lack Atusie avd toePotiies of Authenticity 7” tions of black intellectuals had their ehizomorphie systems of propagation anchored in a continued proximity to the unspeakable terrors of the slave experience. I argued that this critique was nurtured by a deep sense of the complicity of racial cerror wich reason, ‘The resulting ambivalence towarels modernity has constituted some of the most distinctive forces shaping black Atlantic political culture, What follows will develop this argomentin slighty differene direction by exploring some of the ways in which close- ness to the ineffable terrors of slavery was kept alive—cateflly cultivated in ttualised, social forms. This chapter begins a shifethae will be developed | further in Chapeer 4, where my concern wich black responses to modernity begins to be complemented by an interest in the development of black modernism. ‘The question of racial terror ahvays remains in view when these moder: jams are discussed because imaginative proximity to terror is their inauwgu- | nilexperience. This focus is refined somewhat in the progression from slave __Soviety neo the era of imperialism. Though they were unspeakable, these terrors were not inexpressibfe, and my main aim here ig to explore how residual traces of their necessarily painfil expression still contribute to his __torieal memories inscribed and incorporated into the volatile core of Afio- Atlantic cultural creation. Thinking abou the primary obiect of this chap- rer—black musics—requires this reorientation cowards the phatic and the incfble ‘Through a discussion of music and its attendant social relations, Fivant to clarify some of the distinctive attributes of black cultural Forms which are both modern and modernist. They are modem because they have been! ‘marked by their hybrid, creole origins in the West, because they have | struggled to escape their status as commodities and the position within the cultural industries ie specifies, and because they are produced by artists ‘whose understanding of their own position relative to the racial group and | of the role of art in mediating individual creativity with social dyna is shaped by a scnse of artistic practice as an autonomous domain either seluccantly or happily divorced from the everyday lifeworld, ‘These expressive culcural forms are thus western ancl modem, but this is otal they are. I want to suggest that, rather like the philosophical eritique __ssamined in Chapter 2, their special power derives from a doubleness, their unsteady location simultaneously inside and outside the conventions, as sumptions, and aesthetic rules which distinguish and periodise modervity __These musical forms and the intercultural conversations to which they con tribute are a dynamic refutation of the Hegelian suggestions that thought i reflection have outstripped art and that art ie opposed to philosophy _ asthe lowest, merely senstious form of reconciliation beaveen nature and 3 “Jewels Brought from Bondage”, Black Music and the Politics of Authenticity My natioalicy i ea Kool G Rap Since the mid-ninetcenth century a country’s music has become a political ideology by stressing national charaeteitics, appearing asa representative ofthe nation, 3 cvearwhere confirming the national principle... Yet music, more than any other autistic mealium, expresses the national principles antinomies as wel. TW Adorno (© blac and unknown bards of long ago, Flow came your lips to touch the sacred ire? How in your darkness, did you come to know ‘The power and beauty of the minstrels Ire? ‘Who irs rom midst bis bonds lted bis eyes? «fiom out the sill watch, lone and fong, the ancient fth of prophets ise ‘Within bie dak-kepr soul burst nro song? Heart of what slave poured out such melody Ag "Steal avay to Jesus"? On its strains Bis spire must have nightly Noated ee, “Though sill about his hands he felt his chan. Who lear great “Jorcan Roll" Whose starwaed eye Saw chatit ating ow"? And who ws he ‘Tae breathed that comforting melodie sgh, “Nobody knows de trouble 1 see"? “Jamies Weldon Jlneon Tite contemrorany debaces over mesemity and its posible alps cited inthe last chapter ave langely Sgnored msc, This ocd fiven thatthe modern dferentition ofthe trae, the good, and te beaut fatwas comyed dey in the ansfrnation of public ate of ular in gcoeral and the increased public Importance of al nds of mus Ihave Suggested that the eriques of modernity artiuleed by successive gener74 “Jewels Brough from Bondage” finite reali? The stubborn modernity of these black musical forms would eguire a reordering of Hegel’s modern hierarchy of cultural achievements. ‘This might claim, for example, that musie should enjoy higher status be~ cause of ts capacity to express a direct image of the slaves" will, The anti-modernity of these forms, like their anteriority, appears in che (is)guise ofa premodernity thac is both actively reimagined in the present and transmitced intermittently in eloquent pulses from the past. It seeks ‘not simply to change the relationship of these cultural forms to newly au tonomous philosophy and science but to refuse the categories on which the relative evaluation of these separate domains is based and thereby 10 transform the relationship between the production and use of art, the everyday world, and the project of racial emancipation, ‘The topos of unsayability produced from the slaves? experiences of racial terror and Gguied repeatedly in nincteenth-century evaluations of slave ‘music has other important implications. It can be used to challenge the privileged conceptions of both language and writing as preeminent expres sions of human consciousness. The power and significance of music within the black Atlantic have grown in inverse proportion to the limited expres sive power of language. Its important to remember that the slaves? access to literacy was often denied on pain of death and only a few cultural oppor ‘nities were offered asa surrogate forthe other forms of individual auton- omy denied by life on the plantations and in the barracoons. Music be: comes vital at the point at which linguistic ane semancic indeterminacy/ polyphony arise amidst the protracted battle between masters, mistresses, and slaves, This decideclly modern conflict was