I will never forget the day I heard it for the
first time. I had read online of its greatness, and how “important” it was.
They kept saying that over and over. The album was “important”. Why was it
important? After all, it was just a rap album. With a name like To Pimp a Butterfly how can it be taken
seriously? Even the title seems like a joke. It seems like it’s trying to hard
too be philosophical but come on.
It’s RAP.
I can’t express to you how excited I
was to be proven wrong.
Kendrick Lamar’s fourth album, To Pimp a Butterfly is the greatest
album I’ve ever listened to. A masterpiece through and through, I’ve never felt
like I did when I listened through the album. It’s gut-wrenching,
heart-breaking, and storytelling at its finest. It’s intelligent, thought
provoking, and yes, important. “Why?” Some of you may be asking, “It’s just a
rap album. How can rap be any good?”
The rejection of music because of
its cultural relevancy, geographical relation, or social image is a form of
ethnocentrism. The idea that music is bad, or not music just because of the way
it’s made or who makes it is disturbing to me. We all know the stereotypes. Rap
is dirty. Dubstep isn’t music. Opera is boring. Musical theater is gay. Metal
is satanic. You may or may not agree with some or all of these. Why? Because of
ones geographical location, occupation, and social class, studies show that one
most likely has had their musical interests influenced against people in other
classes.
A survey done by the University of
British Columbia by telephone was lead by Gerry Veenstra and was published in
the Canadian Sociological Association. Over 1,500 people participated, and the
results are predictable to what you can see in every day life. Now, this study
isn’t definitive, for, of course, there are exceptions. Those who study music,
either for hobby or for their career, know how important each of these genres
are to each other; they influence each other all the time. But what is it that
is so divisive about these types of music, and who are the culprits?
Veenstra, said it perfectly when he said,
“Instead I find a homology between class position and musical
tastes that designates blues, choral, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera,
pop, reggae, rock, and world/international as relatively highbrow and country,
disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap as relatively
lowbrow. Of the highbrow tastes, all but jazz are disliked by lower class
people, and of the lowbrow tastes, country, easy listening, and golden oldies
are concurrently disliked by higher class people. Consistent with the homology
thesis, it appears that class position is aligned with specific musical likes
and dislikes” But, what reasoning do people have for hating certain genres of
music?
Picture this: two young men in high school.
They’re angry, and they feel that they need revenge for the crimes committed
against them. They bring guns to school. Twelve of their peers now dead. Sound
familiar? This is the description of the Columbine massacre of 1999. “Five
days after the massacre, Tim Russert, host of NBC's Meet the Press, reported on
the show that the Littleton killers idolized shock-rocker Marilyn Manson,
described even by the music press as an "ultra-violent satanic rock
monstrosity”” (Jipping) Ever since this incident, metal music, and the
aforementioned Marilyn Manson, has many people concerned about, and prejudiced
against, its depiction of violence and other acts. Professor Carl Raschke (Head
of the religious studies department at the University of Denver) described the
aggressive nature of metal music this way,
“Heavy
metal does not mirror the violent so much as it artistically stylizes,
aggrandizes, beautifies, weaves a spell of enchantment around what would otherwise
be lesser and ordinary violent behavior.... Heavy metal is a true aesthetics of
violence. It is a metaphysics. It is the tactic of consecrating violent terror,
of divinizing it.”
Rap
music has been demonized in the same manner. The political nature of the form
is prone to controversy. In the 1990’s, hip-hop group N.W.A. were plastered as
deviants and criminals due to certain lines in songs they had picked out. Lyrics
like, “F*** the police coming straight from the underground, a young n**** got
it bad cuz’ I’m brown” (Ice Cube) are pulled out without any attention given to
the lines that come directly afterwards: “And not the other color and so police
think they have the authority to kill a minority” (Ice Cube). These are
politically charged lyrics based off of true incidents.
This
media bias against these forms of music is enough for many people to demonize
rap and metal in their own minds. Many people don’t take the time to do research
for themselves, because after all, it’s only music. It’s only meant for
entertainment. It’s not like metal and rap can teach us things.
Personally,
I’ve found that history is vastly more interesting when paired with the music
that helped influence the history, or the history that helped influence the
music. For example, 1970’s Birmingham was the birthplace of heavy metal. One
wouldn’t really pay too much attention to that time period and that certain
geographical location, unless something big came out of it. In fact, two really
big things came out of Birmingham in the 1960’s, Black Sabbath and Judas
Priest.
