'To the centre of the city, where all roads meet, waiting for you'
(Shadowplay)
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Ian Curtis (1956-1980)
Thirty years ago this week... Ian Curtis, 15 July 1956 – 18 May 1980. An industry of Manchester retro-mania and Killers cover versions still can't numb how radical Joy Division sound even today. Here's the famous 1978 first TV appearance, introduced by Tony Wilson.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Don't get caught in a bad hotel
Love this story... a protest for better conditions for San Francisco hotel workers (including healthcare), featuring a flashmob in a hotel lobby performing a version of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance (retitled Bad Hotel) accompanied by the Brass Liberation Orchestra.
According to San Francisco Indymedia, on Saturday May 8th 2010, 'many LGBTQ folks held a picket and protest in San Francisco's Union Square, and the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, to show solidarity for the hotel workers who have been forced to work without a contract since August 2009. The protest, which featured music and dancing, also is calling for a boycott of the hotels that have failed to give their workers equal opportunity... San Francisco's annual Gay pride is approaching and many queers stay in hotels when they visit, so the local GLBTQ community is asking them to join the boycott, so workers can be treated fairly and equally in San Francisco. There are also a few GLBTQ folks who work for those hotels or corporations. So if, or when you come to San Francisco don't want to get caught in a bad hotel. The protest was sponsored and held by' "One Struggle One Fight" and SF Pride at Work/HAVOQ'.
According to San Francisco Indymedia, on Saturday May 8th 2010, 'many LGBTQ folks held a picket and protest in San Francisco's Union Square, and the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, to show solidarity for the hotel workers who have been forced to work without a contract since August 2009. The protest, which featured music and dancing, also is calling for a boycott of the hotels that have failed to give their workers equal opportunity... San Francisco's annual Gay pride is approaching and many queers stay in hotels when they visit, so the local GLBTQ community is asking them to join the boycott, so workers can be treated fairly and equally in San Francisco. There are also a few GLBTQ folks who work for those hotels or corporations. So if, or when you come to San Francisco don't want to get caught in a bad hotel. The protest was sponsored and held by' "One Struggle One Fight" and SF Pride at Work/HAVOQ'.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Skip Jive
In our search for the origins of rave, we have previously looked at the revivalist and trad jazz scenes in London from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The 'ravers' of the later period were looked down on by the early mods, with their taste for cool, modern jazz and by jazz musicians like George Melly who mocked their dancing. So I was delighted to get a post recently from someone in that scene putting the alternative view. Here's Terry Monaghan's account:
'Just a quick note as someone who danced in the 1950s off and on the Aldermaston Marches - I'd like to defend the dancing against some of the derogatory descriptions by the likes of George Melly, who even in much later life would not tolerate dancers from distracting audiences while he was performing.
'Skip-jiving' (sometimes abbreviated to 'trad') during the second phase of the music was in fact quite skilled and far from clumsy. At the culmination of the 1961 Aldermaston March for example there was a massive trad band ball at the Lyceum Ballroom which is the first time I saw a dance floor pulse in time with the music. The collective feet all hitting it at the same time, and with the special force of skip jive that consisted of a steady skip step, resulted in the necessary stomp effect. I'd never seen a floor move up and down a good two inches before. It was funny seeing the regular teds standing on the sidelines utterly amazed at this variety of unkempt enthusiasts pounding away so enthusiastically.
The 'out of time' jibe comes in my opinion from musicians who have difficulty in keeping a steady rhythm given their natural tendency to speed up, particular on the British scene where they seldom attached much importance to a reliable rhythm section. Thus while it was true at that Lyceum gig that the tempo's of the dancers and the musicians began to separate - depending on which band was playing, the fault in my opinion largely lay with the bands. Having had much more experience of this kind of thing in later life, and the ability to make comparisons with dancers and the musicians from Harlem's former Savoy Ballroom, it seems safe to suggest that a mass of dancers who are able to fall collectively into one rhythmic groove keep excellent time. Bands have to be attuned to respect this, and back then of course few of us had a clue about what we were really doing. The Lyceum was, and is, a very stable building, but in other locations the kinetic energy generated in this way physically collapsed ballrooms resulting in considerable death and injury tolls. No danger of that these days, everyone seems to be out of time with each other!
It seems to me that there is a parallel between what happened in this period with what happened with dance music in the early 1990s. Namely that one fraction embraced 'cool', 'sophistication' and 'intelligence' and looked down on the 'ravers' - but who had the best parties?
'Just a quick note as someone who danced in the 1950s off and on the Aldermaston Marches - I'd like to defend the dancing against some of the derogatory descriptions by the likes of George Melly, who even in much later life would not tolerate dancers from distracting audiences while he was performing.
'Skip-jiving' (sometimes abbreviated to 'trad') during the second phase of the music was in fact quite skilled and far from clumsy. At the culmination of the 1961 Aldermaston March for example there was a massive trad band ball at the Lyceum Ballroom which is the first time I saw a dance floor pulse in time with the music. The collective feet all hitting it at the same time, and with the special force of skip jive that consisted of a steady skip step, resulted in the necessary stomp effect. I'd never seen a floor move up and down a good two inches before. It was funny seeing the regular teds standing on the sidelines utterly amazed at this variety of unkempt enthusiasts pounding away so enthusiastically.
The 'out of time' jibe comes in my opinion from musicians who have difficulty in keeping a steady rhythm given their natural tendency to speed up, particular on the British scene where they seldom attached much importance to a reliable rhythm section. Thus while it was true at that Lyceum gig that the tempo's of the dancers and the musicians began to separate - depending on which band was playing, the fault in my opinion largely lay with the bands. Having had much more experience of this kind of thing in later life, and the ability to make comparisons with dancers and the musicians from Harlem's former Savoy Ballroom, it seems safe to suggest that a mass of dancers who are able to fall collectively into one rhythmic groove keep excellent time. Bands have to be attuned to respect this, and back then of course few of us had a clue about what we were really doing. The Lyceum was, and is, a very stable building, but in other locations the kinetic energy generated in this way physically collapsed ballrooms resulting in considerable death and injury tolls. No danger of that these days, everyone seems to be out of time with each other!
It seems to me that there is a parallel between what happened in this period with what happened with dance music in the early 1990s. Namely that one fraction embraced 'cool', 'sophistication' and 'intelligence' and looked down on the 'ravers' - but who had the best parties?
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Lustful pleasure-seeking in Iran
Iranian police detained 80 young men and women for "lustful pleasure-seeking" activities at an illegal concert, Tehran's chief prosecutor has been quoted. The socially conservative Islamic republic launched a crackdown two years ago on "indecent western-inspired movements", such as rappers and Satanists, as part of a widening clampdown on conduct the authorities deem immoral.
The public prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said moral security police received a tip-off that a group of people were secretly selling tickets to a live music performance. "Police entered the venue where this illegal concert was being held ... 80 boys and girls in inappropriate outfits and under abnormal conditions were arrested," he told the Iranian Students' News Agency.
He said their cases were sent to a Tehran court where the youths were charged with taking part in "lustful pleasure-seeking" activities. Alcohol had been seized, he said. Under Iran's Islamic law unrelated men and women are banned from touching or dancing with members of the opposite sex. Alcohol and narcotics are illegal in Iran.
(Source: Reuters/Guardian, 7 May 2010)
Suntanned women to be arrested under Islamic dress code (Telegraph, 27 April 2010)
Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran's police chief, said a national crackdown on opposition sympathisers would be extended to women who have been deemed to be violating the spirit of Islamic laws. He said: "The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins. We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them."
...The announcement came shortly after Ayatollah Kazim Sadighi, a leading cleric, warned that women who dressed immodestly disturbed young men and the consequent agitation caused earthquakes.
There's some info about Iranian hip hop here. Check out Dasta Bala by Deev - don't have a full tranlsation but apparently 'The song was focused at pointing out the tyranny of the Iranian government and asking people to raise their fists in protest'. Some good photos of Iranian musicians here.
The public prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said moral security police received a tip-off that a group of people were secretly selling tickets to a live music performance. "Police entered the venue where this illegal concert was being held ... 80 boys and girls in inappropriate outfits and under abnormal conditions were arrested," he told the Iranian Students' News Agency.
He said their cases were sent to a Tehran court where the youths were charged with taking part in "lustful pleasure-seeking" activities. Alcohol had been seized, he said. Under Iran's Islamic law unrelated men and women are banned from touching or dancing with members of the opposite sex. Alcohol and narcotics are illegal in Iran.