the produet of civcum= stances where language lost something ofits referentialty and its privileged relationship to concepts. In his narrative, Frederick Douglass raised this poine when discussing Gore, the overscer who illustrates the relationship ‘between the rationalism of the slave system and its terror and barbatty Mr Gore was a grave man, and, though a young man, he indulged in ‘no jokes, said no fanny words, seldom smiled. His words were in per- fect keeping with his looks, and his looks were in perfect keeping with bis words. Overseers will sometimes indulge in a witty word, even with the slives; not so with Mr Gore. He spoke but to command, and com manded but to be obeyed; he dealt sparingly with words, and bout fully with bis whip, never using che former where the latter would answer as well... His savage barbarity was equalled only by the con ssummmate coolness with which he committed the grossest and most savage deeds upon the slaves under his charge [Examining the place of music in the black Atlantic world means survey ing the self-understanding avticulated by the musicians who have made it, Black Music aud thePelitic of Authenticity 7 the symbolic use to which their music is pat by other black artists and ‘writers, and the social relations which have produced and reproduced the unique expressive culture in which music comprises a central and even foundational element. I want to propose that the possible commonality of post-shve, black cultural forms be approached via several related problems Which converge in the analysis of black musies ancl their supporting social relations, One particularly valuable pathway into this is provided by the dlstinctive patterns of language use that characterise the contrasting popu- lations ofthe modern, western, Alfican diaspora.* The oral character ofthe ccleurat settings in which diaspors musies have developed presupposes a distinctive relationship to che body tly the tight amount of impatience by Glissant: “It is nothing new to declare chat forus music, gesture, dance are forms of communication, just as important as the gift of speech. This is how we first managed to emerge from the plantation: aesthetic form in our cultures must be shaped from these oral structures” “The distinctive kinesics of the post-slave populations was the product of these brutal historical conditions. Though more usually raised by analysis of sports, athletics, and dance it ought to contibute directly to the under standing of the traditions of performance which continue to characterise the production and reception of diaspora musics. This orientation to the specific dynamies of performance has a wider significance in the analysis of black cultural forms than has so far been supposed. Its strengths are evis dene when itis contrasted with approaches to black culture that have been premised exclusively on textuaity and natrative rather than dramatugy, cmunciation, and gesture—the pre- and anti-diseursive constituents of black metacommunication ach of these areas merits detailed treatment in ies own right” All of them are configured by their compound and multiple origins in the mix of African andl ocher cultural forms sometimes referred t0 as ercolisation. However, my main concer in this chapter is ess with the Formal attributes of these synetetic expressive cultures than with the problem of how critical, evaluative, axiological, (antiJaesthetic judgements on them can be made and with the place of ethacity and suthenticty within these judgements. ‘What special analytical problems aise ifa style, genre, or particular perfor mance of music is identified as being expressive of the absolute essence of the group that produced it? What contradictions appear in the transmis- sion and adaptation of this culeural expression by other diaspora popula- tions, and how will they be resolved? How does the hemispheric displace- ment and global dissemination of black music get reflected in localised ttaditions of cttiesl writing, and, once the music is perceived as a world phenomenon, what value is pkaced upon its origins, particularly if they an idea expressed with ©%6 ‘Jemels Beanght from Bondage ‘come into opposition against farther mutations produced during its con. ‘ingent loops and fractal trajectories? Where music is thought to be em blematic and constitutive of raciat difference rather than just associated ‘with it, how is music used to specify genera isues pertaining to the prob- lem of racial authenticity and the consequent sel-identiy of the ethnic |gcoup? Thinking abour music—a non-representational, non-conceptual Form—taises aspects of embodied subjectivity that are not reducible to the ‘cognitive and the ethical, These questions are also usetil in trying to pin point the distinctive aesthetic components in black communication. “The invented traditions of musical expression which are my object here are equally important in the study of diaspora blacks and modernity be- ‘cause they have supported the formation of a distinct, often priestly caste ‘of organic intellectuals* whase experiences enable us to focus upon the ‘risis of modemity and modern values with special clarity. These people have often been intellectuals in the Gramscian sqnse, operating without the benefits that low either fiom a relationship to the modesn state oF fiom secure institutional locations within the cultural industtics. They have of- ten pursued roles that escape categorisation as the practice of cither lgish- tors or interpreters and have advanced instead as temporary custodians of 4 distinct and embattled evltuesl sensibiliry which has also operated a5 a political and philosophical resource. The istepressible 1 forbidden dewn are often still audible in theit work. Its characteristic syn- copations sell animate the basic desires—to be fie and to be oneselt— that are revealed in this counterculture’ unique conjunction of body and imsic, Music, che grudging gift that supposedly compensated slaves not only for their exile from the ambiguous legacies of practical reason but For their complete exclusion from modern political society, has been refined and developed so that it provides an enhanced mode of communication beyond the petty power of worts—spoken or written, Paradoxically