Annotated Source

1!

I'm done with the assignment - chheeeya. Don't fret - I'll still do research. I don't need assignments to do what I do.

Dufelmeier, Daylan. "A Forty Million Slave's Moment of Clarity." Jay-Z: Essays on Hip Hop's Philosopher King. Ed. Julius Bailey. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. Print.

In another annotated source I cited the introduction to the Jay-Z essays book, but several of the essays deserve closer examination. Here's one. The Forty Million Dollar Slave by William C. Rhoden that this essay alludes to and cites details the problems inherent in the vast moneymaking potential of black Americans through the centuries, and the primarily white businessmen that have tapped and taken the money their "Forty Million Dollar Slaves" made through their talents. Daylan explores Jay-Z's unique position as an incredibly lucrative black individual who is yet playing within the old system. As interesting as that is, more relevant to the direction of my studies in hip hop is the closing paragraph of the essay, where hip-hop's potential power for positive social change is defended and Daylan pleads for an increased and more effective use of hip-hop in this arena. I witnessed a beautiful and moving example of Tibetan activist music this past March 10th, and the use of hip-hop for Tibetan activism is readily apparent on the internet - I wonder, as I have in other posts, if any of this is going on in Bylakuppe.

"'Hip hop's true significance for the community activists and leaders I have worked with resides in its ability to encourage young people to believe they have the power to make a difference'(Watkins 255). In The Hip Hop Generation Bakari Kitwana documents scores of situations when hip hop has used its remarkable talent for change (206, 207, 208, 209). Potent lyrics laced with criticism of society would be more effective to make system-wide change than uncritical lyrics or black (or rapper) ownership. With lyrical skills like Jay-Z's rappers have such potential to challenge status quo and empower people to resist injustice... Songs that make heads nod yet retain socially empowering lyrics is what I call a win, win." 138

The recent tragic and touching rise in Tibetan self-immolation is certainly food for socially conscious music, especially as the Tibetan plight is remembered by a world grown callous over the last twenty years. We'll see what happens.

Annotated Source

2...


Dennis, Christopher. Afro-Colombian Hip-hop: Globalization, Transcultural Music, and Ethnic Identities. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2012. Print.

Here's some Afro-Colombian Hip-hop for context. Let the music play.

This just dropped, a great book about a vibrant hip-hop community. Here are a few relevant quotes (remember that stuff about this being for me, not you? Yeah, this is that. The videos, though, are for both of us.)

Generally speaking, hip-hop is defined as the culture, while rap is the music considered to be one of the four pillars of hip-hop culture: breakdancing, DJing (turntables), MCin (rap), and graffiti. From a cultural and musical practice originating among African American, Caribbean, and Hispanic youth in the Bronx, it has become a global signifying practice providing new parameters of meaning to locally and/or nationally diverse social groups. Beyond U.S. borders, hip-hop has become a vehicle for youth affiliations in parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 2

All too frequently the media, politicians, and scholars use globalization to describe intercultural and international contact and economic exchange, which, in that case, would simply imply a new term used to define older processes that have a very long history. 10

In the end, most agree that globalization has definitely led to a fundamental acceleration of the pace of the social, cultural, and economic change around the world, greatly aided by technological advances in communication systems that permit the instantaneous movement of information and finance capital in a way that local events are influenced by events that take place at great distances and vice versa... It is vital to consider whether and in what ways has globalization been negative or positive for Afro-Colombian urban youth. What challenges and benefits has globalization presented and how are they manifested through Afro-Colombian hip-hop? 13

Together, globalization and postmodern theories have contributed to a dramatic shift of the terrain of culture toward the popular, toward everyday practices and local narratives - often from the margins of society - which, in turn, challenge the privilege historically bestowed on "high culture." (Hall, "What Is This 'Black' in Black Popular Culture?"124) 15

Hip-hop's worldwide appeal can greatly be attributed to the global fetishization of black peoples as a way for non-blacks to experience "real" or "exotic" culture. And naturally, the understanding of U.S hip-hop as an expression of African American culture has played a critical role in its spread and assimilation among black youth of the diaspora... Nevertheless, hip-hop has also migrated so extensively among the world's youth due to its associations with lower-class urban environments and its strategic marketing as music by and for marginalized groups who live in ghettoized, often violent, worlds, providing an imaginary with which inner-city youth can identify regardless of their ethnic-racial background, nationality, or language. 43-44


Dig.

Annotated Source

3...
Jay-Z interview on Charlie Rose, 9 November 2007

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8771

This is the second interview Charlie Rose did with Jay-Z.