(Source: Reuters/Guardian, 7 May 2010)
Suntanned women to be arrested under Islamic dress code (Telegraph, 27 April 2010)
Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran's police chief, said a national crackdown on opposition sympathisers would be extended to women who have been deemed to be violating the spirit of Islamic laws. He said: "The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins. We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them."
...The announcement came shortly after Ayatollah Kazim Sadighi, a leading cleric, warned that women who dressed immodestly disturbed young men and the consequent agitation caused earthquakes.
There's some info about Iranian hip hop here. Check out Dasta Bala by Deev - don't have a full tranlsation but apparently 'The song was focused at pointing out the tyranny of the Iranian government and asking people to raise their fists in protest'. Some good photos of Iranian musicians here.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Flesh and Stone: Sennett on Café Society in London and Paris
Flesh and Stone: the Body and the City in Western Civilization (1994)by Richard Sennett ‘is a history of the city told through people’s bodily experience: how women and men moved, what they saw and heard, the smells that assailed their noses, where they ate, how they dressed, when they bathed, how they made love in cities’. More specifically it considers how architects and urban planners have impacted on all this through their influence on how people come together and move apart, for ‘The spatial relations of human bodies obviously make a great deal of difference in how people react to each other, how they see and and hear one another, whether they touch or are distant’.
There is an interesting discussion of the changing forms of café society in London and Paris from the 18th to the 19th century:
‘Cafés on the European continent owe their origins to the English coffeehouse of the early eighteenth century. Some coffeehouses began as mere appendages to coaching stations, others as self-contained enterprises. The insurance company Lloyd’s of London began as a coffee house, and its rules marked the sociability of most other urban places; the price of a mug of coffee earned a person the right to speak to anyone in the Lloyd’s room. More than sheer chattiness prompted strangers to talk to one another in the coffeehouse. Talk was the most important means of gaining information about conditions on the road, in the city, or about business. Though differences in social rank were evident in how people looked and in their diction, the need to talk freely dictated that people not notice, so long as they were drinking together...
The French café of the Ancien Regime took its name from and operated much like the English coffeehouse, strangers freely arguing, gossiping, and informing one another. In these years before the Revolution, political groups often arose from these café encounters. At first many different groups met in the same café, as in the original Café Procope on the Left Bank; by the outbreak of the Revolution , contending political groups in Paris each had their own place. During and after the Revolution the greatest concentration of cafés was in the Palais Royal'.
Sennett argues that the wide boulevards of Paris, as designed by Haussman, encouraged cafés to sprawl into the streets, with café owners beginning to put tables outside. Two main centres of café life developed, ‘one clustered around the Opera, where the Grand Café, the Café de la Paix and the Café Anglais were to be found, the other in the Latin Quarter, whose most famous cafes were the Voltaire, the Soleil d’Or, and Francois Premier’. He suggests that outside tables fundamentally changed the atmosphere of cafés:
‘These outside tables deprived political groups of their cover; the tables served customers watching the passing scene, rather than conspiring with one another... At an outdoor table in the big café one was expected to remain seated in one place; those who wanted to hop from scene to scene stood at the bar....the denizens of the café sat silently watching the crowd go by – they sat as individuals, each lost in his or her own thoughts'.
The working class was discouraged from these boulevard cafés by the cost and atmosphere, preferring the cafés intimes of the sidestreets. The café as haven of subversive sociability was gradually undermined:
'The exterior crowd composing itself into a spectacle no longer carried the menace of a revolutionary mob... in 1808 , police spies looking for dangerous political elements in Paris spent a great deal of time infiltrating cafés; in 1891, the police disbanded the bureau dedicated to the cafe surveillance. A public realm filled with moving and spectating individuals – in Paris as much as in London - no longer represented a political domain’.
Interesting, but not sure the reality fits quite so neatly into this narrative. After all cafés remained hotbeds of radicalism in Paris for much of the 20th century - see for instance the history of surrealists, existentialists and situationists.
There is an interesting discussion of the changing forms of café society in London and Paris from the 18th to the 19th century:
‘Cafés on the European continent owe their origins to the English coffeehouse of the early eighteenth century. Some coffeehouses began as mere appendages to coaching stations, others as self-contained enterprises. The insurance company Lloyd’s of London began as a coffee house, and its rules marked the sociability of most other urban places; the price of a mug of coffee earned a person the right to speak to anyone in the Lloyd’s room. More than sheer chattiness prompted strangers to talk to one another in the coffeehouse. Talk was the most important means of gaining information about conditions on the road, in the city, or about business. Though differences in social rank were evident in how people looked and in their diction, the need to talk freely dictated that people not notice, so long as they were drinking together...
The French café of the Ancien Regime took its name from and operated much like the English coffeehouse, strangers freely arguing, gossiping, and informing one another. In these years before the Revolution, political groups often arose from these café encounters. At first many different groups met in the same café, as in the original Café Procope on the Left Bank; by the outbreak of the Revolution , contending political groups in Paris each had their own place. During and after the Revolution the greatest concentration of cafés was in the Palais Royal'.
Sennett argues that the wide boulevards of Paris, as designed by Haussman, encouraged cafés to sprawl into the streets, with café owners beginning to put tables outside. Two main centres of café life developed, ‘one clustered around the Opera, where the Grand Café, the Café de la Paix and the Café Anglais were to be found, the other in the Latin Quarter, whose most famous cafes were the Voltaire, the Soleil d’Or, and Francois Premier’. He suggests that outside tables fundamentally changed the atmosphere of cafés:
‘These outside tables deprived political groups of their cover; the tables served customers watching the passing scene, rather than conspiring with one another... At an outdoor table in the big café one was expected to remain seated in one place; those who wanted to hop from scene to scene stood at the bar....the denizens of the café sat silently watching the crowd go by – they sat as individuals, each lost in his or her own thoughts'.
The working class was discouraged from these boulevard cafés by the cost and atmosphere, preferring the cafés intimes of the sidestreets. The café as haven of subversive sociability was gradually undermined:
'The exterior crowd composing itself into a spectacle no longer carried the menace of a revolutionary mob... in 1808 , police spies looking for dangerous political elements in Paris spent a great deal of time infiltrating cafés; in 1891, the police disbanded the bureau dedicated to the cafe surveillance. A public realm filled with moving and spectating individuals – in Paris as much as in London - no longer represented a political domain’.
Interesting, but not sure the reality fits quite so neatly into this narrative. After all cafés remained hotbeds of radicalism in Paris for much of the 20th century - see for instance the history of surrealists, existentialists and situationists.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Lena Horne and the civil rights movement
Most of the obituaries to Lena Horne (1917-2010), who died last weekend, mention her involvement in the civil rights movement. But what is striking about her life is that she was consistently an activist during, and indeed before, a musical career that encompassed dancing at the Cotton Club, singing and acting in Hollywood musicals, and recording albums.As Lena Horne herself recalled in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples magazine The Crisis in 1983: 'My grandmother, an early pioneer of the NAACP, taught me never to forget. The seeds of a continuing passion for black freedom and liberation were sown in those earliest childhood years when my grandmother, Cora Calhoun, took me to NAACP meetings'. Paul Robeson and WEB Du Bois were family friends.
She also recalled: 'As I travelled as a singer throughout a segregated America, countless racist acts were redressed by local chapters of the NAACP'. In the 1940s at an Army base in Arkansas, she objected to black GIs having to sit behind white Italian POWs: 'I left the hall, found the black GI who was my driver and asked him to take me to the local NAACP. The NAACP in the local town turned out to be Daisy Bates, heroine of Little Rock'.
In 1946, she became a sponsor of the Los Angeles chapter of the Civil Rights Congress (as as was Frank Sinatra). She played benefits for various left wing causes, and was active in supporting Ben Davis, the black Communist elected to the city council of New York City, representing Harlem, in 1943 ( he was later jailed under the notorious Smith Act). For these activities she was blacklisted as a communist sympathiser to the detriment of her career.
She was, for instance, denounced in Red Channels a 1950 'report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television' published by Counterattack, set up by ex-FBI agents. Lena Horne was in good company in this report, along with the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy Parker and Pete Seeger.
She was in the front ranks of the 1963 March onWashington for Jobs and Freedom and spoke alongside Medgar Evers shortly before he was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in the same year.