in the light of their origins in the most moder of social relations at the end of the eighteenth century, modernity’ ethnocentric aesthetic assumptions have consigned these musical creations t0 a notion ‘ofthe primitive that was intrinsic ro the consolidation of scientific racism, “The creators of this musically infused subculture and counter-power are pethaps more accurately described as midwives, an appropriate designation following Julia Kristeva's provocative pointers towards the “feminisation™ ofthe ethical bases from which dissident political action is possible. They stand their ground at the social pivot of acavistic nacure and rational cul ture, I want to endorse the suggestion tha these subversive music makers and users represent a differ selP identity and theit practice of cultural polities remain outside the dialec- hms ofthe once J | through the concept of difference) expands and merges with torality. Py © kind of intellectual not least because theit Blac Mose and thePolites of Authesticiry ” 8icof pty and guile which, especially among oppressed people, has so often goveined the relationship between the writing elite and the masses of people who exist outside literacy. I also want to ask whether for back cul- tutal theory to embrace or even accept this mediated, tactical relationship to the unrepresentabe, the pre-rational, and the sublime woul be to sip fiom a poisoned chalice. These questions have become politealy decisive since these cultural forms have colonised the interstices of the euleural in ascy on ehulf not just of black Atlantic peoples but of the poor, ex ploited, anc downpressed everywhere, ‘The current debate over modernity centies either on the problematic relationships between polities and aestheties or om the question of science and its association with the practice of domination. Few of these debates ‘opscate atte interface of science ancl aesthetics whiel is the required stare ing point of contemporary black cultural expression and the digital tech- nology ofits social disemination and reproduction. These debates over modernity conventionally define the political instance of the modetn social totality through a loose invocation of the achievements of bousgeois de~ rmoetacy, The disctete notion of the aesthetic, in relaion to which thie sel sustaining. political domain is then evaluated, is constructed by the id and the ideology of the text and of textuality as a mode of communicative practice which provides a model for all other forms of cognitive exchange and social interaction. Urged on by the poststructuralist critiques of the metaphysics of presence, contemporary debates have moved beyond citing, Janguage as the fundamental analogy for comprehending all signifying practices to 4 position where textuality (especially when wrenched open ing careful attention to the structures of feeling which underpin black ex _ pressive cultures can show how this critique is incomplete, It gets blocked by this invocation of all-encompassing testuality. Textuality becomes 4 means to evacuate the problem of human agency, a means to specify the death (by fragmentation) of the subject and, in the sme manoeuvre, to cathrone the literary critic as mistress or master of the domain of creative ‘human communication, Atthe risk of appearing rather esoteric, L want to suggest that the history and practice of black musie point to other possibilities and generate other plausible models. This neglected history is worth reconstructing, whether ‘oF not it supplies pointers to other more general cultural processes. How ‘ver, I want to suggest that bourgeois democracy in the genteel metropoli _ tn guise in which it appeated at the dawn of the public sphere should not serve as an ideal type for all modern political processes. Sceondly, 1 want to shift concern with the problems of beauty, taste, and aetstie judgement7% “Jemele Brough fron: Bondage” so har dcuson isnot cicumscibed by he i teat Fvegrounding the ftey of lick mane ml encounges Both of these propositions. Tals equa dfernt gtr ofa concepts demand is amplified bythe nee o take sense of rial perfrtances in which identity i ectngl experienced in the most ime- pra somes soa patil by mews epee aes ofsigni inesis, and costume, Antiph- signing pets Hike mimes, gest, Kins, Sp ela response the pina oral stare ofthese muscl Sion Tees eae ob sen 51 ef oer mes of eulual expression, siping, slong sth improvisation, mong, an the herent hs tothe fll medley of Beck ate pra tices, Toni Morrison eloquently states her view of this important rela- soni. : ve lon’'t have the resources analogy of the music because you can range all over the world and it’s still black .. tnt imitate it, but Fam informed by i. Sometimes I P advantage ofopporn Black Muse and thePobitis of Authenticity 9 ‘The intense and often bitter dislogues which make the black arts move ‘ment move offer a small reminder that there is a democeatic, communitar jan moment enshrined in the practice of antiphony which symnbolises and anticipates (lu does not guarantee) news, non-dominating social relation. ships. Lines between self and other are blurred and special forins of plea: ‘sure are create asa result of the meetings and conversations that arc cstab- lished between one finetured, incomplete, and unfinished racial self and others. Antiphony is the structure that hosts these essential encounters, Ralph Bitison’s famous observation on the inner dynamics of jazz produc. tion uses visual art as its central analogy but it ean be readily extended beyond the specific context ie was weitten to illuminate: ‘There isin this a en contradiction implicitin the art form itself. For tre jazz is an art of indiviclual assertion within and ayainse the group. true jazz moment... . springs from a contest in which the artist challenges all the rest; each solo flight, ot improvisation, represents (like the canvasses of a painter) a definition of his [sic] identity: as individual, as member of the collectivity and as @ link in the chain of tradition. Thus because jazz finds its very life in improvisation upon taditional materials, the jazz man must lose his identity even as he finde ie ‘This quote offers a reminder that apare from the music and the musicians themselves, we