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Chinese influence on western music
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Lately, many musical artists have faced accusations of plagiarism in their music, such as Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”, and Demi Lovato’s “Stars”. Music history consists of many instances of theft, however it was much harder to detect them. since the means in which music was distributed was limited in the past. When radio made its breakthrough appearance in the field, music not only made it easier for material to reach its intended audience, and a wider crowd; including the victims having their spotlights taken away, mostly having to do with race. From then on, radio and music began to be regulated by the government, and created the laws in which the music industry now functions; including the protection of musicians from being taken advantage …show more content…
of. On occasion, big name artist are convicted, and forced to pay for damages to other artists for their pretty obvious, and more subtle sampling without permission. On the other hand we have been witnesses to some musical breakthroughs, that involve the influence of artists on each other, but this isn’t considered stealing. The questions are, how can we make racial issues within this matter seize? Where do we draw the line between inspiration by another, stealing, and what is truly “original”? Aspects of culture appropriation, and plagiarism is wrong; but if we take a step back, we can combat the source of the problem if we differentiate between influence, imitation, and robbing. Rock music was appropriated by whites, and was originally black culturally, stemming out of R&B and Country; historically called, "race" music, meant to keep Billboard charts separate by color, with Country/Western reserved for whites. Even Elvis Presley himself openly admitted he wished he had the ability to express himself lyrically like his black Rock and Roll peers who were lesser known, even though the pioneered the genre. Victims of this phenomena include Chuck Berry, and Little Richard. Little Richard’s, "Tutti Frutti" was covered by Pat Boone just a mere two months after it was released, and had masses believing it was his. Announcers would introduce him as “the man who made it a hit." Little Richard’s version reached No. 17 on the charts, but since his own song was deemed inappropriate, and suggesting black culture was a bad influence on tenagers, Boone's cleaned up version reached No. 12 on the charts. But this cover isn’t considered stealing, given Little Richard was given credit as songwriter. The cultural stealing of a musician's songs, can be just as equally impactful as literal stealing according to the law; as content is hijacked, and ridden to success away from it’s rightful owners, they are condemned as dangerous individuals. The british invasion in the 1960’s revolutionized American popular music.
Bands flooded into the states with widespread acceptance, such as the Rolling Stones, who owes it’s beginnings to black blues musicians. The Beatles were by far the most successful band in the U.S to come out of the U.K. The Beatles not only also influenced by the blues, but in many foreign genres; in this case, Indian music. Indian music had its first hallmark in western music among Acid rock bands, for example Jefferson Airplane, and The Grateful Dead. Psychedelic drugs, like LSD, and acid began to take popularity among counterculture hippies in the late 60’s. Acid rock became a very distinctive genre that mimicked the effects of such hallucinogenic drugs in the underground scene. The Beatles however, are crowned with the first use of the Indian instrument of the sitar in western music. They meddled with Indian music under the influence, thus creating the connection between Indian culture, and the drug/hippie subculture. The Beatles were able to rejoice in the light of oriental music without exploiting Asian religion, by taking its influence, making a seemingly new sound, and having a deep respect for it. Unlike Led Zeppelin, another rock band that sampled, and simply stole both white and black artists songs without permission and payment, The Beatles are a perfect example of how to take influences, and combine them with your own background in a respectful manner to create something fresh without …show more content…
appropriation, and theft. While world music seems to have the luck of the draw when it comes to influencing western artists, without reinforcing negative stereotypes in their cultures, it comes back to the problematic fact that the same cannot be said about African American music.