Here she is singing Stormy Weather from the 1943 film of the same name:
London clubbers 1976 and 2010
Photographer Chris Steele-Perkins has a new book out, England my England, featuring 40 years of his documentary photography, with an exhibition to match at Northumbria University Gallery, Sandyford Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne until 4th June. I haven't seen it, but will definitely try and check it out when it comes to London, opening at Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG from 18th June to 30th July. Among the photographs I've seen are some really strong dance images. This one is of dancers at the Lyceum Ballroom in London 1976 (note the guy in the background in DMs):
ⓒ Chris Steele-PerkinsChris has previously published a collection on Teds and was present at the Lewisham 1977 anti-National Front protests.
Meanwhile Georgina Cook is continuing to do what she does best, documenting club scenes and other things she comes across in her wanderings from Croydon to Paris. I particularly like this one, taken at the Londinium warehouse rave on May Day at the Ewer Street car park on Great Suffolk Street, London SE1. It gives a real sense of that feeling of wandering through railway arches at a club. Lots more of her stuff at her Drumz of the South blog and flickr
ⓒ Chris Steele-PerkinsChris has previously published a collection on Teds and was present at the Lewisham 1977 anti-National Front protests.Meanwhile Georgina Cook is continuing to do what she does best, documenting club scenes and other things she comes across in her wanderings from Croydon to Paris. I particularly like this one, taken at the Londinium warehouse rave on May Day at the Ewer Street car park on Great Suffolk Street, London SE1. It gives a real sense of that feeling of wandering through railway arches at a club. Lots more of her stuff at her Drumz of the South blog and flickr
ⓒ Georgina Cook
Friday, May 07, 2010
O Music, it was you permitted us to lift our face and peer into the eyes of future liberty
Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961) was a leading figure in the struggle for the independence of Congo from the Belgian Empire. He briefly became first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1960 before being overthrown and later murdered by Belgian/CIA backed forces. The following extract is from his poem May our People Triumph (full poem here). In it Lumumba puts music and dance (and specifically jazz) at the centre of the struggle to be human in conditions of slavery and colonialism:
'Twas then the tomtom rolled from village unto village,
And told the people that another foreign slave ship
Had put off on its way to far-off shores
Where God is cotton, where the dollar reigns as King.
There, sentenced to unending, wracking labour,
Toiling from dawn to dusk in the relentless sun,
They taught you in your psalms to glorify
Their Lord, while you yourself were crucified to hymns
That promised bliss in the world of Hereafter,
While you—you begged of them a single boon:
That they should let you live—to live, aye—simplylive.
And by a fire your dim, fantastic dreams
Poured out aloud in melancholy strains,
As elemental and as wordless as your anguish.
It happened you would even play, be merry
And dance, in sheer exuberance of spirit:
And then would all the splendour of your manhood,
The sweet desires of youth sound, wild with power,
On strings of brass, in burning tambourines.
And from that mighty music the beginning
Of jazz arose, tempestuous, capricious,
Declaring to the whites in accents loud
That not entirely was the planet theirs.
O Music, it was you permitted us
To lift our face and peer into the eyes
Of future liberty, that would one day be ours.
'Twas then the tomtom rolled from village unto village,
And told the people that another foreign slave ship
Had put off on its way to far-off shores
Where God is cotton, where the dollar reigns as King.
There, sentenced to unending, wracking labour,
Toiling from dawn to dusk in the relentless sun,
They taught you in your psalms to glorify
Their Lord, while you yourself were crucified to hymns
That promised bliss in the world of Hereafter,
While you—you begged of them a single boon:
That they should let you live—to live, aye—simplylive.
And by a fire your dim, fantastic dreams
Poured out aloud in melancholy strains,
As elemental and as wordless as your anguish.
It happened you would even play, be merry
And dance, in sheer exuberance of spirit:
And then would all the splendour of your manhood,
The sweet desires of youth sound, wild with power,
On strings of brass, in burning tambourines.
And from that mighty music the beginning
Of jazz arose, tempestuous, capricious,
Declaring to the whites in accents loud
That not entirely was the planet theirs.
O Music, it was you permitted us
To lift our face and peer into the eyes
Of future liberty, that would one day be ours.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
... or even vote for Gloria Estefan? And why are some anarchists and socialists cheering for border controls?
Continuing our series on pop stars with a sounder grasp of migration politics than has been seen so far in the British elections, good to see that Gloria Estefan joined Saturday's May Day migrant workers demonstration in Los Angeles (see also Amerie and Shakira). The demonstration was protesting against the new Arizona laws and for regularisation of undocumented migrants. She said: 'We came as refugees to this country that gave us many opportunities... We join with you today so that they will know that we immigrants are honest, workers, to show the beautiful face that we bring to this country, always respecting the laws. If everyone looks back, everyone is an immigrant in this country... We don’t want to link the word ‘immigrant’ with ‘criminal''.
And that is good enough reason to feature Dr Beat, that great 1980s dance track by Miami Sound Machine (feat. Gloria):
There's lots of reports and photos of the Los Angeles demonstration at LA Indymedia. I've selected these two, taken by Robert Stuart Lowden, as they illustrate what is lacking not only from mainstream British political discussion about migration but from the arguments of those socialists and anarchists who now seek to justify immigration controls on some spurious 'working class' grounds that immigration undercuts wages - see for instance Paul Stott and the Independent Working Class Association. Namely the human cost of immigration controls.
Immigration controls are not a matter of turning on and off a tap, capping numbers in some cosy neutral way - 'sorry old chap, we're full today'. They are ultimately a policing function: workers dragged out of their workplaces, locked up and put on to planes, their children likewise dragged out of school. Families separated by force. Children locked up in prison. Deaths as people take risks to get round these controls - at least 87 on the US/Mexico border in the last 6 months; almost 4000 amongst people trying to enter Europe since 2002.
It may be true that in some sectors having a larger pool of labour is allowing employers to reduce wages, but the answer to that is workers solidarity not vicious border controls (what other kind are there). It is also true that many of these workers have struggled to get here at great risk, hardly flown in by capitalists. While the wages of some workers may on occasions have been undermined, other workers are earning much more here than they were at home and are also supporting families in their home countries. Also migration controls in Europe and in the US can depress wages elsewhere - since employers know it is difficult for workers to leave and therefore don't have to pay higher wages to keep workers in their jobs.
In any event it is precisely these immigration controls now seemingly supported by some former anti-fascist militants in the UK - the IWCA is the remains of Red Action - that place migrant labour in a precarious position and undermine wages (e.g. the fight by cleaners for better wages is being undermined by companies having the power to turn over strikers to the Borders Agency). The way to stop this is to fight for migrant workers to have the same rights and conditions as everybody else - this would benefit non-migrant workers too as employers wouldn't be able to play one off against the other.
And that is good enough reason to feature Dr Beat, that great 1980s dance track by Miami Sound Machine (feat. Gloria):
There's lots of reports and photos of the Los Angeles demonstration at LA Indymedia. I've selected these two, taken by Robert Stuart Lowden, as they illustrate what is lacking not only from mainstream British political discussion about migration but from the arguments of those socialists and anarchists who now seek to justify immigration controls on some spurious 'working class' grounds that immigration undercuts wages - see for instance Paul Stott and the Independent Working Class Association. Namely the human cost of immigration controls.
Immigration controls are not a matter of turning on and off a tap, capping numbers in some cosy neutral way - 'sorry old chap, we're full today'. They are ultimately a policing function: workers dragged out of their workplaces, locked up and put on to planes, their children likewise dragged out of school. Families separated by force. Children locked up in prison. Deaths as people take risks to get round these controls - at least 87 on the US/Mexico border in the last 6 months; almost 4000 amongst people trying to enter Europe since 2002.It may be true that in some sectors having a larger pool of labour is allowing employers to reduce wages, but the answer to that is workers solidarity not vicious border controls (what other kind are there). It is also true that many of these workers have struggled to get here at great risk, hardly flown in by capitalists. While the wages of some workers may on occasions have been undermined, other workers are earning much more here than they were at home and are also supporting families in their home countries. Also migration controls in Europe and in the US can depress wages elsewhere - since employers know it is difficult for workers to leave and therefore don't have to pay higher wages to keep workers in their jobs.
In any event it is precisely these immigration controls now seemingly supported by some former anti-fascist militants in the UK - the IWCA is the remains of Red Action - that place migrant labour in a precarious position and undermine wages (e.g. the fight by cleaners for better wages is being undermined by companies having the power to turn over strikers to the Borders Agency). The way to stop this is to fight for migrant workers to have the same rights and conditions as everybody else - this would benefit non-migrant workers too as employers wouldn't be able to play one off against the other.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Hey there Georgy Girl - RIP Lynn Redgrave
RIP Lynn Redgrave - here she is in the great 1966 London movie Georgy Girl . The soundtrack song was by The Seekers.
