Hello all, here are some of the points from my presentation on The Poetics and Politics of Pygmy Pop.
Schizophonic Mimesis- separation of sound from its source. copying/imitating sounds.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s Anthropologist, and Ethnomusicologists made recordings of the Central African forest peoples (Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Mbuti, Baka, BaBenzele, Binga, Ngombe are all considered ‘pygmies’ and are forest people from the Central African Region.
For the Mbuti, song is used to communicate with the forest. The sound awakens the forest. The forest is benevolent and powerful. Quiet (social cooperation) pleases the forest and Noise (laziness, aggressiveness) displeases the forest. Singing opposes noise and silence and stimulates the forest to start talking. Singing opposes death, reestablishes harmony.
I should point out that the tribes had different songs for different purposes, but to illustrate the point of how their sacred music was taken and re-contextualized, and sold as a commodity I will use the music created with the papaya-stem whistle by the BaBenzele people and what it led to.
The whistle produces one tone only. The BaBenzele developed the technique of blowing into the whistle and then alternating the tone with a vocal pitch. This is a recording taken from an ethnographic study.
In Hebie Hancock, Headhunters popular recording of “Watermelon Man” one of the band members who had heard the ethnographic recording produced a similar sound by blowing into a beer bottle.
Two decades later Madonna sampled Hancock’s recording in her song Sanctuary:
Hancock sees himself as having the authority to make such musical references, and that in his case it’s politically or culturally acceptable. It’s in the jazz tradition of recycling to burrow, quote, or build upon what’s already been done. It’s the same self-referential style that we see in rap and hip-hop.
Madonna’s record company WB gives Herbie Hancock a co-author credit on her song, and they licensed and paid for the sample. Both Hancock and Madonna profit off the recordings while the BaBenzele received nothing. You can also hear the same whistle technique more recently in Arcade Fire’s song ‘Everything Now’
Who owns this sound? Who controls it, and who should have the rights to use it?
Here are some other points, and questions I came away with from the book:
The recordings of the Central African forest peoples were meant to be Anthropological and Ethnomusicological documents and yet they end up reaching a large and diverse audience, packaged, commodified, recontextualized.
The music of the Central African forest peoples is distinct, and it is their own so shouldn’t they be the ones to say how their invention is used.
Distinct music of a culture that has sacred meanings being sold by people who appropriate their music, bastardizing it. Sometimes claiming that they care about the forest peoples, but doing almost nothing to support their way of life as in ‘Deep Forest’.
‘Western’ researchers went to foreign lands to study, and document a foreign peoples. Western culture is linked to a colonial past which includes exploitation and inequitable treatment of those they tried to dominate.
Schizophonic Mimeses
Post Modernism: appropriation from mimesis is the official bastard of social hierarchy and shows the mark of unequal power relations. Lots of other artists have drawn inspiration from African music, but when is it ok and when is it inappropriate?
Are African-American, and African artists in a position of power over the African Forest peoples?
Governments of Central African countries mine their resources in-order to help pay back large debt owed to Western countries. The people who suffer culturally lose some of their habitat, and gain nothing in the process.