must also cake account of the work of those within the expressive culture of the black Atlantic who have tied to use its musi as a aesthetic, political, or philosophical marker in the produetion of what | ight loosely be called their citical social theories. Here it is necessary to | __ consider the work oF a whole host of excmplary figures: ex-saves, proach ers, selFeducated scholats and writers, aswell asa small number of profes. | sionals andl the tiny minority who managed to acquire some sore of aca. = demic position in essentially segregated educational systems or took ites in Liberia, Haiti, and other independent states __ This company spreads outin discontinuous, transverse lines of descent that _ stretch outwards across the Atlantic fiom Phyllis Wheatley onvvards, Its | best feature isan anticierarchical wadition of thought that probably cul _inatesin C. L, R, James’ idea that ordinary people do not need at intel | ‘Jowels Brough from Bondage” 92 "Jowels Brongli fe lage singly mou ge. She atacked he coi?’ pxormances a at aaa eather and tought conan Nancy Canard amioloey Nar pt ofthe ging wp and don atyuc gee down tthe pen here has sen 30 ae eton ot Neyo songs townie senes. ‘The eps Ha reese anu te wort are Neo be sre, ba 0 al acti cheat Negro conzegators ve bgh entrained Seay ene tio songs so changed. Tey never we se ne aaaene ee taste ave ead less perth: sme daughter sree ne ono cllege and ens With ene ofthe od Snes Wats ac e200 pen " Ee ce is wk peo draws fas wy teak Suge This Gee Chiba gone of for 50 ons teats alae among concert singe hat is consid out ae eae pat Loy api th nor oe concer sing ince wos ti song ar the ero sone makers sing hem con the earth, from the original | shoul emphasise that as far as this chapter is concerned, whether Hur ight orsvrong about she Fisk Singers isnot the primary question. ston wis Fgh 5 ing son "The ise which interests mye more than her correetncss is her strong i isn zenuinely, and need to draw a line around what is and isnt authentically, genuinely reall black and to ase music as the medium whieh males these distinctions wr Richard Wright ‘vas yet another who became absorbed by the story ofthe Jubilee Singers when both ites were tying to make ee leap fom frerature to Hollywood, he produced a film script, “Melody Limited,” | Seale earns sarope, He explained thar the ‘ofthe film “ould be to depict the romantic and adventurous manner in which the frst Negro Educational Institutions were built and the part 1nd seetlar, played in theie build sil presented their music as mediating the ss and the nascent | ‘credible, Hutstox’s sometime adversary and competitor In the eatly forties, which was based on the singers" cavels ia and role Negro Folk songs, religious ing. Weight, who felt that the impression left by the singers was ‘extant in Europe and America,” d relationship between an outmoded abolitionist pol in our society” and deur ofthe songs” His travelling si Blacle Musie atv shePolites of Anthentcity 93 fanily and the prime minister, who are held spellbound by their sublime aut. In the script’s central scene, the black choir competes against a similar Irish ensemble who on purely racist grounds are awarded the victors to phy for an impressive but inferior performance. This illegitimate result pre eipitates the sudden death of one elderly member ofthe black group, and in their mourning for her te Jubilee choir improvise a “half Afican, half slave” song which even the watching Mt. Gladstone recognises as eapable ‘of conquering death itself: “The ring shout mounts, and as it does 50, it ‘ranaforms itself into a song of wild, barbaric beauty vo death” ‘Almost one hundred years after the Jubilees set sil from Boston for England on the Cunard ship Batavia, another black American musician made the transatlantic journey to London. Jimi Hendtix’s importance in the history of Affican-American popular music has increased since his un- timely death in 1970. The European wiumph which paved che way for Hiendeis's American suecesses presents another interesting but rather dif ferent case ofthe political aesthetics implicated in representations of racial | authenticity. A seasoned, ifill-tiseiplined, shythm and blues sideman, Hi eis was reinvented as the essential image of what English audiences felt | bbhek American performer should be: wild, sexual, hedonistic, and danger ‘0s. His biographers agree that the updated minstrel anies of his stage | shows became a fetter on his ereativity and that the irrepressible issue of ial politics intervened bitterly in his fluctuating relationships with the | oglish musicians who provided the bizarre backdrop to his blues-rooted | reativity*” Jim's shifting relationship to black cultural forms ancl polities! | movements caused substantial problems when he returned to play in the | United States and was denounced asa “white nigger” by some of the Black | Power activists who could not fathoms his choices in opting to cultivate an | Imost exclusively white, pop audience that found the minstrel stance a | positive inducement ro engage with his transgressive persona ifr his mu | “sie. Charles Shaar Musray quotes the following diagnosis of Hendrix's sue © cess by the rival English blues guitarist Bric Clapton: “You know English people have a very big thing towards a spade. They really love that magic “thing. They all fll for that kind of thing. Everybody and his brother in England stll think that spades have big clicks. And Jimi came over and | exploited that to the limit... and everybody fell for it” Sexuality and _ aubentiity have been intertwined in the history of western culture for y pst tel role or undeniable confemation of ts enduring posne, his neces were parodic ofon ‘Jewels Brougi from Bondage” the loa dfnions of wha blackness ened and 9 the combine sd For the British trendy publi, who hardly ever outwardly acculturated an- tires, te ie ane i out a th Aor ond ggg lacs was a bie mich>™ Bled woul ne wejonlte he ambien cowards both Backes apd Amen through Theva cology ofthe eps hat apenas works ines then secompantmen to he deen ply fer and mor paleay engaged mac wh a all-black be i Athen 8 oto ho const in my hie example of tae sonal apni cura neva ent on Landon Tes provide by eon hanced sere