draw for the skip (mattress theft is a revolutionary act)
Posted by Chris on November 23, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Hélio Oticica, Parangolé P15 Cape 11, ‘I embody revolt’, 1967
Hot on the heels of Kuduro’s rise to fashion Rupture brings the theory. In a time when RSS feeds rise and fall every second and global ghetto music can be sampled in London art galleries. This seems pertinent especially in a city where people from every country in the world constantly trade visual and sonic registers (as well as currency).
“The attraction of the precariousness of the Developing World for artists and curators seems to lie not in the situation of crisis itself as much as in the responses that it encourages. Potr? often speaks of the ‘beauty’ of slum architecture,[9] while Francis Alÿs marvels at the ways in which people in Mexico ‘keep inventing themselves,’ like a man in his neighbourhood who spends his day cleaning the gaps between the pavement flagstones with a bent wire.[10] The Turkish artist collective Oda Projesi, who were included in The Structure of Survival, seem to summarise a widespread, if often implicit, belief, when they explain that inhabitants of the prefabricated houses erected after the 1999 Adapazari earthquake ‘construct these annexes by choosing the materials in accordance with their own conditions and needs, just like an artist or an architect.’” Dezeuze
With perhaps the most advanced cultural self(reflexive)-sense of consumption the people who re-draw the trans-national dynamics of ’slum’ music are often white Europeans (and I include myself in this). It’s not where you’re from its where you’re at (i.e. what consumed information composes your particular self-image). A bric-a-brac aesthetic like the one Dezeuze describes above is appealing because of its similarities with the (re)creation of self-image through consumption. Some take this further than others and a causal interest in mattress theft as an exoticised example of an alternative economy (for the theory of this see de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life) can escalate into fully blown and over-specified cases such as white male south Londoners performing various Jamaican masuculinities.
Of course the source material for self-(re)definition can be diverse and it would be extremely naive to assume the fashionability of adversity described by Dezeuze is merely a case of an exponentially expanding urban/Western culture cannibalising those of the developing world. Cultures feed on otherness to define their own boundaries. Check Kano on this Amadou et Miriam remix – “I stand my ground like Rosa Parks…I’ve been a warrior ever since I saw Braveheart/I’m loyal, genuine and honest/And I back my boy like William Wallace”. I always enjoy the fact that Roll Deep’s Jet Li stole the name of one of the most famous movie stars in the world presumably because Jet Li is just so fucking cold.
So although its easy to scoff at the latest slum-chic fad (watch Vice), take it easy on those who excitedly consume cultures because of their difference. The resulting self-images might be repetitive and not half as interesting as they think they are but at least these people sometimes play good music and might even fill a dancefloor if you’re lucky. Authenticity only works if we believe in the intrinsic properties of race/class/gender etc. Speaking of which the Italian rastas bring their night back to Passing Clouds this weekend. Probably playing roots from at least 10 years ago, but that ten year gap makes issues of cultural ownership that might worry some all the easier to ignore.
PS/ November’s mix is definitely working now. Info back here.
