Via maura

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2007/10/22/071022crmu_music_frerejones

- I would imagine there'll be lots of blogtalk about this one. It feels to me like he's fighting old battles, or maybe telling old war stories that aren't quite as tightly relevant to now as they should be. But the point about the shift from imitator to fan seems an interesting one.

Meanwhile there's still a couple of hours to vote in the Pop Open.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

No, it's not as simple as just a two-way street - this may or may not be fair but nothing where one of the sides has been and still is privileged above the other as a matter of course ever is. The onus is not on black artists to acknowledge white music, which is still assumed to be the epicentre of popular culture. The onus isn't really on white artists to do much of anything either except shut up forever. The onus is on the people acting as the gatekeepers and tastemakers of popular culture to stop privileging white musicians and using them as a standard which subcultures have to aspire to.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

No, let's forget the onus stuff. Let's think about how there's little to no cultural exchange either way, and how that doesn't make anything better -- the music, the people, the culture at large. The hermetic culture is suffocating black music too.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Not as far as I can hear! (though from what I can hear, the cultural exchanges being made by "black music" are still going strong - hip-hop and r&b are still interacting with just about every genre out there including, unfortunately, indie rock. a bit more hermeticism is needed on that front)

[pot80.livejournal.com]

I think your attitude here is kinda the problem -- that to make things better, whiteness has to be warped or eliminated, that blackness must be placed on a pedestal. It'd be far better for there to be more of a dialogue, more cross-polination, more tolerance and understanding of different experiences, not just black or white.