Some notes:

Jay-Z talks over and over again about how rap saved his life. He was a crack dealer, making good money and driving nice cars, when he decided to go with a friend named Jazz to London to do some shows. His partner in the hustle was stung and went away for twelve years. He decided, based on that experience and some other close calls, to pursue rap as a career. No one would sign him, so him and some friends started their own record company and used skills gained from the hustle to promote themselves. They became successful independently, and then the record label noticed them. 

Rap artists are typically 17-18 years old when they first get signed. 

Russell Simmons is the Godfather of hip-hop entrepreneurship. That's a good place to do more research.

Good ol' Russ

Talking about the problems in the entertainment industry, don't just take the rap industry to task - take the video games industry, the movie industry, on and on.

People give words power - take the N word away and the racist will use another word. The word isn't the issue, it's the feeling behind it.

"Chasin' History" - this will probably be the name of the biography someone will write when Jay-Z dies. He describes the reasons he stays in hip-hop, now that money is no longer a problem, and the biggest reason is what he calls chasin' history. The rap game became a tool for changing history and influencing a whole culture, especially as it could be inspirational for young kids who think the ghetto is all there is. This black crack-dealer from Marcy project became a $450 billion dollar net-worth CEO with 14 Grammy awards - what else is in store? What is possible?
The Assimilated Negro: Chasing History: Jay-Z & Charlie Rose
Urban Dictionary: chasing history

"Rap is a competitive sport"- taking shots is part of the game, and it usually isn't personal at all. People who want to go somewhere have to grow a thick skin, and the more jabs taken the more successful the jabbee probably is.

Jay-Z took the CEO position at Def Jam Recordings as a way to 1) be creative in another outlet, and 2) be an example to the artist community, proving that it doesn't always have to be some old dude who never touched a mic running the show, and that young black kids can and should aspire to greatness in any field, including the white dominated business field.

I've been thinking about the worthwhileness of these interviews as annotated sources, and I stand by the decision. Not much of this will make its way into the project proposal, but it will serve the purpose of true research - it has made me more conversant in a topic that will be important to me personally and to the people I live with in my study location, and will link directly with the project in a major way. I can't go into a community without a background in the important topics and expect to have any credence or respectability. So, here I am, annotating interviews with the King of America. I have the coolest major.

And, just so you don't think I'm making shiz up:

Rolling Stone said it. I agree.

Annotated Source

4...
Q&A with Jay-Z , 8 December 2010

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11374

After the interview at the Brooklyn Museum, the stage was opened for questions. The Q&A session lasted about an hour.

About the music industry and where Jay-Z wants to take it:

The music industry screwed up an opportunity to modernize when Napster became big, but, in a way, the internet might save the industry. As the sales of records in brick and mortar stores goes down and as illegal downloading increases, the draw of becoming a rap star decreases. People who got into the rap scene in the beginning knew, just knew, that money wasn't part of the equation, and rappers had to have a love of the game. As the mid-90s came and rap became lucrative, many rappers got into the industry not for artistry but for money. Jay-Z laments this, and sees the internet as a way to weed out those who aren't really in it for what he considers pure reasons. With so much music coming down the tube, and with the power of the record labels being thus reduced, the cream will rise. It's interesting to me that someone who has made so much money from record sales would support a new way of doing things that threatens the bottom line but could possibly produce better art.

"Rap is dead" by NaS is a sentiment echoed across the industry. Jay-Z views it as a challenge, which vibes with the other responses I have heard. Rap has died to a degree, due to the huge amounts of money involved, and there is a lamentation echoing off the Brooklyn walls. Kids making rap in communities where money isn't going to be part of the equation just might be part of the solution.

I like the recognition that the internet has changed things so much, and it will be fun to see to what extent this has affected Bylakuppe.

Annotated Source

5...

27 October 2004 Jay-Z interview, Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose has interviewed Jay-Z 3 major times. This interview from 2004 was the first.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/1211

Here are some of my notes from the interview.

Roc-a-fella brand name came (obviously) from Rockefeller, but why? Rock and roll, in many ways, discouraged monetary success, or the appearance of it. You have to stay grungy, keep wearing the leather jackets and smoking the cheap cigarettes (this is a sweeping statement, and not true in all cases). Hip-hop, from the beginning, has been about an aspiration to affluence. The dream of the kids from the projects is to get money, pay for their parents' houses, keep their friends fed and happy, etc. I think this is part of why hip-hop is popular among most minorities - there is an unabashed drive to get paid and get comfortable. Rockefeller represents all of that, and Roc-a-fella strove for that too.

"Hip-hop is what you live. Rap is what you do."

