Paul Gilroy's "The Black Atlantic"

1. Introduction

• Ship imagery
• The concept of the Black Atlantic
• Nationalism

2. Music

• Music as an example of the workings of the Black Atlantic
• Music as a form of Black cultural production (see example)
  
• The question of authenticity

Presenters: Megan and Karoline.

New Elect president

November 4^th was indeed a monumental day that signified a new beginning of hope and change for many. Barack Obama became the first African American presidential elected in the history of America. With his campaign of hope and change for the American people it was pretty easy to understand American fondness of him.

            Barack Obama as we all know was a senate before running for president. A new comer, whom many if under different circumstance and time period would express their hesitance about his lack of sufficient experience to become president. With his 4 years experience as an Illinois senator Barack as few has stated is “quite new to the game”.   Yet his powerful, well-spoken speeches have provided many Americans the chance to hope that a change (for the better) can occur.

 

            After election night many students in Albany gathered at the campus center expressing their joy for the new change that was bestowed on America that night: a change not only in the face of leadership but also in the way of leadership. Barack’ s distinctive perspective on what is need in order to bring back the trust and hope citizens had in government is what people admire about him so much, along with the fact that he was an uncommon presidential candidate.

           

            Barack during his presidential campaigned he emphasized a lot about rapidly ending the Iraq war, energy independence, and providing universal health care, and also plan to offer middle class tax cut to help the economy. He has started to work on his plan for a better economy even before being sworn in. His team of economic advisor has devised couple of plans that hopefully will go in effect by the time of his inauguration.

 

            As a face of hope for citizens of America I hope that our expectation of him is not set a standard where is it unreachable. We often loose sight that he is a man coming to lead to undo the years of damage done by others, and he even said it himself  “things will have to get worse before they get better.” Hopefully Americans will understand his point of view and provide what ever aid is need to help bring back our country to it top shape.

By Joyce 

Maya Lin

When Maya Lin came up with the design for the Vietnam Wall she had a vision to have the wall focus on people and not war. In a way she created a counter narrative to the general idea of the Vietnam War. Most people would think that the memorial dedicated to a war would be generally focused on the war and the scenes of the war. Maya Lin changed this around by having the memorial focus on the lives lost in the war and only that.

I think that Maya Lin's vision is a very unique one. You would often expect a war memorial to be about the war and the faceless soldiers in it, but Lin changed that. She made the memorial about the soldiers who lost their lives during the war. By having the names of each person who died etched into the wall, Lin made these soldiers no longer faceless. You always hear the number of causalities in a war but when you see the names on the wall it effects you in a different way. It shows that these soldiers who died were people not nameless, faceless fighters.

Lin's memorial is also has meanings represented by the nature around it. Her intention was to make a wound in the earth to represent the loss of the soldiers. Maya Lin said that she wants her memorial to help the people who have personal feelings about the Vietnam war to accept and admit the pain that they feel. The set up of the memorial helps show the loss of the soldiers and how big of an impact it has.

Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial is a very unique one. What stands out most to me is the simplicity of it. It's just a plain black wall with names carved in it. This is what makes it so great. All that it focuses on is the names. It's about the people who gave their lives in this war and nothing else. It's such a simple structure but it sends such a strong, direct message.

-Becky Berger

Portrayal of women in the media and pornography

Hip Hop Honeys and Da Hustlaz

Mireille Millers tries to explain that hard core porn and videos has played a positive and compelling role in the black media

industry. She explains that it offers a compelling narrative about the black sexual subjects to define their authority, legitimacy,

 and power. She also states that Hip Hop pornography provided black women and men with an arena for labor and accumulation, as well as self respect, mediation, and mobility.

Women, Pop Music, And Pornography

Meredith LeVande Argues that women in the media and music have become extremely Hyper-Sexualized. She Believes that the new pop industry is portraying all women in the same, in a highly sexual light.  She thinks that these types of images is what cause pornography to be mainstream, mainly surrounding the images of women. She thinks that the the people who own the media are the ones that cause pornography and the new hyper- sexualized view of women to be so mainstream.