And here she is dancing in the 1975 film The Happy Hooker. The song is One to One by Angela Clemmons.
And here she is dancing in the 1975 film The Happy Hooker. The song is One to One by Angela Clemmons.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
May Day Song and Dance - Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964), lived to see many May Days as a key figure in the US workers movement for more than 50 years. In 1939, she looked back on some of the May Days she had taken part in, in an article called Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory which evokes the songs and dancing on the parades:
'Thirty-three May Days have come and gone since my activities in the American labor movement began. In memory I view them – an endless procession of red banners, flying high and wide, in the eager hands of marching, cheering, singing workers. Banners of local unions and AFL central labor councils; three-starred IWW banners; banners of Amalgamated, of International Ladies Garment Workers, furriers, pioneers of unionism for the “immigrants and revolutionists"; banners of craft unions, independent unions, industrial unions, and at lone last the CIO. Many were tasseled banners, sold and black, silver and blue, with the names, numbers and places beautifully embroidered; clean, unwrinkled banners, preciously guarded in locked glass cases in dingy halls, throughout the year – liberated to fly proudly on May Day...
Where have I been on May Day? Once it was Newark, N. J. James Connolly, leader of the Irish Easter rebellion in 1916, and I spoke from an old wagon in Washington Park. He was a poor and struggling worker, sad and serious. His daughter told me how, years later in Ireland, he smiled and sang a little song Easter morning, 1916, when he went out to die for his country’s right to be free...
In 1912, I was in Lawrence and Lowell, Mass. on May Day. Textile workers, twenty-five different nationalities speaking forty-five different dialects, celebrated their victories after the fierce strikes of the preceding winter. Banners demanded the freedom of the imprisoned leaders, Ettor and Giovannitti. After the parades came the dancing, the different sorts of music – yellow-haired Northern girls dancing in raven-haired Italians – the laughter and gayety of one race trying to learn the songs, the dances of another. I can see Big Bill Haywood in the Syrian Hall in Lawrence surrounded by workers. Smoking their strange pipe, which stood on the floor, the smoke cooled through a fancy water bowl, decorated in spring flowers in honor of Bill.
May Day, 1913, was in the midst of the Paterson silk strike. Jack Reed taught the strikers many grand songs, old French revolutionary airs and English labor songs, Solidarity Forever – the Red Flag – the Carmagnole. The bosses were trying the now hackneyed “Back to work under the American flag” gag. The strikers carried high on May Day their singing retort, “We refuse to scab under the flag!"
... After that a long period of illness, when I read longingly of May Day parades and heard in memory the songs, the cheers, the music of bands and marching feet. I thought I had seen May Days, but nothing excelled in fact or memory the May Day of 1937, when I returned to New York City. Now we marched on the West Side; and the Irish bagpipes joined the music makers. Now the James Connolly Club and the unions of Irish workers paraded. I waited long to see the happy day the Irish were not all in the ranks of the police, Irish on the marching side, shamrocks, harps, Irish songs, Kevin Barry, Soldiers of Erin – Jim Connolly, I wish you were alive to see that grand sight!
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was the model for the Rebel Girl, celebrated in the song by Joe Hill
Friday, April 30, 2010
...or maybe vote for Shakira? (more on Arizona, racism and immigration)
Last night I floated the idea of voting for Amerie in the UK elections (even though she's not standing!), on the basis that her critique of the new racist anti-migrant powers in Arizona showed that she was far ahead of the bulk of the British polity when it comes to racism and immigration. Good to see that Shakira too has joined the fight, visiting Phoenix yesterday especially to denounce the new Arizona Senate Bill 1070 law:
'I heard about it on the news and I thought, 'Wow', It is unjust and it's inhuman, and it violates the civil and human rights of the Latino community ... It goes against all human dignity, against the principles of most Americans I know... We're talking about human beings here'. Shakira also made a stop at the state Capitol in downtown Phoenix, telling a group of a few hundred community members that if the law were in effect, she could be arrested since she didn't bring her driver's license to Arizona. "I'm here pretty much undocumented," she told the crowd... "No person should be detained because of the color of their skin" (Washington Post, 28 April 2010).
The law, which is due to come in to effect in July, makes it a crime to be an 'alien' in the US without specific registration documents and requires police to check people's immigration status if they have a 'reasonable suspicion' . It will also make it a crime to give shelter to undocumented migrants, or transport them. Appalling, but not so different from the UK situation where employers are required to check papers and are increasing turning people over to the Borders Agency.
Still at least in the US, the She Wolf is on the case! Interview follows - 'People are people with or without documents':
Ricky Martin also said last night “You are not alone. We are with you... Put a stop to discrimination. Put a stop to hate. Put a stop to racism.”
'I heard about it on the news and I thought, 'Wow', It is unjust and it's inhuman, and it violates the civil and human rights of the Latino community ... It goes against all human dignity, against the principles of most Americans I know... We're talking about human beings here'. Shakira also made a stop at the state Capitol in downtown Phoenix, telling a group of a few hundred community members that if the law were in effect, she could be arrested since she didn't bring her driver's license to Arizona. "I'm here pretty much undocumented," she told the crowd... "No person should be detained because of the color of their skin" (Washington Post, 28 April 2010).
The law, which is due to come in to effect in July, makes it a crime to be an 'alien' in the US without specific registration documents and requires police to check people's immigration status if they have a 'reasonable suspicion' . It will also make it a crime to give shelter to undocumented migrants, or transport them. Appalling, but not so different from the UK situation where employers are required to check papers and are increasing turning people over to the Borders Agency.
Still at least in the US, the She Wolf is on the case! Interview follows - 'People are people with or without documents':
Ricky Martin also said last night “You are not alone. We are with you... Put a stop to discrimination. Put a stop to hate. Put a stop to racism.”
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Can I vote for Amerie? Racist immigration controls in Arizona and UK
So why put up a video for Amerie's 1 Thing at this late stage in the day? Well it's a great track and why can't I a put up a good song at the end of the week just because I like it.
But also because I can't bear to hear any more nonsense about immigration in the UK election campaign. The only decent thing said on the subject by Gordon Brown was when he called somebody 'a bigoted woman' for her comments about immigrants 'flocking' to the country. Of course he didn't mean to be overheard, and having been crucified by the press for it, it was back to business as usual in tonight's TV debate trying to out tough the Tories about 'illegal immigrants'.
Compare and contrast Amerie's very sensible analyis via Twitter: 'Consequences of this new Arizona immigration law are fightening to say the least...imagine the precedence if this law holds firm. Think about it: you're driving to the store, movies, walking down the street with a couple friends...u get stopped... oops, u don't have any id on u. So now you're off to jail or detained till someone can come prove ur a us citizen afterall, & the fact that most people who will be detained due to "reasonable suspicion" will happen to be brown complected goes without saying'.
Well she's absolutely right: as Robert Creamer argues, 'The Arizona of 2010 Is the Alabama of 1963... the new Arizona law requires that all police officers with a reasonable suspicion that an individual might not be in our country legally, must demand to see that person's papers. It also requires that each person who has immigrated carry those papers at all times or be in violation of the law themselves... In a free society people should never have to worry that the plainclothes police officer around the next corner has the right - even the obligation - to demand to see their papers simply because they have brown skin or are chatting with their friends in Spanish, or Polish, or Italian'.
Yet seemingly few people bat an eyelid when this kind of thing happens in the UK. I frequently see joint Borders Agency/transport police operations in London, where, similar to Amerie's scenario, people with dark skins and/or foreign accents who don't have the right ticket for the bus or train get pulled over and questioned about their immigration status - resulting for some in arrest, detention and deportation. Where is the outrage?! Can I vote for Amerie please?
(first heard about Amerie's comments via Dan Hancox)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Blair Peach, Southall and the Rasta folk devil
I posted last year on the 30th anniversary of the death of Blair Peach, killed during the anti-fascist demonstration in Southall, West London, on 23 April 1979. Papers finally released today by the Metropolitan Police show that they were well aware at the time that he must have been killed by the police Special Patrol Group, but nobody was ever charged.
There's a huge amount of material on the Met's site which I haven't had time to read through yet. One things I was struck by was an internal report to the Home Office written the day after by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard. It gives the police account of the demonstration, which was called to oppose a National Front meeting in this largely Asian area (note that the NF chose St George's Day for its provocation, just as its successor the BNP chose the same day to launch its 2010 election manifesto last week).