99 Problems (famous song - I'm sure most of you know it)

is not about women at all. The first verse is about the industry and its problems, the second verse is about a K9 unit (play on words in more than one way, if you know which problem Jay doesn't have), and the third verse is about getting punked and played. It goes into race relations, about good people who do bad things (who make a living doing bad things), etc. It is a great example of a song that seems, on the surface, to be about misogyny and braggadocio, but turns out to be much deeper. In analyzing hip-hop verse, it is essential to understand context and the truth that the hip-hop artist has to hide deep issues beneath a rough surface, or else it won't sell well enough to reach the audience the artist wants to affect.

This last one is for Charli.

Annotated Source

I am going to finish the rest of my annotated sources. I have 6 left. Here's to the countdown.

As I may have mentioned, learning about hip-hop is fun and essential to understanding any minority group in the modern world that is linked to the internet. I've been looking at two of the biggest artists in hip-hop, guys who are familiar to anybody interested in the scene. I've done quite a bit of research on Lil' Wayne, and now I've been going through interviews and books by/about Jay-Z. Jay-Z is the old man in the industry, the big boss who sits on half a billion personally and still produces records that kids put on in the cars and the clubs. He's been with hip-hop since its golden days in the 80s, growing up in Brooklyn and playing the crack hustle game until a short while after his first album came out at 26 in the early 90s.

The interesting thing about these two dudes, one old and one new, is that by tapping into these rich sources of information (the internet is full of interviews, documentaries, and books like the one above) I can take the temperature of the whole industry. These next few annotated sources will be from interviews with and books about Jay-Z, focusing on reflections on the industry and the art.

Here are two sweet quotes from the Jay-Z essay book that suffice for now:

Hip hop… serves as a force, particularly for minorities, of creating a new identity – but also a new rhetoric to augment the identity, a new lingo, new symbols of identity that have become part of a metamorphosis of black and brown youth, who have become part of a crescendo of lifted voices that stretch from the cotton fields to musical stages, from activist rallies to presidential inaugural receptions.

Hip hop… is this younger generation’s way of comprehending and dealing with life’s changing reality. The birth of hip hop gave rise to a primacy of education, cultural awareness, and consciousness, as well as to insight into inner-city doings and sufferings. The current generation of hip-hop artists is dealing with the ideal of achieving importance through fame. As they serve in such cultural roles as gurus, teachers, and worldly philosophers, they provide patterns of inquiry that help us deal with the need to matter, the quest for historical impact.

Annotated Source

George Morgan & Andrew Warren (2011): Aboriginal youth, hip hop and the politics of identification, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34:6, 925-947

Winnipeg's Most, an Aboriginal Hip-hop group

Abstract:

This paper explores the identity work taking place around contemporary subcultural hip hop amongst Australian indigenous youth in two disadvantaged urban locations. Previous work on Aboriginal hip hop has been attentive to the interface between tradition and modernity. However, existing scholarship has lacked a deeper ethnographic understanding of the dynamics between youth and parent cultures, and the tensions between the two generations. This article is based on research with young hip hop enthusiasts, community activists and educators. It deals with the cultural politics of identification and sees hip hop practice as associated with a process in which Aboriginality is crystallized as a principal affiliation and as offering an account for experiences of social marginalization. Far from being an outlet for expressing a prior or essential Aboriginality, hip hop as cultural practice is associated with the production of particular identifications.

What I really like about this source is the recognition that musical cultures among young people serve not (only) to articulate a previously existing culture or tradition through a new musical expression, but that identity and culture is created at the same time the music is created. A Tibetan kid rapping about Tibetan problems creates a new identity in the process of rapping, and creates new methods to deal with both the problems he or she personally and the problems the society has. Hip hop is a wonderful example of a particular set of musical styles that has assisted marginalized youth in creating identity all over the world, but other musics have also played key roles - dig the Tibetan metal musician Techung hipped me to, or the blues and rock group The Yak Band.

Annotated Source

"An Hour with Jay-Z from the Brooklyn Museum." Interview by Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose LLC, 8 Dec. 2010. Web. 19 Mar. 2012. <http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11337>.

I heard about this video earlier today, and I also heard (from an anonymous source) that interviews make perfectly good annotated sources. So here it is.

Jay-Z is a genius. Going from crack dealing to becoming the philosopher-king of hip-hop, sitting on a cool $450 mil, is no feat for chumps, suckas, or anyone without an incredible amount of drive, intelligence, and talent. It was fascinating to watch one of the biggest stars in the industry talk about his philosophy of music and rap culture. One of the points he emphasized over and over again is the importance of context in a consideration of hip-hop (the focus of his book Decoded), which vibes completely with my ethnomusicological training. You can't understand a song like NWA's "F*** tha Police" without taking into account the local and national scene from a black ghetto perspective, and if you try to you will only see a bunch of reckless, irresponsible "Niggaz Wit Attitude" instead of artists communicating the frustration of an important American social group.  He conducts ethnography from the insider perspective, having been and done everything the rap game stands for. I hope I can find a transcription of this! Useful stuff.