One instant in which African American culture wasn’t used with vain intentions was that of the hip-hop group, The Beastie Boys. Hip-hop has become a forefront place of discussion for racial inequality. Although there are those who argue that this genre now represents a variety of backgrounds, in a sort of melting pot, why is it that the more successful of artist related and connected to hip-hop are white? Eminem’s rapping, and Miley Cyrus’s twerking, are fine with audiences, but when a black artist does the same thing they are a bad influence although they developed the trend in the first place, and that robs them of their freedom of expression, fans, and damages racial identities. The Beastie Boys had the first platinum hip-hop album creating controversy due to whites capitalizing more than blacks on borrowed material. Although, The Beastie Boys were from a very privileged background, they have been praised by many for being influenced heavily by African American hip-hop music, bringing their own talents, and creating an entity staying true to who they were, and not harness African American culture away from it’s rightful owners for fame, but to be innovators to the shared
genre. Although, “transformative use” has never been mentioned in law, it has recently been a topic of interest within the conversation of fair use. It explores possible standards to determine if copyrighted music has been used in a transformative way. This might be one answer to artist taking genres corresponding to specific races or cultures, and taking away the power of who defines the scene. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an appreciation of a genre not historically pertaining to your race, the problem arises when you do not wish to share center stage with the people who made the stage possible, and venomously sabotaging their image. Take for example the late soul singer Amy Winehouse who took most of her musical influence from African American girl groups from the 60’s. Despite her musical influences being of black decent, it did not stop her from uttering racial slurs. People now remember her as a misunderstood drug addict who needed help, but would the same be said of a singer who belonged to a minority, or would have masses gone on a witchhunt? In our society we take theft as an infringement of our rights, and we need to careful what we label it as so. With music, it’s hard to say that someone isn’t taking multiple influences, and adding on top of it to make it authentically theirs, just about any genre can be traced to something prior. Stealing, and sampling without paying up royalties is straightforward, and even blind to skin color; cultural appropriation is not. The cultural appropriation isn’t a literal crime, but more of a manipulative invasion of moral codes, and to come to a solution musicians must understand the consequences of cross musical barriers, without oppressing their peers.
The article discusses the fact that hip hop “provides a lens [through which white students and faculty at institutions] interpret Black culture” and that because of this not only is the Black female’s view of herself being manipulated, but black males expect what is being promoted by hip hop culture from them, and so does every other person (Henry, West, & Jackson 238). A professor at North Carolina Central University spoke about how he dislikes how hip-hop has influenced the way his students dress, he said “ They look like hoochie mamas, not like they’re coming to class” (as cited in Evelyn
Hip-hop culture has been a global phenomenon for more than twenty years. When introduced into the American culture, the black culture felt that hip-hop had originated from the African American community. The black community was being denied their cultural rights by the supremacy of the white people, but hip-hop gave the community the encouragement to show their black pride and televise the struggles they were facing in the world. The failure and declining of the movements, the influential, rebellious, and powerful music is what reshaped Black Nationalism, unity and to signify the struggle. The African Americans who suffered from social and political problems found that they similar relations to the political movements, which allowed the blacks to be able to voice their opinions and to acknowledge their culture openly.
When looking at the landscape of Hip-Hop among African Americans, from the spawn of gangsta rap in the mid 1980s to current day, masculinity and an idea of hardness is central to their image and performance. Stereotypical to Black masculinity, the idea of a strong Black male - one who keeps it real, and is defiant to the point of violence - is prevalent in the genre. This resistant, or even compensatory masculinity, encompasses: the hyper masculinity rife in the Western world, misogyny, and homophobia, all noticeable in their lyrics, which is in part a result of their containment within the Black community. The link of masculinity and rap music was established due to this containment, early innovators remaking public spaces in their segregated neighbourhoods. A notion of authentic masculinity arose from the resistant nature of the genre, but the move to the mainstream in the 90s created a contradiction to their very image - resistance. Ultimately, this in part led to the construction of the masculinity defined earlier, one that prides itself on its authenticity. I’ll be exploring how gender is constructed and performed in Hip Hop, beginning with a historical framework, with the caveat of showing that differing masculine identities in the genre, including artists
As hip hop culture became prevalent in pop culture, so did black culture. Hip hop stems from black struggle. Their vernacular, songs, and spiritual ways were different from what whites were used to. Their different lifestyle of “living on the edge” was intriguing yet inaccessible for the whites living among them. Thus, this initiated America’s fascination with the culture. It became about what people assume and perceive about black people rather than what they actually are. In essence, an essential to cool is being on the outside, looking in. In the media and celebrities today,
Hip hop has become one of the most commercially promoted and financially successful forms of media in recent years. But as its profits have risen it has become a scapegoat for the many of the public criticisms of young black people. These topic have been discussed in Tricia Rose’s novel “The Hip Hop Wars What We Talk About - And Why It Matters”. The state of hip hop has fallen because the trinity of commercial hip hop has become main topic and caused a lot of controversy. This book is appealing to a person who want to know how hip hop has changed in the past decade and it points out many different attitudes toward hip hop in the Unites States.
