it's still moron music. When it came down for this record, it's like, what's the point of re-recording some other s**t? It would be cheap of me. I couldn't be honest. This record is as honest as I can be in terms of just sitting down and saying "This is what I feel." If I had tried to do another Dead Ringer, it would've just been a marketing gimmick to me. It might have gotten better reviews but that's not what it's about. I understand if people think, "Oh this s**t's soft or corny." At the end of the day, I don't get bent out of shape about it. This is at least a representation of the music that I like.

Uh, some are, some aren't.

Oh bullshit.

the biggest internet dud of all time is "This shit has been covered." Maybe for you and your three friends, but not for a whole lot of intelligent people who are busy thinking about other things. And—please put this on your refrigerator if you give a shit about these things–I am not writing for your three interfriends, nor will I ever. These ideas want to circulate in the big, bad bloodstream and will, I think, read as news to many people.

He's wrong if he thinks he didn't write it for my three interfriends at least - they all went to EMP!

Shakey, I don't think it's irrelevant, not if the issue is really -- as I'm kind of banging on about -- this anxiety about having the background that your music "belongs" to. There's a big difference in character between a middle-class white person dealing in American black music and dealing in Brazilian lower-class/black music, but the dynamics of them do have something to do with one another.

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Haha, well, I was looking for the exact quote, and that came up. But it's also probably a by-product of fact-checking and copy-editing for a living.

Dude, Shakey, it doesn't have to be about stealing and ownership; it's a lot more interesting if you think about it from the perspective of where people artists feel comfortable. From that perspective the mythical inner city and the even-more-mythical Rio slum are equally outside the immediate circle, you know? Jordan's voice thing is dead-on -- they can do the brass, but they have some self-consciousness that if they bring in their own voices it might not sound right, won't have the same quality as what they're playing, might even (to put words in his mouth) have fake or awkward qualities. Similarly: how would people react if Diplo, instead of just making some baile-inspired beats, actually tried to rap like that?

I don't think so. One is a community that's in your own backyard and may actually come after you over perceived injustices/thievery - while the other is distant and (probably) completely oblivious. The difference in the power politics of either scenario is self-evident.

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the idea of doing indie rap instrumentals as a shit job to "pay the bills" is pretty funny!

I agree, it's different in character and more hotly and obviously contested with white and black Americans, but the personal dynamic inside it can stay similar across the board.

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Why is it that thirty years on, there's still such a sense of "the other" involved? Is it about authenticity? It's definitely not about quality, since there's a lot of crap that goes out on the radio and hits the top ten.

Over 30 years ago there was the Black-Rio movement in Rio de Janeiro in the era of soul, where we played James Brown, Parliament, the Blackbyrds. In that era there were two types of baile, where people went to halls and set up sound systems; there was the rock baile where they played Bachman Turner Overdrive and all that, which was white and there was the black baile where they played soul. They stayed separated for a time and the Big Boy arrived on the scene, you know Big Boy?

A: Err..No.

DJM : Well he's dead now, but he played this sound 30 odd years ago, he had the baile de Pesada (Heavy Dance) which he started where he played soul and rock, rock and soul. There wasn't a difference and people came from the suburbs and brought their own characteristics with them. Before, those who liked rock would go to the suburbs for their parties and there was a kind of rivalry between black and cocota (whites who play rock), just playful, no fighting or violence, just having fun. And then at this same moment, Brazilian soul was born, which gave us Tim Maia, Sandra de Sá, Cassiana, Gerson King Combo, Banda Black Rio etc.

Soon after this came the Disco craze which swept through the world and the white dances became discotheques quickly, but the soul dances continued playing soul. The rock bars virtually disappeared becoming disco-bars.

Stuff that was played in the soul dances, like Kool and the Gang, started to make music which was more disco, y'know "Ladies Night" etc... and Brazilians like Deodato were producing and creating a more commercial sound with brass and stuff and this moved closer to funk and the two different bailes came together as one, and the crowds mixed together.

(cue shitty Bulworth jokes)

Is it only a minstrel show when it crosses class AND race boundaries, or is race alone the defining factor?

Mike, I think everybody thinks that, because we probably should, but there's still this image-awareness about it, to do with race and class and a million other signifiers -- and the end fact is that certain white people rapping, no matter how skilled, would still provoke WTF reactions and mockery and derision. It's not just a race or class but really a whole pile of signifiers involved in, well, "passing" in different hip-hop fields.

It's worth noting that the same thing affects black people, too -- the myth-world of rap has developed itself to such an insane point that even successful artists seem to have to spend lots of time trying to play into it right.