Annotated Source

Hooray for overlapping coursework! We read this as an assignment in my world music class.

Stone: Theory for Ethnomusicology pp. 12-16 and 18-22


Stone goes over the ideas of method, participant-observation, technique, assumptions, hypotheses/research questions, and study object. This is particularly useful, as she is approaching the ethnographic terms from a specifically ethnomusicological standpoint. 


Some of the take-aways include rethinking my approach to my hypothesis (I think I should change it into a research question - I really don't know what I will find in Bylakuppe, so it might be more useful to acknowledge that ambiguity), reinforcing my plan to learn music as my central research method (really, the more I think about it, the "research" is a bunch of dookie - I honestly just want to learn music and Buddhist philosophy and have fun with it. The research part is to fulfill the rather inane requirements of the program, so I picked an area that I am interested in but would rather not worry about - maybe a drastic, last-minute reworking of the project is in order? Hmm... I've heard that I can just do that in the field, so I'll go with it for now), and refining and broadening my study object (I'm rethinking what I mean by 'youth,' and maybe the truth is that I do want to look just at 18-24 year olds, and anybody younger or older will just be incidental to the core of the project).


Anywho, it was good to know that I'm not alone. Thanks, Sister Stone.

Annotated Source

Pragmatics 19:1.103-127 (2009)

International Pragmatics Association

TRANSLOCAL STYLE COMMUNITIES: HIP HOP YOUTH AS

CULTURAL THEORISTS OF STYLE, LANGUAGE, AND

GLOBALIZATION*

H. Samy Alim




Another fascinating thing I observed with the Tibetans on Saturday was the way the young males styled and characterized themselves. Some were wearing traditional robes over matching jeans and sneakers, while others wore styles associated with the youth music scene - nice sneakers, ear piercings, gelled hair, etc. This article by Samy Alim decodes and explores the worldwide hip-hop phenomenon through a linguistics perspective, which is really where I noticed the chosen style of the teens at the march. Some of the kids I overheard used slang, vernacular, vocal register, and sentence construction drawn from hip-hop culture. It was flawless.

Samy Alim sums up the article nicely in the abstract, "Highlighting youth agency, the article demonstrates that youth are engaging in the agentive act of theorizing the changes in the contemporary world as they attempt to locate themselves at the intersection of the local and the global." This is exactly what I saw, and it blew my mind a little to have my suspicions confirmed in such an intense way (I'm used to my suspicions being blown apart, not confirmed). I cannot express strongly enough how identified these teens were with the hip-hop culture, at the same time that they were marching and participating fully in a freedom rally for their longed for homeland. It is possible that some were there just because their friends were, or just because their parents made them go, but from what I saw there was sincerity in their participation.

It reminds me of the Shapaley phenomenon - listen to this song. Guess, without looking at the lyrics, what it's about. The way the music and the rhymes are constructed is very much in line with American hip-hop, and the association of this sound with particular lyrical content is undeniable. Then read the lyrics, and let me know what you think.

Annotated Source

Musical Community on the Internet: An On-Line Ethnography 
Author(s): René T. A. Lysloff
Source: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 18, No. 2 (May, 2003), pp. 233-263
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3651522 .
Accessed: 05/03/2012 02:20




 Very cool article arguing for the internet and internet communities as viable and fertile ground for ethnographic research, particularly in the mod music scene. For one thing, I really dig video game music (mod's granddaddy) and the amazing things early composers did with limited storage and processing power. C64 music still has a vibrant community, creating compositions using "primitive" software as both a creative exercise and a labor of love. It reminds me of tearing down my drum kit every once in a while and keeping only the most basic elements - it forces a reconnection with creativity in the dearth of simple variety. If you're interested, C64 music is all over the internet for free download, and the files are tiny so you can get a huge sampling without spending too much hard drive space. http://www.hvsc.de/ - check it out. 41,250 songs in one 80 meg download. Win. 


In a more contemporary and popular vein (not everyone on the internet is into ultimate nerd-dom in the form of Commodore 64 music), websites like this: http://www.breakmysong.com/ assist artists in finding inspiration and partners in crime.


Relevant to my project is the ability of musicians and listeners to use the internet for nearly instant collaboration with people from around the world that they may never see in person. The hip-hop, punk, and electronica scenes do a lot of work on the interwebs, sharing beats and competing for the most hits. I hope to discover a secret pocket of Tibetan musicians or two on the net, but my not speaking Tibetan may slow things a bit... I'll let you know how it goes.