The report is clearly an early exercise in putting together a police narrative that justified the violence used in what was to be described as a 'police riot'. For instance, it describes the notorious police assault on the People Unite centre, in which Misty in Roots manager Clarence Baker was put in a coma, as a defensive operation:
'A group of mainly rastafarians, squatting in a house in Park View Road, threw stones and smoke canisters at police. There were a number of police injuries and it was necessary for police to enter the building . There was considerable violence from those in occupation. Truncheons were used and there were injuries to the occupants and police -including two police officers who were stabbed. A variety of missiles were used, including paint which was thrown over police. Curry powder was thrown in policemen's faces'.
Interesting to see that the report invokes that 1970s 'black folk devil' (Gilroy) , the criminal Rastafarian - armed in this case with that most Unenglish of weapons - curry powder! Writing in that period, Paul Gilroy quoted some choice examples of anti-Rasta coverage in the British media. How about:
'Scotland Yard has alerted police forces in England and Wales about the infiltration threat by a West Indian mafia organisation called Rastafarians. It is an international crime ring specialising in drugs, prostitution, extortion, protection, subversion and blackmail... They favour red, high-powered cars, wear their hair in long rats tails under multi-coloured woollen caps and walk about with 'prayer sticks' -trimmed pick axe handles. They are known to police and intelligence organisations on both sides of the Atlantic as being active in organising industrial unrest' (Reading Evening Post, 1976, cited in Gilroy).
The notion of gangsters juggling global drug dealing with organising strikes seems hilarious now, but the consequences of these attitudes in legitimising repression against black youths were serious enough: 'Ideas of black criminality... intersect with racist common sense and, in that process, provide a wealth of justifications for illegitimate, discriminatory and of course illegal police practices at the grassroots level' (Paul Gilroy, Police and Thieves, included in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain, 1982).
Back to that same police report I quoted earlier we can find another example of the barely concealed racism of the period with a statement that 'the violence was mainly from Asian youths, who appeared quite often to lose complete control of their emotions'. Tied up in this is a whole discourse of over emotional foreigners, of Asian males as not quite real men (the main Cass report on Blair's death likewise refers to 'a little Indian man, bleeding').
The police might have got a bit more careful about their language, but pumped up cops from the TSG (successor to the SPG) are still a threat to life and limb as shown by the death last year of Ian Tomlinson.
More on this:
- The-sauce puts police names to some of the blacked out gaps in the documents released today.
- Chris Searle at the IRR remembers Blair Peach, recalling his earlier arrest in 1974 for opposing a racist colour bar at the Railway Tavern in Bow.
- Blue Murder - songs about police killings including Blair Peach, to which I'd like to add another. London Hooligan Soul by the Ballistic Brothers includes the line: 'Blair Peach a crying shame. The NF and unmarked police vans. Who is to blame?'.
- John Eden, an old post on Reggae and the National Front with more about Misty in Roots and Southall.
There's a huge amount of material on the Met's site which I haven't had time to read through yet. One things I was struck by was an internal report to the Home Office written the day after by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard. It gives the police account of the demonstration, which was called to oppose a National Front meeting in this largely Asian area (note that the NF chose St George's Day for its provocation, just as its successor the BNP chose the same day to launch its 2010 election manifesto last week).
The report is clearly an early exercise in putting together a police narrative that justified the violence used in what was to be described as a 'police riot'. For instance, it describes the notorious police assault on the People Unite centre, in which Misty in Roots manager Clarence Baker was put in a coma, as a defensive operation:
'A group of mainly rastafarians, squatting in a house in Park View Road, threw stones and smoke canisters at police. There were a number of police injuries and it was necessary for police to enter the building . There was considerable violence from those in occupation. Truncheons were used and there were injuries to the occupants and police -including two police officers who were stabbed. A variety of missiles were used, including paint which was thrown over police. Curry powder was thrown in policemen's faces'.
Interesting to see that the report invokes that 1970s 'black folk devil' (Gilroy) , the criminal Rastafarian - armed in this case with that most Unenglish of weapons - curry powder! Writing in that period, Paul Gilroy quoted some choice examples of anti-Rasta coverage in the British media. How about:
'Scotland Yard has alerted police forces in England and Wales about the infiltration threat by a West Indian mafia organisation called Rastafarians. It is an international crime ring specialising in drugs, prostitution, extortion, protection, subversion and blackmail... They favour red, high-powered cars, wear their hair in long rats tails under multi-coloured woollen caps and walk about with 'prayer sticks' -trimmed pick axe handles. They are known to police and intelligence organisations on both sides of the Atlantic as being active in organising industrial unrest' (Reading Evening Post, 1976, cited in Gilroy).
The notion of gangsters juggling global drug dealing with organising strikes seems hilarious now, but the consequences of these attitudes in legitimising repression against black youths were serious enough: 'Ideas of black criminality... intersect with racist common sense and, in that process, provide a wealth of justifications for illegitimate, discriminatory and of course illegal police practices at the grassroots level' (Paul Gilroy, Police and Thieves, included in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain, 1982).
Back to that same police report I quoted earlier we can find another example of the barely concealed racism of the period with a statement that 'the violence was mainly from Asian youths, who appeared quite often to lose complete control of their emotions'. Tied up in this is a whole discourse of over emotional foreigners, of Asian males as not quite real men (the main Cass report on Blair's death likewise refers to 'a little Indian man, bleeding').
The police might have got a bit more careful about their language, but pumped up cops from the TSG (successor to the SPG) are still a threat to life and limb as shown by the death last year of Ian Tomlinson.
- The-sauce puts police names to some of the blacked out gaps in the documents released today.
- Chris Searle at the IRR remembers Blair Peach, recalling his earlier arrest in 1974 for opposing a racist colour bar at the Railway Tavern in Bow.
- Blue Murder - songs about police killings including Blair Peach, to which I'd like to add another. London Hooligan Soul by the Ballistic Brothers includes the line: 'Blair Peach a crying shame. The NF and unmarked police vans. Who is to blame?'.
- John Eden, an old post on Reggae and the National Front with more about Misty in Roots and Southall.
Flyer for a 1979 benefit gig at Trinity Hall, Bristol for the Southall Defence Fund and People Unite, featuring Revelation Rockers, Stingrays, and The Spics.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance: Shakespeare on raving
The search for the linguistic origins of 'rave' and 'raver' continues. Jon, who does the interesting Alsatia history site, has found the earliest use so far of 'raver' as a noun. As he observes in a comment to an earlier post, Aphra Behn's 'Love Letters Between a Nobleman and his Sister' (1684) features the line 'Oh tell me in the agony of my soul, why must those charms that bring tranquility and peace to all, make me a wild, unseemly raver?'.
Going back a hundred years further, Shakespeare's work is the obvious place to look for the usage of words. Shakespeare doesn't use the term 'raver' but raving appears once in his work: the direction 'Enter CASSANDRA, raving' in Troilus and Cressida, 1602. He uses words 'rave' or 'raved' at least five times in his plays and poems, usually in the context of a verbal expression of madness.
Twelfth Night (1601-2) features this exchange about Malovolio:
MARIA: He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner. He is, sure, possessed, Mdam.
OLIVIA: Why, what's the matter? does he rave?
MARIA: No. madam, he does nothing but smile:
In Henry VI, Part Three (written in 1591), Queen Margaret's speech has a similar usage of the word:
I prithee, grieve, to make me merry, York.
What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails
That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?
Why art thou patient, man? thou shouldst be mad;
And I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.
Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.
(Act 1, Scene 4).
I got quite excited to find 'rave' and 'dance' in the same sentence, as so far I haven't found any connection between the two before the 1940s, but in fact they are being contrasted here. Margaret has had young Rutland killed in the Wars of the Roses and is taunting the enemy Yorkists - she wants them to show their suffering (to mourn, to cry, to rave) to give her satisfaction.
Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece (1594) includes the curse:
'Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,
Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;
Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,
To make him moan; but pity not his moans:
Stone him with harden'd hearts harder than stones;
And let mild women to him lose their mildness,
Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.
'Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have time of Time's help to despair,
Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave,
And time to see one that by alms doth live
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.
In Cymbeline, it is madness itself that raves: 'not frenzy, not Absolute madness could so far have raved, To bring him here alone;'
Finally, in Titus Andronicus (written in the early 1590s), Lucius passes sentence on Aaron that he should be starved to death:
'Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;
There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food;
If any one relieves or pities him,
For the offence he dies'.