Birmingham
was a working-class area, with a majority of the populous working in large,
loud factories. Life was a grind, day in and day out, and people looked for a
new type of entertainment. Pop music at the time didn’t resonate with them,
because they felt that it didn’t accurately represent the lives they were
leading. Rock bands became more and more prevalent there, and those sprouting
from Birmingham itself drew lots of inspiration from the factories themselves,
specifically the noises they produce. Black Sabbath and Judas Priest became the
defining bands of heavy metal, drawing massive amounts of credit from the
factory-worn towns they grew up in. Rocks may be hard, but metal is harder. And
just regular metal wasn’t even hard enough, they had to be described as Heavy
Metal. This music helped those living in Birmingham discover and enjoy the
music that relates most to them.
This
parallel of the working-class and heavy metal continues even into today’s
society. A majority of those who listen to metal are people like construction
workers, farmers, servicemen (plumbing, landscaping), and, of course, factory
workers. They use the music as a release of the pressures they have built up
inside. Wouldn’t you feel a little tense too if you pressed sheets of metal for
ten hours a day on union wages? There have been several occasions where I’ve
had to explain the roots of a certain genre, or band, or song, so people
understand what the artists are trying to portray. It’s this lack of
understanding of music that’s so frustrating to me, and it’s also what creates
this musical ethnocentrism. It’s really not that hard to take a second and
Google the meaning of a song, or a short biography of a band, or genre. Most
people do it today when discussing political topics, maybe it’s time we took
time to do the same with music. The authenticity of music or the cultures they
stem from aren’t important enough to people, even though many of us listen to
music more than we listen to your own family. These complaints aren’t only laid
against the “lower-brow” tastes, the upper class isn’t safe either.
Imagine:
a freshman in high school. He’s an actor, and he loves it. He’s finally found
the one thing he’s good at. Attending a private school, surrounded by athletes,
he’s never really found where he fit in, until he stepped into theater. His
best friend is also an athlete, and until now, he’s never really thought his
friend disapproved. They sit at lunch one day, and our freshman makes a comment
about how his athlete friends should try out for the musical next year. They
all turn and look at him and say, “Why? That’s so gay.” Including his best
friend. He asks why they think it’s gay, and his best friend replies, “You’re
up in front of a whole bunch of people singing and dancing with a whole bunch
of girls. That’s literally so gay.” Our freshman says, “Then do me a favor,
never watch a movie, TV show, or listen to a song ever again. Oh, and continue
sliding around a field with a bunch of boys, slapping each others butts, and
not think THAT’S gay.” And he stands up and leaves, losing his best friend.
That
is my life. And all throughout high school, I dealt with this. But as I continued
to grow more confident in myself, I taught people what choral music and musical
theater could do for them. As I helped teach chorus classes full of jocks who
didn’t want to be there, I strove to make sure they understood the privilege
they had been given. I was also influential in getting kids who wouldn’t
normally do activities in the arts, to try, and learn how much they liked it. I
got our valedictorian (and football, wrestling, and track star) to take a
speaking part in our production of Fiddler
on the Roof my senior year, as well as encourage him to join show choir. And
he loved every second of it. With a little handholding, one can easily become
engrossed in these “higher” forms of music, even if they are newbies to the
idea. Even against the strength of social classes, it’s easy to open your mind
to new music with a little bit of help. One roadblock that is being lifted is
how we now access and discover new music.
In
my time with music, there are five main music sources that we all draw from:
iTunes, Spotify, Radio (including internet radios such as Pandora), YouTube, and
word of mouth. Streaming is now the world’s most popular form of accessing and
listening to music. At the tail end of last year, the app analytics firm App Annie
released a report on the massive growth in music streaming and the drop in
music download sales.
“There
is little doubt that across the world, the digital music market is moving away
from downloads and toward streaming services. In 2014, sales of digital song
downloads were down 12% from the previous year. Meanwhile, streaming services
are seeing big gains in user and subscriber numbers” (App Annie).
This
rise in music streaming has made accessing all types of music much, much
easier. Spotify in particular is full of all different genres of music with a
massive selection. Spotify also has a very popular radio service, which has an
excellent algorithm in determining what new music you may or may not enjoy.
It’s a vast and immersive experience that lets you create a radio station based
solely on one song, an album, artist, or genre. While Pandora leads in the
internet-radio service category, I prefer Spotify’s radio service.
Another
largely popular music source that is helping break down barriers is the
marvelously diverse YouTube. While YouTube isn’t exclusively for music, it has
an overwhelming amount of music related content, whether it’s talk shows, short
clips, covers, or music videos. In fact, the top ten most watched videos of
all-time are all music videos, with the top spot being claimed by South Korean
Internet sensation Psy. Facebook and YouTube have become an excellent duo in
the sharing of astounding young talent of all different styles.
Word
of mouth is still, and always will be, one of the strongest forms of music
discovery. Many of my favorite artists have been relayed to me through people I
know and love. Hearing word about a concert near by, or seeing your favorite
artists and discovering the opening acts is a great way to discover more and
more new types and genres of music you may have not been willing to listen to
on your own.