Annotated Source

Hip-hop gangsta or most deserving of victims? Transnational migrant identities and the paradox of Tibetan racialization in the USA 

Emily T Yeh

Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; e-mail: emily.yeh@colorado.edu

Kunga T Lama

Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; e-mail: kunga75@yahoo.com
Received 30 June 2004; in revised form 26 October 2004

Environment and Planning A 2006, volume 38, pages 809 ^ 829

Great article about how Tibetans, especially youth and young adults, navigate identity in the US. There is particular identification with hip-hop culture, which is, from what I have seen, rather universal among displaced communities that gather in the US. There is quite a bit of tension between the older generation, seeking to preserve a unique Tibetan identity, and the younger generation. Some of the most interesting things from the article are the raps of Tibetan hip-hop kids (warning: cursing ahead):

––you lost so jus admit // while yo ass is monastic // my shiet is fantasticno im not sarcastic'' (13 November 2001)

–– ... if failed, no option but to digest bullets into ya chest // and rest in peace and follow your fate // n i'll be wishing you to reincarnate // again in tha body of a human being wid a soul of a MC who comes back to battle // but not to

regulate...'' (3 November 2001)

–– ... i remain silence in Tibet cuz of tha chinese regulation // now that i got tha right of speech, i bust our words that can fill out tha whole ocean // now dont try to get into too deep // cuz i smoke you out like smoking weed // scared tha fuuck outta you that you won't even dare to speak'' (3 November 2001).

––ThiS 1 is for all my asains .......... StanD uP and FiGht ..... if u eva call me a chink // i`ll drown u in my kitchen sink // ... // half of u poeples are jus stereotypical // ... // to all my azains get up stand up // like Bob Marely cuase we fed up // and we aint gonna let up // ask me agian if i know kung fu // i`ll take out my blade and cut // cut u up into peices like pizza and deliver u before 30 minutes is due // ... // we got cars that can`t even match up to yur price // girls so hot they melt ice // as long as im asian im reppin my pride // ain`t got nuttin to hide // always got a phat ride // and grls world- wide // this is an asian invasion // got lov weather u tibetan or malayasian // so we don`t need no hateration // cause we the next generation // ... muthafukaz.....recongize and respect........thas a wrap'' (24 November 2001). 

It'll be cool to see how these same issues are dealt with in Bylakuppe.




Just found this, too: http://knowthankyou.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/cultural-imperialism-and-tibetan-hip-hop/

Annotated Source

Mozart in Mirrorshades: Ethnomusicology, Technology, and the Politics of Representation Author(s): René T. A. Lysloff
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 41, No. 2, Special Issue: Issues in Ethnomusicology (Spring - Summer, 1997), pp. 206-219
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/852603 .
Accessed: 05/03/2012 02:19

I was wondering about the effects of the technology I will be using to record the music in Bylakuppe, and I  came across this sweet article from 97. It uses a sci-fi story, "Mozart in Mirrorshades," to illustrate a few ideas about media tech and ethnomusicology. This sums up the conclusions, "Thus, ethnomusicologists might learn several lessons from the story: (1) that the "native"is not necessarily a naive and passive recipient of media technology; (2) that media technology may be especially empowering for those people with little or no political and economic power; (3) that people may use media technology in radically new and surprising ways, and infuse it with meanings specific to such use; and (4) the social meanings associ- ated with particular technologies often change as these technologies traverse cultural boundaries." (p.217)

Annotated Source

Ellwanger, Tracy, "“Oh Uncle Pema!” The Role of Musical Agency in the Creation of a Modern Tibetan Identity" (2005). ISP Collection. Paper 415.
http://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/415 





"Aku Pema," a popular Tibetan song, is used as a case study for what the title denotes. Interesting ideas from this article are the resistance of Tibetans to Chinese "impurities" in the traditional musics, and the very real ways that Tibetans use musical and other artistic expressions to support Tibetan identity and maintain national pride. 

Lyrics from Wikipedia

"Uncle Pema"
By Palgon (original in Tibetan)

Oh Uncle Pema!

Oh mighty Eagle adorned with a conch-white stripe!

If you soar up heavenwards, you adorn the azure sky,

If you descend earthwards, you gladden the craggy mountains.

And, your absence makes the craggy ledges bereft of any life!

Oh Uncle Pema!

Duck with the golden rosary

If you fly out of the water, you adorn the meadows,

If you swim in the water, you gladden the water’s spirits

And, your absence makes the lake bereft of life and spirit!

Oh Uncle Pema!

Oh handsome Youth, adorned with conch-white teeth like a tiger!