the ck Aan nce haa in SMF icon group. Te ince hve precy Breese height 0 ono recone aed reepoy ail gine avn from ats Thnk ngs wasnt thought to be spon By those wo produced aS te mae Ti also mor contemporary example, tought «ne in So Prowl only es ad peonned by ; 6 | Mandela became a paternal talisman thar could suspend and sefocus int Bac Muse and sheBolitiss of Authenticity 95, the Chicagoan vocal tio the Tmpressions, a the peak of ther artistic and «commercial succes in the mit-1960s. The group's istics hits lke “Gypsy Woman,” “Grow Closer Together “Minstrel and Queen and “People Get Ready” were extremely popular among blacks in Baitain and in the Caribbean. In Jamie, the male vocal tro format popularised by the band inaugurated a distinct genre within the vernacular musical fora which \would eventually be marketed internationally as reggae. The Wailers were only the best known of many groups that patterned themselves on the Im pressions and strove to match the singing of che Ameiicans in its ich har ‘monic textures, emotional dynamics, and black metaphysical grace ‘Anew version ofthe Impressions’ hit “I'm So Proud” topped the reggae charts in Britsn curing 1990, Revded “Proud of Mandela” it was per formed in interperformative tandem by the Brarmme tosster Macka B and the Lovers? Rock singer Kofi, who had produced her own version ofthe tune closely patterned on another, soft soul version that had been issued by the American singer Deniece Williams in 1983, T want to make no spe cil claims forthe formal, musical mests of this particular recond, but think ies useful example in thac it brings Africa, Ameica, Europe, and) the Caribbean seamlessly together. It was produced in Britain by the chile dren of Caribbean and Afjican setters frm raw materiale eupplied by blac} Chicago but filtered through Kingstonian sensibility in order to pay tribute tos black hero whose global significance lies beyond the limits of his pata South Alcan citizenship and the impossible national identity which goss with it The very least which this muse and its history can offers toy is an analogy for comprehencling the lines ofaliation and association which] take the idea ofthe diaspora beyond its symbolic status as the fagmentary| opposite of some imputed racial essence. Thus foregrounding the roe of| music allows us to sce England, or more accurately London, as an im- portant janction point or erossroads on the webbed pathways of black At- tc political culture. I is evealed to be a place where, by virtue of local factors lke tne informality of racial segregation, the configuration of class ‘elations, andthe contingency of linguistic convergences, global phenom ‘ena such as ant-colonial and emancipationist potitcal Formations are still > being sustained, reproduced, and amplified. This process of fsion and i termiseure ecognised as an enlancement to black cultural production y the black public who make use of it. Its authenticity or artificiality was it thougitt to be a problem partly because it was content fo remain inside the hidden spaces of the black cultural underground and also because of the difference made by the invocation of Nelson Mandela, The mame of | facial differences that might prove difficult and even embarrassing in oth96 ‘Jewel Brought from Bondage” circumstances. His tlease from prison projected an unchallenged, patriar- chal voice, a voice rooted ia the most intense politcal conflict bewveen blacks and whites on this planet, the fina frontier of white supremacy on the Aftin continent, out across the relay systems of the black Adantic, “The heroic, redemptive authenticity that enveloped the image of Mandela in these locations was nicely deconstructed in a speech that ke himself ‘made in Detroit om his fist visit co the United States. Mandela answered the Alficenttic expectations of his audience by confiding that he had found solace in istening to Motown music while in jail on Robben Island. Quot ing ftom Marvin Gaye's “What's Going On?” be explained, “When we ‘vere in prison, we appreciated and obviously listened tothe sound of De- twoit?* The purist idea of onc-way flow of Affiean culture From east £0 ‘vest was instantly revealed to be absurd. The global dimensions of diagpors dialogue were momentarily sible and, ashe easual words lt up the Black “Atlantic landscape like a fhsh of fightning on a summer night, she value of music as the principal symbol of racial authenticity was simultaneously confirmed and pled in question ‘Music Criticism and the Politics of Racial Authenticity “The problem of cultural origins and authenticity to which these examples point has persisted and assumed an enhanced significance as mass culkare hhas aequied new technological bases and black music has become a truly global phenomenon. Ie has taken on greater proportions as original, folk, Or local expressions of black cultute have been identified as authentic and positively evaluated for that reason, while subsequent hemispheric or ‘global manifestations of the same cultural forms have been dismissed as inauthentic and therefore lacking in cultural or aesthetic value pre because of their distance (supposed or actual) from a readily identifiable point of origin. In his book-jacket comments on Nelson George’s The] Denth of Rhyehin and Blues, Spike Lec, a well-known exponent of cultaral protectionism, makes the obvious contemporary version of these arge- ‘ments. “Once again Nelson George nas shown the the direct correlation benween the music of black people and their condition. It's 2 shame that the more we progiess as a people, the more diluted the music gets. What] isthe answer? ‘The ffagmentation and subdivision of black music into an ever- increasing proliferation ofstyles and genres which makes a nonsense ofthis pole opposition between progress and dilution has also contributed to] situation in which authenticity emerges among the music makers as a | highly charged and bitterly contested issue. The conflict between the tu v4 Black usic ad thePabisies of Astheneleisy o7 peters Wynton Marsalis and Miles Davis is worth citing here as yet another example of how these conficts can be endowed with a political signif cance. Marsalis argued that jazz provides an essential repository for wider black