An
entry in the International Encyclopedia
of the Social Sciences explains some of the relationship between music,
society, and technology. “Recent developments in sociomusical scholarship,
heavily influenced by popular music studies, have advanced the enormous
significance of modern musical and communications technologies for a vast range
of contemporary musical practices, focusing on the diverse ways technological
mediation shapes and is shaped by commercial, aesthetic, political, and
cultural imperatives. Ethnomusicology in particular has focused on the emergent
category of world music and, in turn, the central modern social
scientific subject of cultural, economic, and political globalization, a focus
that brings together perspectives on “art,” “folk,” and “popular” musics under
the umbrella of a broader theory of cultural modernity and the global
circulation of musical commodities and styles” (International Encyclopedia of
the Social Sciences). Basically this is saying that the technology we access it
with, as well as its uses in commercial, aesthetic, political, and cultural
scenarios shape the way we ingest music. So then one might ask, “Well since
these are all such great and easy ways to discover more music, why do you claim
there is still a large amount of musical ethnocentrism?”
Even
with this easy access to new music, you can’t hide from the place you were
raised, or are most familiar with. Music geography is a concept many may not be
familiar with, but it emphasizes the study of music and how it has shaped the
earth and its cultures. The Journal of
Cultural Geography describes the criteria like this: “Music phenomena that
geographers have studied are divided into nine general categories: (1) styles,
(2) structure, (3) lyrics, (4) performers and composers, (5) centers and
events, (6) media, (7) ethnic, (8) instrumentation, and (9) industry” (Journal
of Cultural Geography). Each of these nine categories varies depending on where
one lives. Is it a slummy area or an upper class suburban neighborhood? Inner
city or the middle of nowhere? High police brutality or a safe neighborhood? Excellent
nightlife, or a spectacular beach scene? All of hold the answers to the type of
music that comes to life inside of it. That’s why there’s a difference between
east coast rap and west coast rap. It’s also why you can tell what type of
music comes out of Seattle, or Nashville, or even Chicago. But there have been
stereotypes created out of these cities for certain genres. Stereotypes for the
aforementioned areas include: east coast rap is all about partying, west coast
rap is all about Compton, Seattle puts out only depressing music, Nashville is
home to country music and Nickelback (one of the most hated acts in all of
music), and Chicago is home to Jay-Z and Kanye West (the most ego-centric
rappers of the Midwest). These stereotypes are ruining the means in which we
enjoy music.
I
challenge you to ask your family and friends these four questions:
1.)
How do you feel about metal music?
Why?
2.)
How do you feel about rap music?
Why?
3.)
How do you feel about electronic music?
Why?
4.)
How do you feel about classical
music? Why?
Take
note of how they respond. Are their answers more than stereotypical
answers such as, “Oh it’s trashy” or
“It’s not real music”? Take a closer look at yourself. Are your natural
responses to these questions similar to those mentioned above? I also challenge
you to take a closer. Do research for yourself. Discover for yourself what
makes each genre tick, and create a better understanding for yourself about the
cultural representation of each song, or each album, or each artist.
It’s
time to end this ethnocentrism against music. Music is one of the most
beautiful experiences we as people can take part in. When music speaks to you,
it’s a feeling unlike any other. It creates a connection between you and the
artist, and, upon closer inspection, the culture in which they stem from. Music
is special. Let’s not let those who enjoy it most ruin it for each other with
our bigoted views.
Who
knows, maybe once we look past the stereotypes in music, maybe we can look past
the stereotypes in the rest of our world.
Works Cited
Carney, George O. "Music
Geography." Journal of Cultural Geography 18.1 (1998): 1.Expanded
Academic ASAP. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.
"Class position and
musical tastes: a sing-off between the cultural omnivorism and bourdieusian
homology frameworks.." The Free Library. 2015 Canadian
Sociological Association 29 Mar. 2016
Harrison, Leigh Michael.
"Factory music: how the industrial geography and working-class environment
of post-war Birmingham fostered the birth of heavy metal." Journal
of Social History 44.1 (2010): 145+. Expanded Academic ASAP.
Web. 29 Mar. 2016.
Heisler, Yoni. "10 Most Viewed YouTube Videos of
All-time." BGR. BGR Media, 17 Jan. 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
Jipping, Thomas L. "Rap Music Leads to
Youth Violence." Media Violence. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. San
Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Diagnosing
the Cultural Virus." The World & I 14 (July 1999):
80. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
Kot, Greg. "The Music Industry Has Been
Revolutionized." What Is the Future of the Music Industry? Ed.
Ronald D. Lankford, Jr. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from
"Interview: Greg Kot of Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionalized
Music (Part 1)." Hypebot.com. 2010. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
"Mobile Music Streaming: Driving the Next Digital
Revolution." App Annie. App Annie, 1 Dec. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
"Music." International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed.
Vol. 5. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 342-345. Gale Virtual
Reference Library. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