Two of these examples link raving with craving for food. The same scene of Titus Andronicus also includes the line 'Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor, This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil'. Another possible line of enquiry - rave and ravenous?
Going back a hundred years further, Shakespeare's work is the obvious place to look for the usage of words. Shakespeare doesn't use the term 'raver' but raving appears once in his work: the direction 'Enter CASSANDRA, raving' in Troilus and Cressida, 1602. He uses words 'rave' or 'raved' at least five times in his plays and poems, usually in the context of a verbal expression of madness.
Twelfth Night (1601-2) features this exchange about Malovolio:
MARIA: He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner. He is, sure, possessed, Mdam.
OLIVIA: Why, what's the matter? does he rave?
MARIA: No. madam, he does nothing but smile:
In Henry VI, Part Three (written in 1591), Queen Margaret's speech has a similar usage of the word:
I prithee, grieve, to make me merry, York.
What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails
That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?
Why art thou patient, man? thou shouldst be mad;
And I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.
Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.
(Act 1, Scene 4).
I got quite excited to find 'rave' and 'dance' in the same sentence, as so far I haven't found any connection between the two before the 1940s, but in fact they are being contrasted here. Margaret has had young Rutland killed in the Wars of the Roses and is taunting the enemy Yorkists - she wants them to show their suffering (to mourn, to cry, to rave) to give her satisfaction.
Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece (1594) includes the curse:
'Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,
Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;
Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,
To make him moan; but pity not his moans:
Stone him with harden'd hearts harder than stones;
And let mild women to him lose their mildness,
Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.
'Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have time of Time's help to despair,
Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave,
And time to see one that by alms doth live
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.
In Cymbeline, it is madness itself that raves: 'not frenzy, not Absolute madness could so far have raved, To bring him here alone;'
Finally, in Titus Andronicus (written in the early 1590s), Lucius passes sentence on Aaron that he should be starved to death:
'Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;
There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food;
If any one relieves or pities him,
For the offence he dies'.
Two of these examples link raving with craving for food. The same scene of Titus Andronicus also includes the line 'Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor, This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil'. Another possible line of enquiry - rave and ravenous?
Friday, April 23, 2010
Somali Rap and Radio
From Waayaha Cusub (from Reuters Nairobi, 9 April 2010):
For centuries, Somalis used poetry and songs to pass protest messages to powerful rulers they were too afraid to confront directly. Now, some young Somalis are using rap to speak out against Islamists who they say are using religion to wage war in their country. The 11-member Waayaha Cusub band, currently in exile in neighbouring Kenya, wants its rap lyrics to encourage fellow Somalis to stand up to Islamist rebels known as al Shabaab.
They have handed out at least 7,000 free copies of their newly-released album titled "No To Al Shabaab" to residents in Nairobi's Eastleigh neighbourhood, home to many Somali migrants. "We will wipe out the fear of our people that no one can speak out against al Shabaab. We will show our people that we can challenge them," said Shine Abdullahi, the group's founder... "They are unkind, teach terrorism, and worthless lessons, they blindfold, and cause pain, inject drugs, that lead to actions, force them to kill their fathers and relatives," one of the group's raps goes.
The group's only female member, Falis Abdi Mohamud, is a rebel in her own right. In one video, the 23-year-old is not covering her head as most Somali women do, and is wearing tight jeans. "They criticise me and say 'she is not Muslim because of wearing a trouser'. I am Muslim," she said. "I want to reach my people. I will not stop my mission because of fear or other people's desires. History will tell who is right and wrong."
Mohamud was born in the southern town of Kismayu that is now an al Shabaab stronghold. The insurgents have banned music in areas that they control and allow only Arabic Koranic chanting. Waayaha Cusub toured the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland in July but Mohamud hopes to perform in her hometown one day. "The trip to Somalia was great. That is when I realised people like our music, and it really gave us confidence not to stop our campaign because a few people who dislike us." The group's youngest member is 15-year-old Suleqa Mohamed, who is a student at an Eastleigh school.
Most of them want to return to Somalia and live off their music when peace returns but currently survive on sponsorships by businessmen and Somalis in the diaspora. Their songs have angered some people. Even in the relative stability and security of Kenya they have been attacked. Gunmen shot and wounded Abdullahi in 2007. He believes the attack was because the group released a series of songs criticising Ethiopia's incursion into Somalia and suicide bombings by the insurgents. Even mobile phone text message threats from al Shabaab sympathisers in Kenya and Somalia have failed to intimidate Abdullahi.
He says he will never be cowered by what he calls "religious warlords" who present an awful image of Islam to the world. "The attack was aimed at silencing the group, but that did not work," he said, showing scars on his stomach from a bullet and the surgery that followed. "We will not allow anyone to silence us. They misread our religion and kill people. They are cursed," he said...
(Here's one of their tracks - this one is not really hip hop, but a great slice of hypnotic dance music . There's lots more stuff at their youtube channel)
Interview with K'naan (Chicago Tribune, 7 April 2010)
'Gangsta rappers have been known to boast about how mean their hometown streets are, but none of them comes from a more violent ‘hood than K'naan. Born Keinan Abdi Warsame in 1978, K’naan grew up in Mogadishu, Somalia, amid one the most brutal civil wars in history.When he was 13, K’naan and his family fled Somalia and took refuge in New York and finally Toronto, where they still live. Coming from a family of performers and poets, K’naan naturally gravitated toward the arts to make sense of his new home and to process the trauma that nearly overwhelmed him in Africa (three of his friends were killed in the conflict). A poet, spoken-word artist and rapper, he has spoken out about his home country’s plight at the United Nations and recorded two albums, the latest of which is “Troubadour” (A&M), released last year. The album blurs the boundaries between spoken word and hip-hop, and incorporates everything from heavy metal to reggae.
Q: What were your memories of growing up in Mogadishu? What about the music there? Did it have an impact on you as a child?
A: I grew up in the Mogadishu of dreams. During an idyllic and optimistic time, and music [was] almost its Siamese soundtrack. I remember realizing very early how music could so seamlessly go from being fun in one moment, to deadly serious in the other. A song would play in the record player at home, and you could sing along loudly and then another would come, and mom would turn it down swiftly, as the song might be considered what they called "anti" - usually music with subliminal poetic messages against the government' (full interview here)
Somali anger at threat to music (BBC News, 7 April 2010)
'Radio stations broadcasting out of Somalia face a dilemma this month after a powerful Islamist militant group ordered them to stop playing music. Saying that the playing of music was un-Islamic, Hizbul-Islam announced on Saturday that stations had 10 days to take it off air. The punishment for failing to comply was not specified but 11 radio stations based in the capital, Mogadishu, are thought to be directly affected. If they drop music, they stand to lose listeners. If they ignore the warning, they face the wrath of the militants.
Music-lovers in the war-torn country are indignant at the idea they will not be able to tune into their favourite pop, which is largely recorded abroad, in North America and the UK. However, there appear to be limits to Hizbul-Islam's ability to make good on any threat. Somali pop music, ranging from the plaintive songs of Abdi Shirre Jama (aka Jooqle) to the hip hop and rap of K'Naan, is widely on sale in Mogadishu.
It can be heard playing in the tea shops of the government-controlled area, which amounts to about a third of the capital, says local BBC reporter Mohammed Olad Hassan. Somalis have to be more discreet about music in non-government areas. Al-Shabab, the country's other big militant group, are known for their own strict interpretation of Islam, frowning on music and cinema.
"You can see drivers on passenger buses playing music inside the government-controlled area, then turning it off when they cross into non-government territory," our reporter says. Pop music is genuinely popular in Mogadishu and many people resent being "bullied" into what they can hear on the radio, he adds. Hizbul-Islam would have all music, right down to the jingles, taken off air, he says. "Deny a Somali his music and his poetry, and you deny him his voice," says Christophe Farah, a journalist of Somali descent in London...'
Somali stations air animal noises to protest extremists' music ban (CNN, 13 April 2010)
'Roars, growls and galloping hooves replaced music Tuesday on some of Mogadishu's radio stations in a protest of a ban on music imposed by Islamic extremists. Radio Shabelle, along with the stations Tusmo and Hornafrik, were responding to threats from Muslim militant groups that believe music is un-Islamic and want it prohibited. Mogadishu's 14 private radio stations stopped playing music Tuesday after Hizbul al-Islam, an Islamic extremist group, issued a 10-day ultimatum. The threat was backed by the main militant group al-Shabaab, which has been linked to al Qaeda. A statement from the National Union of Somali Journalists said several stations received calls, warning them that there would be consequences if they failed to comply with the ban within 10 days.