cultural values while Davis insisted upon prioritising the restless ere- ative cnexgics that could keep the corrosive processes of reification ancl commodification at bay. Marsalis’ assertive, suit-weating custodianship of tradition” was dismissed by Davis asa safe, technically sophisticated ‘ne of catlier styles. This was done not on the grounds that it was inauthentic, which had been Marsalis’ ertical charge against Davis’ “ft- sion” output, but because it was felt to be anachronistic: What’ he doin’ messing with the past A player of his calibre shout just wise up anc realize its over. The pasts clead, Jaz ie dead... Why {get caught ap in that old sbi’... Don't noboxly tell me the way it ‘vas, Hell, Twas there .. no one wanted to hear as when we were playing jaze ... Jazz is dead, God dann it, That’ it fini! its over and there’ no point apeing the shit” ‘There are many good reasons why black eultures have had grea difficulty in seeing that che displacements and eransformations celebrated in Davis’ ‘work after “In a Silent Way” are unavoidable and chat the develope processes garded by conservatives as cultural comtansination may actually be enccbing or suengthening. The effets of raciam’s denials not only of back cultural integrity but of the capacity of blacks co bear and reproduce ‘any culture worthy ofthe maine are cleaty salient hece. The place prepared for black cultural expression in the hierarchy’ of ereatviy generated by the pemicious metaphysical dualism that identifies blacks with the body and nd isa second significant fctor. However, beyond these general questions lies the need to projects coherent and stable caciel ture a8 a means to establish the politcal legitimacy of black nationalism and the notions of ethnic particularity on which it has come to tely. This defensive reaction ro racism canbe said to have taken over its evident appe> ste For sameness and symmetry from the discourses of the oppressor. Euro- pean romanticism and cultural nationalism eontebuted diecty to the de- _ wlopment of modem black nationalism. It can be traced back to the impact of European theories of nationhood, culture, and civilisation on clite Aftican-American intellectuals in the eatly and mid-nineteenth cen- tury Hlere, the image of the nation as an accumulation of symmettical family units makes a grim appearance amidst che drama of ethnic identity- construction, Alexander Crammell’ endorsement of Lote Beaeonsfcle’s views on the fuaclam: should sound a cautionary note to contemporaty cult | importance of race as “the key to history” al crities whe98 “Jewels Brought from Bondage” ‘would give artists the job of refining the ethnic distinctiveness ofthe group and who are tempted to use che analogy of family not only to comprehend the meaning of race but to make these rather authoritarian gestures: “Races, like fumilies are che organisms and the oxdinance of God and race feeling, lke family feeling, is of divine origin. The extinction of race feeling. is just as possible as the extinction of family feeling. Indeed race is family ‘The principle of continuity is as masterfil in races as itis i. Families —as it is in nations?” Dut Bois pointed out long ago that “the negro church antedates the ne- ‘aro home," and all black Atlantic appeals to the integrity of the family should be approached with bis wise observation in mind. The Family is something more than merely # means to naturalise and expel from histori- cal time relationships that should be seen as historical and contingent. This Fink between family, cultural reproduction, and ethno-hermenentics has been expressed cloguently by Houston A. Baker; Jn, the leading Affcan- American literary cvtic who has advanced the wope of the family as a ‘means to situate and periodise the whole history of black cultural produe- tion and more importantly 2s a kind of interpretive filter for those who ‘would approach black cultures, My tale, then, to say again wih 1 have sad, is of a complex ela of sounding strategies in Afco-America that are part ofa family. The fam- iy’ history always no matter how’ ic is revised, purified, distorted, emended—begins in an economics of slavery. The modemnity of oor familys sounding strategies resides in thir deployment for economic (ovhether to ameliorate desie oF to secure material advantage) ad vancement, The metaphor that I uscd earlier seems more than apt for such salvifc soundings—they are indeed blues geographies that cat never be waderstood outside a family commitment (emphasis added) Baker's position isin many ways a sophisticated restatement ofthe absolut- iscapproach ro “race” and ethnicity which animated black nationalism dor- ing the sixties but which has run inte trouble more recently. This position hhas not always found it easy to accommodate the demands znd priorities (of feminisms, many of which see the Family relations that sustain the race as playing a les innocent zole in the subordination ofits female members. “This position has also failed when faced with the need to make sense of the increasingly distinet forms of black culture produced fiom different dias- ora populations. It bears repetition that even where Aftican-Ametican forms are borrowed and set to work in new locations they have often been deliberately reconstructed in novel patterns chat do not respect their origi ators? proprietary claims oF che boundaries of discrete nation states and _ the supposedly natural political communities they express or simply con- | guestions of identity and culture currently stage a confrontation betes __- two loosely organised perspectives whieh, in opposing each ote, have be Black Musi ana theaities of Anthenticity 99 ‘ain, My point here is hat the unashamedly hybrid character of these black Aante cultures continually confounds any simplistic essential or ante ‘sents ndercanding ofthe rebontip bernen al Mey an ‘aca non-identny, between fol cura authenticity and pop culture bes taal. Here he idea of th cil community «aly ben naked and appealed to asa means to signify connectedness and experiential cont awity thats everywhere denied by the profane reales of black ie amit the debris of de-industriatisation, [vant to ask whether the growing cen. tealty of the family trope within biack polcal and