Women in  the Media and Pornography

Are women in music videos and pornography being liberated or degraded? I think it  can go both ways. I agree with both Miller and Levande. The women that chose to be in businesses such and porn and music videos want to do that. Most of those women are very comfortable with their sexuality and their bodies. Like Miller explains in her article videos such as "Baby Got Back" commodified and commercialized the images of a beautiful black women. Before these images and the media view of  black women were non existent. The media mostly portrayed images of the beautiful white women with barbie doll figures. Now there was a new norm of black women with thick bodies and curves. It now liberated African Americans to have strong and power figures in the media.

 It can also have a degrading affect on women as well. Although the women in these spots may feel liberated, powerful and beautiful, the average woman in America may not. The video vixens and the playboy models do not show the actual norm and beauty of the everyday woman. Although the average women is sexy, you don't always see those women walking around everyday, half naked. I think that the media makes it too mainstream, at times, and makes the average women have to compete for the way their suppose to look. I agree that Sexiness of a female artist can play a role the success of that artist.  Most young, sexy female artist have a lot of fans and success because of their looks. Looks however, does not always determine success, there are a lot of successful female artist who do not go with the mainstream view of women, and dress however they please. 

Both Millers and LeVande's point makes sense and are very relevant. I think it really depends on opinion. Everyone has a different opinion on what's normal, sexy, liberating, and degrading. What America chooses to be mainstream is what the majority of America likes. Miller's point of view and the mainstream view of women it is the dominant narrative. The counter narrative would be Levande's point which a lot of people may agree with but still stays in the background.

 

By,  Ariel Emmanuel

Meridians

Hip-hop music has become a huge part of the music industry today. It was first recognized as the work of the poor and working-class blacks and Latinos in the late 1970’s to the early 1980’s. It has at least four different parts to it, including graffiti art, break-dancing, DJ-ing, and rapping, but often times is only thought of as rapping and rap music.

Now when looking at mainstream hip-hop or rap, there seems to be an obsession with material possession, power, women, sex, and violence.  All these obsessions are typically seen in the lyrics and music video’s, which causes many to argue that they don’t want themselves, or their children to be exposed to negative messages. Even with people going against it, hip-hop has become extremely popular listening, especially these last couple of years.  

Calypso and the Objectification of the Female Body

Calypso is a style of music that is African American/Caribbean and is traditionally male dominated. Along with the music is a dance, referred to as “wukking up”. More often than not, male calypsonians objectify women in their lyrics. An example from Meridians is, “focus on de bumper/ target practice/ get ready to fire/ hold tight/ lock on de bumper/ cause you are de hunter.” This refers to the men as being “the hunters”, and the women as being “the hunted.” The woman becomes just an object to be pursued.

In the Barbados, the male “wukking up” is not as controversial as the female “wukking up.” Many citizens feel it is disrespectful, overly sexual, and shameful. Other’s feel that it is an art that is part of the culture. What’s your opinion?

I’ve just focused on two parts in this book. What did you find to be interesting?  What sticks out in your mind?

M.I.A. : Kala

M.I.A., born Mathangi Arulpragasam, is a highly polarizing artist of Sri Lankan descent. Arulpragasm, orginally an acclaimed visual artist, essentially stumbled into the music industry. Her first album, Arular, is critically acclaimed by several media outlets for its mix of pulsating beats, unique style, and symbolic lyricism. The main themes of that album are politics and society. With Kala, M.I.A pushes even further.

After listening to the Kala, I could clearly tell that M.I.A intended several main themes. Oppression, feminism, and politics are the key topics of the album. The album is a true counter-narrative; the song "Mango Pickle Down River" is mostly filled with raps from Aboriginal youths known as the Wilcannia Mob. The chorus, sung by these youths, talks about going to swim when it's hot and going fishing. I'm fairly sure that no mainstream musician would even consider children, let alone Aboriginal youths, basically have their own song.

M.I.A. continues the theme of making a voice for the unheard and neglected with many other songs.