If you go [a]way, you are a credit to your fellow townsfolk, and

If you come this way, you are a star amongst your peers.

And, your absence makes my heart bereft of love and meaning!

Annotated Source

So, I'm not really going to annotate this. It's just gross. It does make my project even more relevant, so I guess I can thank Zhu Weiqun for that.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-24/china/31094674_1_minority-status-dalai-lama-zhu-weiqun

Red rage: China to strip Tibetans of minority status?

Saibal Dasgupta, TNN Feb 24, 2012, 04.41AM IST

BEIJING: An influential Communist Party leader in China is asking for completely erasing the legal identity and minority status for Tibetans as a means to deal with escalating protests and do some damage-control for the country's image, dented by a spate of self-immolations by Tibetan activists and monks.

The official, an interlocutor with the Dalai Lama's envoys and a key Tibet policymaker, has suggested that the unrest could be quelled if the Tibetans were denied a sepa-rate legal identity in government documents.

Zhu Weiqun, deputy director in the Communist Party's United Front Work Department, asked the two houses of Chinese parliament - the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Cons-ultative Conference - to am-end laws concerning Tibetans during their upcoming annual meetings in March.

He said that mentioning the ethnicity and minority status on identity cards of Tibetans erodes the sense of nationalism and cohesion.

The proposal, which aims to dilute the Dalai Lama's influence in Tibetan areas, follows nearly 20 cases of self-immolation by protesting Tibetans, which triggered calls from several Western governments, including Washington and Paris, demanding that Beijing ensure that the Tibetans are treated fairly.

"Some of our current educational and administrative policies have unintentionally weakened (the minority people's) sense of nationhood and Chinese nationalism," Zhu said in an article. The best way to achieve 'national cohesion' is by stopping to give them separate status as an ethnic minority on identity cards, using ethnic labels in the titles of schools and autonomous regions, and giving them privileges reserved for minorities, Zhu said.

Queen Kong Does it Again

Environment and Planning D; Society and Space 1996, volume 14, pages 273-292

Popular music in Singapore: exploring local cultures,
global resources, and regional identities
Lily Kong
Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent,
Singapore 119260
Received 21 March 1995; in revised form 12 September 1995

'Geographers concerned with the ways in which local communities are drawn into global arenas and with the means by which global forces become resources for indigenous modification, may thus find music

a worthwhile research area. In this way, "music is integral to the geographical
imagination" (Smith, 1994, page 238), and deserves more space on geographers'
research agenda.'

The more I read Lily Kong, the more I realize why everybody who is anybody in musical human geographies cites her. Her writing style is lucid and accessible, and the arguments she makes are too. Many of the basic ideas I seek to explore in Bylakuppe are present in her works and the works of the other human geographers she has empowered through her seminal writings. Add her and Kiela Diehl together and you have someone who would do incredible things with my project, things I'm sure I haven't yet dreamt of.

The big ideas in this article are the local vs. global views of acculturation, and whether local versus global is the real issue. Perhaps it's not so much a battle, and in any case seeing it as a battle is only marginally useful in research because battles tend to push one towards taking a side. Perhaps it is better to look at a local and global model of acculturation, addressing the issue from all sides. Again, she uses the theoretical framework of "text, intertext, and context," which I love. Lyrics and aural content are examined, as is common in musicological studies, and context/environment (family, national, political, social, etc.) is also examined per normal course. The inclusion of intertext is a wonderful and unique way of tying it all together - what clothes are the musicians and listeners wearing, what goes on the album art, what food and drink are associated (if any), and on and on. Taking in the whole musical scene becomes the essential work of the day. Kong analyzes the person and work, as well as the reception and critical review, of a famous Singaporean pop star, Dick Lee. His music is a lot of fun to listen to - a few tracks are on youtube, if you are interested. The result is a fascinating and satisfying look into music, expression, and identity.

In Bylakuppe, I don't want to spend all my time analyzing texts, or learning instruments, or taking notes of what kids are wearing or listening to - I want to spend time with people, first and foremost, and do all of the above mentioned activities as they are relevant. Since I don't really know what I will find, it would be foolish to go in looking for too specific an idea to test - the set-in-stone idea may not even be relevant, and in any case might blind me to things more interesting and vital. The way I look at things, people are the music they make, and vice versa. I don't mean that a singer believes every word they ever sing, or that the emotion they have to reproduce every night in performance has to be fresh and entirely heartfelt, but that a person choosing (or being forced, as was the case for the great Art Blakey) to make music of any type reveals something vital about their character and environment. Maybe a Chinese national singing an anthem doesn't quite buy into the words about the greatness of their leader, or perhaps that guy singing next to you in church doesn't believe at all - the fact of musical production in such circumstances is itself a fascinating manifestation of personal and cultural phenomena. Music is a struggle, and music is easy, all at the same time. Looking at the music itself (the "text"), the context, and the intertext in a holistic method is a powerful way to get at the heart of the human experience, and a powerful way to get at the heart of a particular human's experience.

