Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 23:32:40 +0100
From: John Hutnyk <John.Hutnyk-AT-urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
Subject: Josie 2nd [Fwd: cooler shaker]


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------A603F90E755A431D0E2A9195


--------------A603F90E755A431D0E2A9195

Received: from relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.119.201])
	by mail.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA18158
	for <f08-AT-ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 13:01:40 +0100
Received: from thatsjust.lovely.net (exim-AT-thatsjust.lovely.net [193.128.6.142])
	by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id NAA25026
	for <John.Hutnyk-AT-urz.uni-heidelberg.de>; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 13:01:01 +0100 (MET)
Received: from ([195.40.61.10]) [195.40.61.10] 
	by thatsjust.lovely.net with smtp (Exim 1.82 #1)
	id 0yH5uX-0000yw-00; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 12:01:03 +0000
X-Sender: meta01-AT-pop.lovely.net
Message-Id: <v01510102b13c000b4d0c-AT-[195.40.61.10]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 13:13:50 +0000
To: John.Hutnyk-AT-urz.uni-heidelberg.de
From: josie-AT-metamute.com (Josephine Berry)
Subject: Re: cooler shaker

Dear John,

Thanks for getting back with such extensive comments.

I suppose what this comes down to - if it's at all possible to be brief
here (!) - is the fact that you see music (rightly of course) as a product
of its cultural/political/economic/etc.etc. context and therefore any
appropriation of that by external cultures as a direct engagement
(conscious or not) with those circumstances. The implications of which are
clear and the hypocrasy, willful ignorance and the false consciousness of
certain appropriations is clear. But where your argument falls down is your
refusal to answer the question: Are there instances of mixing the music of
different ethnicities which does not fall into this trap? And more
specifically to your particular area of interest - i.e. Western uses of
non-Western musical traditions - are all such adoption automatically
Orientalist. I think sayinng that it's not your problem to lay down the dos
and don'ts is missing the point. Of course no-one would want you to and
there would be little point in that. These questions relate far more to an
examination of your own position than the formulation of prescriptions.

I haven't read your piece on hybridity *yet* and I will do so today - but
while I've still got fire in my fingertips I'll just state two objections
that immediately come to mind:
1) Cultural mixing or hybridity can be bricolage - a way of indicating that
no cultural artefact is whole or natural or central etc.

2) Music, it could be argued, in many cases seeks to transcend the
circumstances of its production. Although reaching 'outside' to the music
of a foreign culture immediately implicates the (always already implicated)
musician, it could conceivably be motivated by the will to find an
'outside' to the inside of the muscian's circumstances. I think your
argument sweeps away the possibility that Westerners are looking for ways
to confound the cirucmstances that position and entrap them through the
music of ethnic culture and that this can entail a fully conscious
knowledge of global power relations.

All in all I think your criciticsm of KS are right on, and mostly those
criticisms can be levelled against musicians doing the ethnic thang - but
there must be possibilities for non-racist cultural hybridity or the
scenario looks bleak for a variety of reasons.

God- that wasn't brief at all. If that was brief, I've got pantaloons for
underpants.

Keep up the good fight,

Love Josie




---------mute: 2nd floor, 135-139 Curtain Rd, LONDON EC2A 3BX.
----------------------------T: +44 171 613 4743/ F: +44 171 613 4052
----------------------------------E: josIE-AT-metamute.com/ W: www.metamute.com


  *  *  *  *  *   we no longer have roots  *  *  *  *  * we have bouffants
  we no longer have roots *  *  *  *  *  we have bouffants  *  *  *  *  *
  *  *  *  *  *   we no longer have roots  *  *  *  *  * we have bouffants
  we no longer have roots *  *  *  *  *  we have bouffants  *  *  *  *  *





--------------A603F90E755A431D0E2A9195--





     --- from list seminar-12-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---