The purpose of this study is determine why and how African American music that’s is so deeply rooted into the community is being culturally appropriated. This is a topic that has been the on the foreground of race for years. Activists and celebrities like Adrienne Keene, DeRay McKesson, Azealia Banks, and Jesse Williams helped bring the issue into the national attention. Most of the world or better yet the appropriators have very little knowledge of what the word actually means. In order to understand the problem we must first understand the word Culture and Appropriation. Culture being defined as the beliefs, ideas, traditions, speech, and material objects associated with a particular group of people. Appropriation the action of taking something
...atching MTV music shows or any music channel on television. As we continue to watch these programs, we will then notice that almost all the rap and hip-hop artists being shown are African-Americans. It is the particular lifestyle, and behaviour that is connected to what particular artists chose to vocalize about. This usually can harm the image of African-Americans due to the fact that many artists aid in the misconceptions of their particular race such as the example provided with 50 Cent’s song entitled P.I.M.P. These lyrics and song titles simply reinforce the negative image some individuals may have of both Caucasian’s and people of colour. Rap and hip-hop is one of the most intimate, personal, legitimate and important art form. Instead of perpetuating injustice, and prejudice artists should be addressing these different issues in a different matter.
Knowing the purpose of the Hip-Hop culture was to be the new improved of the civil rights movement is devastating. Jay Z and Kanye West are not looked at as being a Martin Luther King Jr. or a Malcolm X but they are still idealized as being the best. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X fought for our rights where Mr. Jay and Kanye only fighting for album sales. There is a difference between what Hip-Hop supposes to be and what Hip-Hop turned out to be. The black youth is seeing Hip-Hop as being a culture where nothing is important, but wealth and not realizing the crisis they are in. Taking a break and looking back in history, the youth will notice, “denial of education played an important part in the legalized status of Blacks as inferior and immoral” (Burris 2011, 4).
African-American music is a vibrant art form that describes the difficult lives of African American people. This can be proven by examining slave music, which shows its listeners how the slaves felt when they were working, and gives us insight into the problems of slavery; the blues, which expresses the significant connection with American history, discusses what the American spirit looks like and teaches a great deal from the stories it tells; and hip-hop, which started on the streets and includes topics such as misogyny, sex, and black-on-black violence to reveal the reactions to the circumstances faced by modern African Americans.
However, that is not the case. White artists are taking the styles and genres of African Americans and turning them into a mockery, and on top of all that, they are being rewarded for it. When said they turn these styles into mockery, it means that they change up the style into something completely different than what it originally was. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are prime examples of artists appropriating hip-hop. “During the 2013 MTV’s Video Music Award, artists Macklemore and Ryan Lewis won an award for best hip-hop video, beating popular African American hip hop artists. Two white men won an award for appropriating hip-hop. Hip hop originated from African Americans, and having a two white artists win an award for misusing our culture’s music is not acceptable” (Cadet). In hip hop, African American artists talked about their plight as African American men and about the struggles growing up. However, these white artists won an award for just taking the style and talking about anything important. They do not talk about their plight because they do not have one comparable to African Americans. They do like musicians did in the past: take the music from African Americans, and then take away the color. “But we cannot blame individual white artists for the inequitable way they are received by the American public—the way their performance of black cultures is
Pop music began to take on a serious art form. Rock stars influenced fashion in a way like never before. The Beatles began the British invasion with pop culture. They were fashion icons and many copied their long hair. Others copied the rebellious look of Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones). Rock stars began speaking on behalf of the younger generation and the media was all over them. By the end of the sixties, pop music was the main force in fashion. In Europe and America, "underground" music played a big part, with underground magazines, festivals, and groups during 1966-67. Drugs such as marijuana and hallucinogens like LSD were more widely used outside of a small circle of musicians and artists. Sounds of blues, jazz, rock, electronic, Indian, and classical had inspiration in psychedelic music. Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were leaders of this long hair, drugs, and music scene. Other music such as be-bop jazz with the beatniks, the sounds of soul that flowed from the record company Motown, and folk for hippies also inspired the way of fashion.
