Selena Quintanilla Analysis

Music offers a soundtrack for life. It has the power to, "to elevate the mind, body and character of individuals and the spirit of the nation as a whole" (Suisman 19). Along with its profound effect on people, music is also derived from endless sources and contains an infinite number of messages and purposes within its given context. Musical genres are often created to standalone as their own entity, but songs are also sometimes intended to represent multiple influences and alternate styles. As exemplified through the examination of various musical genres, their origins and their historical implications, a persisting influence relates to either the stylistic inspiration from other cultures, ethnicities and musical styles or the blatant conflict

between them. Based on past socioeconomic statuses and the current position of society’s social standings, it can be projected that a combination of both musical clashes and exchanges will be prevalent as the music industry progresses into the future.
Clashes between ethnic backgrounds and the resulting music have been consistently present in American popular culture. Jazz (represented in the attached piece via the trumpet, top left), which addressed African American slavery and subordination in the United States, started the cycle of White appropriation when White artists began favoring the style and adopting it as their own, further dominating and surpassing the fame and success of the genre’s original artists. Then came Swing music, which underwent the same cyclical process as Jazz and eventually progressed into Bebop as a Black form of resistance to White culture. After traditional Black music was adopted and commodified by the White community time and time again, Bebop was created with its intricate and confusing sounds as an art form too complicated for White America to copy and for Black individuals to consistently call their own. Another example of this process can be seen through Rock and Roll. Rock originated in the Black community as the work of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, yet, Rock and Roll is most widely known as a dominantly White genre. Majority of people are aware of Elvis Presley’s famous song, “Hound Dog”, which he released in 1956. However, the basis of this song was originally sung by Big Mama Thornton fours years prior in 1952 (Kun). In this case, Elvis (symbolized in the visual through the vintage microphone, bottom left), a White artist, took the work of Big Mama Thornton and used it as his own, giving no acknowledgement and completely redefining the song’s meaning. This propelled rock into becoming a White art form, “derived from its commodity form,” with the intent to make a profit rather than communicate a certain message (Frith 371). These musical examples explain the clash between White and Black culture in the form of music.
On the other hand, music is often also the result of many cultures and styles coming together and exchanging sounds and meanings in the creation of one product.

Selena Quintanilla (symbolized through visual’s the rose) and Ricky Martin are both artists at the forefront of this process. Both iconic singers held a hybrid identity that represented their native roots alongside their place within America: Selena catered to Mexican Americans and Ricky Martin to Latin Americans. They both performed in multiple languages to appeal to many audiences and Martin has even explained that he doesn’t think of his music as Latin, but as a combination of many genres (Martin). He also perfectly articulates that, “Music can transcend borders and breakdown barriers between people and cultures,” which is exactly what both Selena and Martin do by connecting multiple demographics with their music (Martin 120). A modern day exchange between cultures is no better seen than in Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” music video, in which, “Beyoncé’s sampling from artists and cultures of the global south permeates [the] video” (Miller 1). Isaac Miller, in his article about the music video, highlights Beyoncé’s use of original choreography from a YouTube video of Mozambique’s Tofo Tofo dancers. In contrast to the Elvis example explained above, Beyoncé (symbolized through the visual’s ‘Queen Bee’ motif above the record) doesn’t appropriate their work as her own, but rather took the time to learn the dance from the native Mozambique dancers and featured two of them in her video (Miller). Beyoncé’s music video supports the claim that, “global hip hop culture has never been as expansive, diverse, and vibrant as it is today,” through her interest in traditional African culture and the influence it produced in her final product (Miller). This epitomizes the process of exchange between varying cultures in an effort to produce a single final product that uses and references each contrasting set of

cultural influences.

The visual piece illustrates musical clashes and exchanges and works to bring them together into one context as both processes will continue to influence the creation of music in the future. Reflecting the current socioeconomic climate within the United States, the persisting discrimination against race and sexuality and the conflict between subordinated parties and their oppressors will continue to be highly prevalent in the production of mainstream musical work (as seen in the White appropriation of African American music and the Black community’s overt form of resistance via the creation of Bebop). However, with these clashes also comes the exchange between parties and the convergence of each unique style into one product. Industry figureheads, such as Beyoncé, will continue to use their fame and success to extend musical influence and connect cultures. The piece at hand works to visualize this binary process: The rays of yellow and green represent an explosive clash, while the blue and pink circular designs symbolize a dynamic exchange. The visualized clash and exchange come together and connect at the record in order to illustrate the influence of both processes in the creation of music as it will persist into the future.