But the three stations decided to broadcast the noises instead of music. Radio Shabelle announcers could be heard speaking on air, backed by the sounds of hooves, ocean waves, gunfire - even the roars and growls of big cats'.
For centuries, Somalis used poetry and songs to pass protest messages to powerful rulers they were too afraid to confront directly. Now, some young Somalis are using rap to speak out against Islamists who they say are using religion to wage war in their country. The 11-member Waayaha Cusub band, currently in exile in neighbouring Kenya, wants its rap lyrics to encourage fellow Somalis to stand up to Islamist rebels known as al Shabaab.
They have handed out at least 7,000 free copies of their newly-released album titled "No To Al Shabaab" to residents in Nairobi's Eastleigh neighbourhood, home to many Somali migrants. "We will wipe out the fear of our people that no one can speak out against al Shabaab. We will show our people that we can challenge them," said Shine Abdullahi, the group's founder... "They are unkind, teach terrorism, and worthless lessons, they blindfold, and cause pain, inject drugs, that lead to actions, force them to kill their fathers and relatives," one of the group's raps goes.
The group's only female member, Falis Abdi Mohamud, is a rebel in her own right. In one video, the 23-year-old is not covering her head as most Somali women do, and is wearing tight jeans. "They criticise me and say 'she is not Muslim because of wearing a trouser'. I am Muslim," she said. "I want to reach my people. I will not stop my mission because of fear or other people's desires. History will tell who is right and wrong."
Mohamud was born in the southern town of Kismayu that is now an al Shabaab stronghold. The insurgents have banned music in areas that they control and allow only Arabic Koranic chanting. Waayaha Cusub toured the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland in July but Mohamud hopes to perform in her hometown one day. "The trip to Somalia was great. That is when I realised people like our music, and it really gave us confidence not to stop our campaign because a few people who dislike us." The group's youngest member is 15-year-old Suleqa Mohamed, who is a student at an Eastleigh school.
Most of them want to return to Somalia and live off their music when peace returns but currently survive on sponsorships by businessmen and Somalis in the diaspora. Their songs have angered some people. Even in the relative stability and security of Kenya they have been attacked. Gunmen shot and wounded Abdullahi in 2007. He believes the attack was because the group released a series of songs criticising Ethiopia's incursion into Somalia and suicide bombings by the insurgents. Even mobile phone text message threats from al Shabaab sympathisers in Kenya and Somalia have failed to intimidate Abdullahi.
He says he will never be cowered by what he calls "religious warlords" who present an awful image of Islam to the world. "The attack was aimed at silencing the group, but that did not work," he said, showing scars on his stomach from a bullet and the surgery that followed. "We will not allow anyone to silence us. They misread our religion and kill people. They are cursed," he said...
(Here's one of their tracks - this one is not really hip hop, but a great slice of hypnotic dance music . There's lots more stuff at their youtube channel)
Interview with K'naan (Chicago Tribune, 7 April 2010)
'Gangsta rappers have been known to boast about how mean their hometown streets are, but none of them comes from a more violent ‘hood than K'naan. Born Keinan Abdi Warsame in 1978, K’naan grew up in Mogadishu, Somalia, amid one the most brutal civil wars in history.When he was 13, K’naan and his family fled Somalia and took refuge in New York and finally Toronto, where they still live. Coming from a family of performers and poets, K’naan naturally gravitated toward the arts to make sense of his new home and to process the trauma that nearly overwhelmed him in Africa (three of his friends were killed in the conflict). A poet, spoken-word artist and rapper, he has spoken out about his home country’s plight at the United Nations and recorded two albums, the latest of which is “Troubadour” (A&M), released last year. The album blurs the boundaries between spoken word and hip-hop, and incorporates everything from heavy metal to reggae.
Q: What were your memories of growing up in Mogadishu? What about the music there? Did it have an impact on you as a child?
A: I grew up in the Mogadishu of dreams. During an idyllic and optimistic time, and music [was] almost its Siamese soundtrack. I remember realizing very early how music could so seamlessly go from being fun in one moment, to deadly serious in the other. A song would play in the record player at home, and you could sing along loudly and then another would come, and mom would turn it down swiftly, as the song might be considered what they called "anti" - usually music with subliminal poetic messages against the government' (full interview here)
Somali anger at threat to music (BBC News, 7 April 2010)
'Radio stations broadcasting out of Somalia face a dilemma this month after a powerful Islamist militant group ordered them to stop playing music. Saying that the playing of music was un-Islamic, Hizbul-Islam announced on Saturday that stations had 10 days to take it off air. The punishment for failing to comply was not specified but 11 radio stations based in the capital, Mogadishu, are thought to be directly affected. If they drop music, they stand to lose listeners. If they ignore the warning, they face the wrath of the militants.
Music-lovers in the war-torn country are indignant at the idea they will not be able to tune into their favourite pop, which is largely recorded abroad, in North America and the UK. However, there appear to be limits to Hizbul-Islam's ability to make good on any threat. Somali pop music, ranging from the plaintive songs of Abdi Shirre Jama (aka Jooqle) to the hip hop and rap of K'Naan, is widely on sale in Mogadishu.
It can be heard playing in the tea shops of the government-controlled area, which amounts to about a third of the capital, says local BBC reporter Mohammed Olad Hassan. Somalis have to be more discreet about music in non-government areas. Al-Shabab, the country's other big militant group, are known for their own strict interpretation of Islam, frowning on music and cinema.
"You can see drivers on passenger buses playing music inside the government-controlled area, then turning it off when they cross into non-government territory," our reporter says. Pop music is genuinely popular in Mogadishu and many people resent being "bullied" into what they can hear on the radio, he adds. Hizbul-Islam would have all music, right down to the jingles, taken off air, he says. "Deny a Somali his music and his poetry, and you deny him his voice," says Christophe Farah, a journalist of Somali descent in London...'
Somali stations air animal noises to protest extremists' music ban (CNN, 13 April 2010)
'Roars, growls and galloping hooves replaced music Tuesday on some of Mogadishu's radio stations in a protest of a ban on music imposed by Islamic extremists. Radio Shabelle, along with the stations Tusmo and Hornafrik, were responding to threats from Muslim militant groups that believe music is un-Islamic and want it prohibited. Mogadishu's 14 private radio stations stopped playing music Tuesday after Hizbul al-Islam, an Islamic extremist group, issued a 10-day ultimatum. The threat was backed by the main militant group al-Shabaab, which has been linked to al Qaeda. A statement from the National Union of Somali Journalists said several stations received calls, warning them that there would be consequences if they failed to comply with the ban within 10 days.
But the three stations decided to broadcast the noises instead of music. Radio Shabelle announcers could be heard speaking on air, backed by the sounds of hooves, ocean waves, gunfire - even the roars and growls of big cats'.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Russian Flashmobbers attacked by Nazis - then arrested
'Young people who gathered to celebrate spring by blowing bubbles at an annual flash mob in central St. Petersburg were attacked by a group of suspected neo-Nazis who mistook the gathering for a gay pride event, flash mob organizers said...Some 500 people stood blowing bubbles on the steps of Gorkovskaya metro station and in the surrounding Alexandrovsky Park at about 4 p.m. Sunday — the agreed time for the start of the flash mob — when about 30 men ran up and started beating them and firing rubber bullets.
Several people fell to the ground before the attackers fled at the sight of approaching OMON riot police officers. A reporter saw officers detain at least one attacker. Police also detained about 30 bubble-blowers for five hours on suspicion of walking on the grass, a charge that they denied, organizers said. Unconfirmed media reports said at least two participants were injured, one with a concussion and the other from a rubber bullet from an attacker’s gun.... The annual bubble-blowing flash mob, known alternatively as “Dream Flash” and “Soapy Peter,” presents itself as nonpolitical and mostly attracts teenagers... Several minutes after the attackers struck, OMON police declared the flash mob an illegal gathering and started to drive the participants, many of whom continued to blow bubbles, away from the metro and then out of the park with the aid of two police vehicles. “Put away your bubbles,” one police officer barked through a megaphone'.