Hip hop has multiple branches of style and is a culture of these. This essay will examine Hip Hop from the point of view of the following three popular music scholars, Johnson, Jeffries and Smitherman. It will delve deeper into their understanding of what hip hop is and its relation to the different people that identify with its message and contents. It will also identify the history of Hip hop and its transition into popular music. In particular this essay will focus on what hip hop represents in the black community and how it can be used as a social movement against inequalities faced by them. This will then open up the discussion for the how this has influenced society, and the impact it has had in terms of race issues which hip hop itself often represents through music.
Hip hop has permeated popular culture in an unprecedented fashion. Because of its crossover appeal, it is a great unifier of diverse populations. Although created by black youth on the streets, hip hop's influence has become well received by a number of different races in this country. A large number of the rap and hip hop audience is non-black. It has gone from the fringes, to the suburbs, and into the corporate boardrooms. Because it has become the fastest growing music genre in the U.S., companies and corporate giants have used its appeal to capitalize on it. Although critics of rap music and hip hop seem to be fixated on the messages of sex, violence, and harsh language, this genre offers a new paradigm of what can be (Lewis, 1998.) The potential of this art form to mend ethnic relations is substantial. Hip hop has challenged the system in ways that have unified individuals across a rich ethnic spectrum. This art form was once considered a fad has kept going strong for more than three decades. Generations consisting of Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asians have grown up immersed in hip-hop. Hip hop represents a realignment of America?s cultural aesthetics. Rap songs deliver a message, again and again, to keep it real. It has influenced young people of all races to search for excitement, artistic fulfillment, and a sense of identity by exploring the black underclass (Foreman, 2002). Though it is music, many people do not realize that it is much more than that. Hip hop is a form of art and culture, style, and language, and extension of commerce, and for many, a natural means of living. The purpose of this paper is to examine hip hop and its effect on American culture. Different aspects of hip hop will also be examined to shed some light that helps readers to what hip hop actually is. In order to see hip hop as a cultural influence we need to take a look at its history.
Black culture in our society has come to the point where it is allied with pop culture. The most popular music genres, slang terms, to dance forms it all comes from black culture. Hip hop emerged from black culture, becoming the soul of it that is seen in the media. Hip hop helped the black community by creating new ways of expressing themselves, from breakdance, graffiti, rap and other music, to slang. This culture was rooted in their tradition and created from something new. Hip hop created a new form of music that required the use of turn tables, ‘cuts’, loops, rhythm, rhyme, stories, and deep-rooted emotions, but also incorporated black oral forms of storytelling using communal authors.
Music Copyright is a very important aspect of the music industry. The Copyright law was established to preserve the creativity and rights of authors, composers, performers of expression. Copyright is the law that protects the property rights of the creator of an original work in a fixed tangible medium. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/copyright) A fixed tangible medium is something substantial like copying lyrics on paper or putting a song on tape or CD. Copyright can be seen every where in the music industry. Many music artist of our culture today have been involved in copyright issues. Recently, on MTV news it was stated that, "As the music industry becomes increasingly concerned about protecting the integrity of artists copyrights in the age of MP3. Prince has now filed a motion in New York federal court aimed at shutting down several websites offering free downloads of the Artist's songs." (http://www.mtv.com…19990304/prince.jhtml) In addition, in recent music news, "Nine Inch Nails lead man Trent Reznor copyright infringement suit was dismissed. Another artist claimed that the Reznor had stolen material for his last album." (http://www.mtv.com…19991202/nine_inch_nails.jhtml) The copyright law has become an important legal aspect to know our music generation.