"I don't read, yeah I just guess,
As the world turns, don't bother me with your mess"
-"The Turn"

"Sick of all the shit that's keeping me down,
If you're dead from the waist down, it's easy staying down,
I never thought about it twice,
But you do pay the price"
-"World Town"

While the two songs have similar messages, they take different approaches. "The Turn" is probably the closest thing that M.I.A. will have to a ballad. Its sparse beat already leads you to the conclusion that it is a sad song. The idea of the song is to learn and move on from ignorance. On the other hand, "World Town" is an extremely catchy and fun song that challenges oppression with the chorus of, "Hands up, Guns out, Represent, The World Town".


"How many no money boys are crazy, how many boys are raw,
How many no money boys are rowdy, how many start a war"
-"Boyz"

"People judge me so hard cause I don't floss my teeth set"
-"$20"

Both "Boyz" and "$20" have feminist points. Her words on "Boyz" in essence state that rich men start wars. Her lyrics on "$20" proclaim feminism and challenge the ignorance of popular culture with the lyrics such as,
"Like do you know the cost of AK's up in Africa, $20 ain't shit to you but that's how much they are."


The song I caught the most meaning from was "Bird Flu". While I didn't find the actual music and beat catchy or particularly interesting, I saw a ton of symbolism and messages in the lyrics. There are many examples, such as:

"Big on the underground, what's the point of knocking me down,
Everyone knows I'm already good on the ground"
-This alludes to the fact that she thinks she deserves mainstream stardom but gets pushed back.

"I need a man for romance,
Streets are making em hard, so they selfish little roamers,
Jumping girl to girl, making us meat like burgers"
-This is truly feminist; it speaks on the sexism of men

"Bird flu gonna get you, made it in my stable,
From the crap you drop on my crop when they pay you"
-We created our own problems as a society

Almost every song had a thumping, crazy, throbbing beat. M.I.A.'s use of many unusual instruments and sounds make Kala extremely different from normal hip-hop or dance to the point where it is fairly difficult to even classify it. From rare Indian samples to unusual Jamaican instruments, M.I.A. did her best to be truly distinct. When you combine it with her lyrics, M.I.A. is beyond a counter-narrative, alternative musician; she is in her own class.

Class, please let me know what you thought of the album. I didn't think it would be right to go through each song one by one and point out narratives so I just picked the ones that were most appealing to me. Overall, I enjoyed "World Town" the most.

Post by Eric Samaniego

The Language You Cry In

The film "The Language You Cry In" was a powerful film that portrayed the journey home for a woman from America, and the people of Sierra-Leon.  Their connection: an ancient funeral song passed from mother to daughter for generations.  The damage the slave trade did to the African culture and its people, is being felt today.  Music was a man source for the slaves to express themselves and helped them endure life.

This incredible journey began with Amelia Dawley in 1931, a 50 year old woman, singing an African song with a haunting melody.  It was the longest African text in the United States at the time.  The words contained Mende dialect.  Anthropologists went throughout Africa playing the song to many tribes looking for recognition of the melody.  Finally they found a small tribe in Sierra-Leon, where a woman, Bendu Jabati, remembered the song that her grandmother had taught her.  She had told Bendu that one day an individual would come to the village that would know the songs of their family and they would be her brother and sister.  The uniqueness of this situation stems from the fact that it is extremely hard to trace one's lineage if you were brought here as a slave.  Very few know which tribe or where in Africa they originated.  The only reason that anthropologists were able to trace Mary, Amelia's daughter, to Sierra-Leon was because of the song Amelia taught her.  Mary as a child treated it as a game, as a rhyme that she would sing to herself.

This is common in history with children's songs and rhymes and even stories.  Ring-around-the-rosy is a famous children's song but its root are more morbid than a simple child's song.  It is from medieval times when the black plague was ravaging more of Europe.  Another less known piece of music that has a double meaning within it are the Shostakovich piano concerts.  Shostakovish wrote them during World War II where his village began learning of the horrors that were occurring to the Jews and to his countrymen.  The themes within the music have an almost crazed, forced happiness about them with an underlying sinister bass line.  As the music reaches its peak of forced joyfulness and psychotic cheerfulness, there is a climbing bass of impending doom.

Musicians use music to express their pain, their life experiences, and their sorrow.  The most memorable pieces that have survived the ages are the ones with the most profound meanings, and most of the time, these meanings are no longer remembered just as Mary did not understand the words she was singing only the significance of the history surrounding it and her ancestors.