2 posts tagged “dance”
Audio: Share one of your favorite songs from 2006.
MH: I'm not. I'm really not. I know I have patterns and I've always
tried hard to avoid them. There are definitely certain things in my
music, if I'm looking back, "Well, that was a period where I was
experimenting with a certain kind of chord structure or a certain kind
of sound." I've tried really hard, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you
what that sound, what that tangible sound of "me" is. I think rhythm
is, when you talk about rhythmic sensibility, quite perceptive in that
I like to have at least one thing that is at least common or familiar
to the audience. Other than rhythm, the only thing I could say is that
I take a great deal of pride in every single sound I use. I'm always
making sure that I'm not using a pre-set or something that everyone
else has done. I try to be original in every piece of music I do, and
of course I probably fail every time.
Pitchfork: Let me ask you-- that moment in "Something Isn't Right" where he sings, "Do you re-mem-ber?" First time I heard that it reminded me of "September" by Earth Wind & Fire. I was sitting with my wife and I asked her, Do you think that's a direct reference to that song, or is it just a few notes that sound similar?
MH: There is a very slight reference there. It's a reference to the 11th of September because that's what the Earth Wind & Fire tune was called. I almost had it "Do you remember? The 11th of September?" But there was no way I could possibly put that in.
Pitchfork: So that's the kind of reference you're talking about, where you embed those kinds of things in the music.
MH: Exactly. And the record's full of them in different places. It's kind of like, trying to use every weapon in your arsenal to point people in a certain direction.
[...] In The Games Black Girls Play, Gaunt argues that cheers -- songs and seemingly nonsensical chants performed in conjunction with handclaps and foot stomps -- offer entertainment for black girls across the country, but they also play a more important role. They teach young girls aspects of "musical blackness," placing them socially in step with black tradition. The book examines black girls' forays into popular culture -- whether unconscious or deliberate -- and what their invisibility says about hip hop, musicality in the black community, and when and where girls enter the annals of music history.
At first it seems like a stretch to claim that the way girls play has influenced a commercial behemoth like hip hop. But have you heard Nelly's "Country Grammar"? Its sing-song chorus was sampled from black girls' games, and Gaunt suggests that the song gained popularity in part because it was immediately recognizable to black audiences. Gaunt emphasizes that male rappers like Nelly use such games as material, but female rappers do not -- an assessment that's blurry and not as convincing as her other arguments; it doesn't help that the aspiring female rappers Gaunt interviews about why this might be don't offer illuminating explanations.
And lest anyone think girls have been passive creators of sampling fodder for boys, over time girls have appropriated snippets of New Edition's "Candy Girl" and the Jackson 5's version of "Rockin' Robin" for their own rhythmic use in games, which underscores the reciprocal and often unexamined relationship between black girls and popular music. When Gaunt traces the origins of traditional games like "Miss Mary Mack" by fusing academic prose with vividly rendered memories, her journey is refreshing, if sometimes daunting in its technicality. [...]
That's the middle of "Playing for Keeps," a Joshunda Saunders review that C. shot my way a day or two after I saw this Yahoo Buzz Log post last week.