academie discourse Points to the emergence of distinctive and emphatically posenational me. "ety of racial essentialsm. The appeal to family should be understood as both the symptom and the sgnatine of a neo-nationalist outiook that is best understood asa flexible essentilism. The relationship Oeeween this ‘ea, imaginary and pastoral black family and ucopian aswel as authortar. ian sepresentations of blackness will be considered agin inthe conclu ing chapter i Pop culture fas been prepare to provide selective endorsements fr the pea that some black thinkers wish to place on authenticity and has ven set this pecaloge to work inthe masketing of so-called World Mie sic Authensciy eahaees she appeal a'sclected cultural commodes wel has become an imporsan element in the mechanism ofthe mode of racial sation necessary to making non-European and non-American musics ac. ceptable items in an expanded pop matket. The elscourse of authenticity has bsen a notable presence in the mass marketing of successive black folk, cultural forms to white audiences, The distinction heween ral and urban blues provides one good example ofthis, though similar arguments are still made about the relationship berween authentic jizz and “fusion” styles supposedly covrovied by the legitimate amalgamation of rock inuences or the strogle berveen real nsttuments and digital emulators lial these ‘axes itis ot enough for eis to point out that representing authenticity __ always involves artifice. This may be true, but itis noe helpfil when trying to evaluate or compare cultural forms let alone in trying to make sense of _ their mutation. More important, this response also misses the opportunity to use music as a mode! that can break the deadlock between tie two un- satisfactory positions thac have dominated recent discussion of black cul tal polities. ‘Soul Music and the Making of Anti-Anti-Essentialism, As I argued in the opening chapter, critical dialogue and debate on these100 Jewels Brought from Bondage” ‘come locked in an entirely fruitless relationship of mutual interdlependeney: ‘Both positions are represented in contemporary discussions of black music, and both contribute to staging a conversation between those who sce the inusic as the primary means to explore critically and reproduce politically the necessity ethnic essence of blackness and those who would dispute the existence of any such unifying, organic phenomenon, Wherever the confrontation between these views is staged, it takes the basic Form of con- flict between a tendeney Focused by some variety of exceptionalist claim (usually though not always of. nationalist nature) and another more avow~ cally pluralistic stance which is decidedly sceptical of the desire to rotalise black culture, et alone to make the social dynamics of cultural integration synonymous with the practice of nation building and the project of racial ‘emancipation in Alica and elsewhere, “The fst option typically ietifes music with tradition and cultural eon tinuity, Its conservatism is sometimes disguised by the radical nanare of ts alfirmative political rhetoric and by its lancable concern with the relation- slip between music and the memory of the past. Te currently announces its interpretive intentions with the popular slogan “Ie's a Black thing you ‘wouldo’t understand.” But it appeats to have no great enthusiasm for the forbidding, racially prescriptive musical genres and styles that could make this bold assertion plausible. There has been no contemporary equivalent to the provocative, hermetic power of dub which supported the radical Ethiopianism of the seventies or of the anti-assimilationist unintellgiblity cof bebop in the fortes. ‘The usually mystical “Afticentrsm” which animates this position perecives no problem in the internal differentiation of black ceultures. Any fiagmentation in the cultural output of Afticans at home ane abioad is only apparent rather than real and cannot therefore forestall the power of the underlying racial aesthetic and its political correlates. “This exceptionalist position shates elitism and concemps for black popu lar culture with the would-be postmodern pragmatism which routinely and inadequately opposes it. Something of the spirit of the second “anti- cssentialist” perspective is captured in che earlier but equally historic black 7 vernacular phrase “Diflerent strokes for different folks.” This notional plu- ralism is misleading. Its distaste for uncomfortable questions of class and power makes political calculation hazardons if not impossible, This second position refers pejoratively to the first as racial essentalism. Tt moves to- tvards a exsual and arrogant deconstruction of blackness while ignoring the appeal ofthe first positior’s powerful, populist affirmation of black culture. ‘The brand of elitism which would, for example, advance the white noise (of Washington, D.C. Rasta chrash punk band the Bad Brains as che last word in black cultural expeession is clealy itching to abandon the ground _ - the dificule task of st Black Muse and thePolisies of Anshenticity 101 ofthe black vernaculae ently. This abication ean only Hate that space ‘open to racial conservationist who veer benveen a volkish, proto fanlst sensibility and the misgy-cyed sentimentality of those who would shroud themselves inthe supposed moral superioty that goes with vem satus, eis antamoune to ignosing the udiminished power of rei sel? ane forsaking the mass of black people who continue to comprehend their ved particularity through what it does to them. Needless cosy, de Kingering se fet isto inte pli Belt eed at inthe cultural industies which provide the major vehicle forts excystation pace memared upon “Ieis onic, given the importance acconded! to music inthe habitus oF diaspora black, that neither pole i this tense conversation takes the music very seriously. The nasa which unas both standpoines is revealed by the way tha they both forsake discussion of musieand its atendant dean tugy performance, val and geste infivour ofan obsessive fascination wih the bodies ofthe peetormers themselves. For the unashamed essen Ent Neon Georg denounces kno ve al sgcryand wear blue oF green contact lenses, while in the opposite eam Kobe Aercer steal reducer