Annotated Source

Donal Lopez, Jr., is one of the foremost (and one of my favorite) scholars of Buddhism. His book Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West seeks to detail the different ways in which Tibet has become a construction by analyzing seven areas of particularly important contact. The seven areas are:

"A name (Lamaism),
a book (The Tibetan Book of the Dead),
an impostor (T. Lobsang Rampa),
a mantra (om mani padme hum),
an aesthetic (Tibetan Buddhist art),
and a prison, in which Tibetan Lamas in exile and their students are at once the inmates and the guards."

p. 13

This book has shown up in several of the bibliographies of articles and books that are forming the bulk of my literature review, so I thought I would pick it up and give it a go. Lopez is a scholar-adept (to use a term I just found today), a person whose scholarly interests have merged with his spiritual practices. I dig that, because I would much rather ask about Fords at a Ford dealership than ask about Chevys at a Ford dealership (to use the over-used analogy). To save room and headaches, I will outline the important parts and their relation to my project in future posts. Inspired by Rachel agreeing with me that my posts are far too long, here begins what will hopefully be a more useful and readable blog.

Annotated Source

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7926559.stm

"Exiles keeping Tibetan identity alive" by Eleanor Thomas
BBC Radio 4, Dharamsala

I wanted to take a step back and look at the forest as a whole, instead of focusing too much on the trees. Eleanor Thomas took a part in making  A Tibetan Odyssey: Fifty Years in Exile for BBC, which I will have to check out sometime. It's audience is those who are new to the Tibetan issues, and aims towards creating a sympathetic viewer. This article is rife with great quotes from Tibetans in exile, including:

"I want to see Tibet as an independent country and all the Tibetans can welcome His Holiness inside the Potala [Dalai Lama's palace in Lhasa] with a great joy. Most of the time that is what I dream about."

"I've been trying for a long time to get a picture of the old home but I think it is unrecognisable now. As an exile I suppose in a way I have never felt I have a home anywhere."

"I remember annual picnics, festivals and visits to the monasteries, horse-riding; it was very close to nature."

So much of what I have found in long, long-winded journal articles (not that I fault their long-windedness - have you seen my blogs posts lately?) are simply hoity-toity restatements of these issues. The journalist, as any good journalist would, has selected her quotes based on a point she is trying to get across to her audience, but it seems that in this case she has picked quotes that also characterize some of the wider problems. These include the importance of the Dalai Lama as a spiritual and political leader, the lost nature of the exilic condition, and an idealization of home.

Kinda crazy how folks with PhDs say the same things folks who haven't ever been on university grounds do, but they take 30 pages to say it. Kinda crazy how I do the same thing...

Annotated Source

The Music of Tibetan Buddhism in Ladakh: The Musical Structure of Tibetan Buddhist Chant in the Ritual Bskaṅ-gso of the Dge-Lugs-pa Sect
Author(s): Atsuko Tsukamoto
Source: Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 15, East Asian Musics (1983), pp. 126-140
Published by: International Council for Traditional Music Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/768646 .
Accessed: 20/01/2012 15:29

 This article from the early 80s describes and transcribes, in detail, the bskan-gso ritual of the Tibetan Buddhist monks in Ladakh. Ladakh was chosen because it was isolated in the post-war period, and is most likely to have retained much of tradition as a result. 

Chant is learned orally, but the Tibetans have developed a form of musical notation. Some of the monks are not even aware that written notation exists, suggesting the primacy of oral tradition. I have copied some of the most interesting and important parts of the article, including sections that may be indicative of the wider tradition.

Bskan-gso ritual performance is split into twelve parts:

1) Skyabs-hgro = to seek refuge and worship the Three Treasures: Buddha, Teaching (Skt. dharma), and Buddhist Brotherhood (Skt. samgha);
2) Sems-bskyed= to have a conception of seeking the Enlightenment (Skt. bodhi);
3) Dgah-ldan Iha-brgya = to worship Tson-kha-pa and Maitreya;
4) Nan-mchod byin-rlabs = to bless articles such as water or food and
offer them to deities;
5) Spyan-hdren = to call up and welcome deities; 

6) Snon-tshe la dkar-ma = to offer to Neser;
7) Bskul = to enjoin deities to protect the Teaching; 

8) Zlog-pa = to dispel evil spirits;
9) Hchi-bdag-ma= to offer to Yama;
10) Zlog-pa;
11) Mnah-gsol = to praise deities and

12) Gseg-gsol=to send off deities. 

These parts are indicative of the Vajrayana tradition. Parts 1 and 2 would be comfortable in any Buddhist tradition, but the rest would only have application in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. The inclusion of the worship and supplication of many gods and demons is typical of the wonderful syncretism that Buddhism is capable of when it moves to various countries and meets the local religions.

  This table charts which instruments are used for what. I have some other sources that identify what each instrument is, and I'll do a post with a list and pictures, but the important thing here is that different sounds are intoned relative to the ritual purpose. In Western music, it is a given that various instruments have various connotations relative to their use - black and silver electric guitars shaped like lightning bolts with bleeding airbrushed skulls probably won't show up in the next Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast (but hey, you never know), and a drummer who plays tympani is seen very differently from a drummer who plays a double bass drum set. Think of the images conjured up when a tympanist is imagined vs. a drummer with two huge bass drums - one is probably wearing a suit, perhaps a tuxedo, and the other might be wearing ripped jeans and that's it (unless you're old school like me and think of Louie Bellson and his sweet jazz double-bass set up first). It seems that in Tibetan ritual music different instruments have different cosmic connotations, and may be used alternately to scare away demons, welcome gods, or boost one towards enlightenment. It will be interesting to find out why certain instruments have become associated with the various modes.

Below is text from one of the sections: 

Hum, bshefis sig bshefis sig chos kyi dbyifs nas bshens, chos dbyins rnam dag nan las ma gyos kyan,
gdug-pa hdul phyir khro bo skur ston-pa, lha chen ma-ha-ka-la spyan hdren no.

"Rise up, rise up from the ultimate True World. Rise up firmly from the part of the enlightened True World. You show us your angry appearance, so we call to the mighty deity, Mahakala." 

If my Sanskrit is any good, "Mahakala" means "the great black one," though I would have to see it in Devanagari script to tell for certain.

A bit tangential, perhaps, but one of my favorite aspects of Tibetan Buddhism is the great pantheon of vengeful and fierce gods. Here's one of my favorites, Vajrayogini:

Super intense.

She's usually depicted drinking blood out of a skull cap bowl, stepping on demons representing various vices or shortcomings (ignorance, etc.), holding a cleaver, and wearing nothing but skulls. The feminine aspects (i.e. breasts and labia) are emphasized, though I've chosen pictures that conceal this a bit for the benefit of more conservative viewers. As a tangent to a tangent, Vajrayogini as a powerful symbol of femininity is worshiped by many female practitioners and is especially relevant today as Buddhist nuns gain power and standing in a traditionally male-dominated society/religion.

And, finally, a list of general properties of chant (using, of course, Western terminology. These aspects may or may not have direct cognates in Tibetan music theory.):

1) In principle, all the chants consist of a single melodic line; 

2) The melodic range is less than one octave;
3) Several scale types are employed;
4) Melodies consist of several melodic patterns which are composed in
proportion to phrases of the text; and
5) Disjunct melodic motion is most common, and the melody at the
end of the phrases has a tendency to descend.

 

Pretty cool stuff, eh?

Annotated Source

At a party with a few members of my field studies group, our in-field facilitator put on the above rendition of "Om Mani Padme Hum," the most famous and perhaps most important mantra in Tibetan Buddhism. I love it, but I was (and am) rather amused by it. Most of the Tibetan monastic music I have listened to in my studies has been nothing that a typical Westerner would call peaceful. Cymbals clang, giant horns blurt, and thigh-bone trumpets wail. Here's something to consider

Dig.

The annotated source for today deals with this very issue: the commodification of music for tourist consumption, and the way commodification helps cultures subsist while also creating new cultures.

"Commodification and the selling of ethnic music to tourists" by Xiaobo Su,
Received 19 July 2009
Received in revised form 5 March 2011 Available online 12 April 2011
Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1251, United States 

Geoforum 42 (2011) 496–505

Su explores the tourist commodification case in Lijiang, China. To sum up his conclusions, 

1. Examining commodification as a process is useful in understanding the links between economy and culture.

2. Commodification shapes local cultures in general, and ethnic music in particular.

It's another story in the saga of how new traditions are created in preservation efforts, and how learning how to survive in an increasingly globalized world molds cultures in fascinating ways. The first track above is beautiful, and several of my friends have taken to using it for morning and bedtime music with a frequency that surprises me. It is unlikely that the second track would take that kind of role, though I find it beautiful in a different way. Perhaps the sentiments of the Karmapa are shared by many - it is important to keep one's roots, but it is the 21st century and denying that is useless.