Micha aso’ vice fro his bos, then isa, and evenly whi ephataly dno imge. 1 ‘want to emphasise that even though it may have once been an important Fcc inshaping the inl erin on whch pie engage a ysis of black culture takes place, the opposition between these rigid per: spective has become an obstacle 0 etealthoorsog ‘The-ynctetc complesity of black expresive cultures alone supplies porvs Gels ee ee el rca aie ee ane) __esides inside these forms, working a powerful magic of alteity in order to trigger repeatedly the perception of absolute identity. Following the lead _ established long ago by Leroi Jones, I believe it is possible to approach the nc a caning rath than a unchanging sue, Toda tees ng fo comprehend the eprietion of clu aio notin the unprbiensteenaiadon of fed ese Cows Sime tin the resi nt interapns which ogg that he incon of traton may tele a distinct hog ones poset the deste Ising fx ofthe post contemporary word, New tans hare been inne in the jus of modem eypenence end new coreepons ocr _ sity produced in the long shaclow of our endusing traditions-—the African ‘ones and the ones forged fiom the slave experience which the black verna | ular so powerfully and actively remembers. This labour also necessitates far closer attention to the rituals of performance that provide prin facie = svidence of linkage between black cultures.102 ‘Jemels Brought from Bondage” cue esl enity plteal cae, and grounded sett at i pec communis hve fet ben const dough si Sn efectos messing ht rm aa ean and conn, mse crea pera Fe rch ns in she ebspoy polar opsten Be i raking et gn magn ands ete era Oe Te nga end flies eral while. Te cam Pt the ee accommo often Fe potantlement ithe ental comes Bot ee oie, lcemn,eontrin 4 oat 2 on the mie cle slo ae» ling lepsey ent es ie pany sol ofthe spore an then shold 90 ete eee pes siya omens To scan Dewsed to cee a ode why Mest on a a er et Fae pence nor ar age an ey cnt bende oc rcentay hwlapd whi oeee 7 Fo on nen. Dick ny inotamph oxo boi and re or abandoned scoring och net which i ots an ins is pesasie or ation a cnn yn i ed = rae ee eb) expecta eco sl Thowgh tis fen Pen (05 pmancous, temas the owcae of rca Bo oe biysgitereos, ese. We ci se Fo sci: a peo uminae emecessy pote 60 Sena dean a-an-el hat seb se Shc th soil pcs ht sappsed ete om Fe eg be morn sul] a he eee een of aera asian the pesncorlatve of certain eho snide or tp oy ent be ong 0 that he sol 8 08 ope gal ft On te cnsary xh ea Arey andy hn Seb the aeoning ‘owe thar ced 1 earn be condense in he procs of mp eee eee oe ofcourse, monopole then Inthe Back Ada ecomtent, they produce the imaginary effect of an internal racil core oF tesence by acting on the body through the specific mechanisms of ident fracon and recognition that are produce in the intimate interaction of Blacks Muse nd thePolities of Authenticity 103 arc has sought co resist, have explored elsewhere how the struggle against eee eee black mass culcarat creation assuines. Negotiations with that status are re- vealed openly and have become a cornerstone in the'anti-aesthetie which governs those forms, The atidity of those three crucial terms—production, ‘Grculation, and consumption—does seant justice co the convoluted outer- national processes to which they now cefer: Bach of them, in contasting, ways, hosts « politics of race and power which is hare to grasp, let alone fully appreciate, through the sometimes crucle categories that political economy and European cultural critieism deploy in their rentative analyses of ethnicity and culture, The term “consumption” las associations that are particufsrly problematic, and needs ro be carefully unpacked. It accentw: ‘ates the passivity ofits agents and plays down the value of their cxeativity 25 well as the miero-politial significance of their actions in understanding the forms of anti-discipline and resistance conducted in everyday life. Mi- ‘hel de Certeau has made this point ata general level: Like law fone of its models}, culture articulates conflicts and alter- | nately egitimises, displaces or controls the superior force. Te develops in an atmosphere of tensions, and often of violence, for which it pro- vides symbolic balances, contracts of compatibility and compromises, all mote oF less temporary. The tactics of consumption, the ingenious ways in which the weak make use of the strong, thus lend a political! dimension to everyday practices? Some Black Works of Art in the Age of Digital Simulation 1 suggested in Chapter 1 that hip hop culture grew out of the cross: festlisation of Afiican-American vernacular cultures with their Caribbeart equivalents rather than springing filly Formed from the entrails of the blues. The immediate catalyst for its development was the relocation of Clive “Kool D] Here” Campbell from Kingston to 168th Steet in the F Brons. The syncretic dynamics ofthe form were complicated further by @ distincly Hispanic input into and appropriation of the break dance moves “which helped to define the style in its early stages. Bue hip hop was not just the product of these different, though converging, black cultural tradi sions. The centrality of “the break” within it, and the subsequent refine: | mene of cutting and mixing techniques through ligital sampling whieh took the form far beyond the competence of hands on turntables, mtean hat che aesthetic rules which govern it are premised on a dialectic of rescu- ing appropriation and recombination which ereates special pleasures and104 ‘Jems Brongh from Bondage” isnot ined co the technologie comple n which i oie oe deperely tctred form ofthese musical piss i worth conskering For f moment It recalls the characteristic flavour of Adorno’s remarks other, fr distant sexing: Su cng oh me cope ney oa eee one NewS wing anv on ssa tongs ve ree woo ls ply oth mgood Tee. U con ht crc cn deposi te egnsd os neni texan, cosa ie oreion ngage ei nee i ch sec isearensare diorgnily combined with ig iron sts sat nd soe: iy ms, pind frag ech or singing, ancl saples ftom cartier ecordings—both eae epumenttone open teu cided In pf af Saad : ex this radical form to one im- ch Doran enon obsseThe on Her append whch Earp Rue eet se eorage a usc pose of compos sheng to smash Idee ts emping © eae ie esn Stgenon sone Yen of mong”