(full story at Moscow Times, 21 April 2010)
Several people fell to the ground before the attackers fled at the sight of approaching OMON riot police officers. A reporter saw officers detain at least one attacker. Police also detained about 30 bubble-blowers for five hours on suspicion of walking on the grass, a charge that they denied, organizers said. Unconfirmed media reports said at least two participants were injured, one with a concussion and the other from a rubber bullet from an attacker’s gun.... The annual bubble-blowing flash mob, known alternatively as “Dream Flash” and “Soapy Peter,” presents itself as nonpolitical and mostly attracts teenagers... Several minutes after the attackers struck, OMON police declared the flash mob an illegal gathering and started to drive the participants, many of whom continued to blow bubbles, away from the metro and then out of the park with the aid of two police vehicles. “Put away your bubbles,” one police officer barked through a megaphone'.
(full story at Moscow Times, 21 April 2010)
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Prom Politics: No Dirty Dancing in Licking Valley
Kind of fascinated by the politics of the prom, that seasonal culture war on the dancefloor. We don't have anything quite like it in Britain, even if some schools have started imitating the US custom of an end of year dance. I don't really have much sense of the reality of it all, but obviously have been exposed to thousands of renditions of it in every single American teen TV series/film ever - who can forget when Angel turned up at Buffy's prom? Already this year, we've had the 'lesbians banned from prom' saga. Last year there was the case of boy suspended from Baptist school for attending his girlfriend's prom. From Hanover, Ohio comes news of the next battleground:
'Licking Valley High School is continuing its campaign against dirty dancing for this year's prom. The school's administrators have searched for ways to outlaw what they deem inappropriate dancing, such as grinding. "We've been through several different dances with different ways of enforcing it," Principal Wes Weaver said. "Really, nothing's worked."
Previously, administrators have explained the type of dancing that is prohibited, have asked students to stop dancing and have implemented more chaperones and a "penalty box." This year, Weaver and Assistant Principal Shane Adkins met with junior and senior class officers to discuss solutions, which might include just not playing problematic music. "There are people who have gone to a totally slow-dancing evening," Weaver said, adding that other solutions included theme proms with music from the 1950s or '60s.
Licking Valley isn't the only school dealing with the issue. A school in Washington is requiring its students to sign a release agreeing not to grind while at prom. Schools in Wisconsin, Rhode Island and New Hampshire also have banned grinding.
After meeting with class officers, Weaver and Adkins were approached by a group of students inquiring about planning an alternative dance on prom night, May 1. "We can't keep somebody from doing that," Weaver said. The rumors of an alternative dance, which Weaver didn't know any details about, led him to send a letter home to parents that discussed the issue at school and informed them about the possibility of a dance not sponsored by the school taking place that night. "I will want our parents to know this is what is going on," he said.
The prom still will include normal happenings, such as crowning a king and queen and slow dancing, while school officials are trying to brainstorm other ideas, too - some of which have been rejected by students, such as having games available. "That was not something that they were receptive to," Weaver said.
This isn't Licking Valley's first time addressing inappropriate dancing during prom. In 2008, more than half of attendees had left by 9:30 p.m. because of a disagreement with the number of chaperones, a group of students told The Advocate. Weaver is certain the school will work through the issue. "That dancing fad will go away, and we'll be able to go back to having prom," he said'.
Hilarious - if they're worried about lewd thoughts they should do something about the name of that school! And as for desexualising the event by way of a 1950s theme - well, have they never seen Grease? As for the outcome of the Mississippi lesbians not welcome prom, this was a poignant comment by Eric Zorn at the Chicago tribune (Stench of history hangs over prom in Mississippi, 11 April 2010):
'There were two private high school proms last weekend in Itawamba County, Miss. One was the official prom in Fulton, sanctioned and publicized by the school. The other was the unofficial — but real — prom in Evergreen. Background: The Itawamba County School District canceled the regular prom in the face of a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union after Constance McMillen, a lesbian student, had been denied the right to buy tickets for herself and her girlfriend. The announced compromise was this private prom in Fulton, at which all were welcome.
Yet only the lesbian couple and handful of other students, including some with learning disabilities, showed up. The straight kids and mainstream kids were dancing away in formal attire at the shindig in Evergreen. It was reminiscent of a story told by The Birmingham News about what happened in the spring of 1965 to the first African-American girl to integrate Jones Valley High School in that town: "(Carolyn King) spent all Saturday getting ready, fixing her hair, slipping into the pink floral dress her mother finished the week before. … She and her date drove … toward the high school gym. They turned the corner. The gymnasium was dark, empty … White mothers of the prom planners had kept the location of the Jones Valley High prom a secret so she couldn't attend."
Teens sometimes don't know any better. I, for one, was not always as kind as I should have been to schoolmates who were different, and it's a regret that I carry to this day. And occasionally you'll find parents who also don't know any better. Bigots. Fools. Haters. But in Itawamba County in 2010, just like in Birmingham in 1965, virtually an entire community of parents and teens had to conspire to pull off this infamous act of hatred and exclusion'.
Come on folks, Buffy brought a vampire to the prom and nobody batted an eyelid!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Malcolm McLaren: malevolence, subversion and style
'I was born Malcolm McLaren just after the war in 1946, a war baby, a baby boomer as my generation's come to be known, born on the cusp of change in a culture of necessity when you only consumed what you needed to survive; but by the dawn of the 1960s I arrived in a culture of desires when you only consumed what you didn't need to survive. My story is a story of greed, power, malevolence, subversion and with it heaps of style. To be frank it is the history of pop culture, albeit a personal and subjective one, that has taken up more than 50 years of my life and times'.
'The band's greatest moment may have been in 1977 during the Queen's Silver Jubilee. There was to be a Royal flotilla that would proceed down the Thames as the sky erupted with fireworks. I decided to create our flotilla with our own fireworks. We hired a boat. Funnily enough the boat was called the Queen Elizabeth and departed from Charing Cross Pier at about 6:30 in the evening. As the Sex Pistols played its version of God Save the Queen, loud, raucous, rude, our flotilla passed beneath the Thames bridges and the band's supporters swung from the lamposts, dropping pots of yoghurt I remember, cheering like mad groups of artful dodgers. I was arrested. Our portrait of the Queen with a safety pin through her nose was printed in the papers, and God Save the Queen became a best selling record. Even though it was banned not only from the radio but from most conventional consumer outlets'.
(say what you like about Malcolm McLaren but that Silver Jubilee moment was such a breath of fresh air. A rare, and entirely successful intervention against the dreadful royalist consensus of 1977. I was at school at that time and it was a real thrill reading about the exploits of the Pistols as I went about on my paper round. At a time of patriotic street parties and ubiquitous union jacks it felt like somebody was screaming NO, and the success of the record showed that they were far from being alone. Quotes from Malcolm on his BBC radio programme From the Forties to the Noughties. South Londonists see also Malcolm McLaren in New Cross).
Friday, April 16, 2010
London Pirate Frequencies
London Pirate Frequencies is a nice short film presented by Matt Mason, tracing the story of free radio from the 1950s/60s forts in the Thames Estuary through to London tower blocks today. Current stations featured include Kool FM, Rinse FM and Flex FM.
I like Mason's comment about the contradiction between pirate radio's audibility and its invisibility: 'the thing about pirate radio in London is it's kind of everywhere, it's hidden in plain sight. If you turn on the radio, you tune the dial left to right you'll find a station but if you look around you you're not going to see them and they're literally all over the place. They're in residential neighbourhoods, in big tower blocks... there are pirates transmitting, about 80 stations across the city still exist today'.
There's a bit of a debate about whether the internet is killing off free radio on FM. It's true that anybody can now stream music via the internet without taking risks climbing up tower blocks and breaking the law. Most of the established pirates now also broadcast online and reach people all over the world - perhaps in the future they'll just be token FM broadcasts to give a sense of realness/London grounding to the deterritorialized online operation.
What I would miss about the loss of FM is the sheer randomness of coming across an unexpected signal while scanning the frequencies. Also radio is in some ways harder to censor than the internet. Repressive governments, like in China, can block access to websites but anybody with a radio can pick up a signal without the police or anybody else knowing they're listening to it.
I like Mason's comment about the contradiction between pirate radio's audibility and its invisibility: 'the thing about pirate radio in London is it's kind of everywhere, it's hidden in plain sight. If you turn on the radio, you tune the dial left to right you'll find a station but if you look around you you're not going to see them and they're literally all over the place. They're in residential neighbourhoods, in big tower blocks... there are pirates transmitting, about 80 stations across the city still exist today'.
There's a bit of a debate about whether the internet is killing off free radio on FM. It's true that anybody can now stream music via the internet without taking risks climbing up tower blocks and breaking the law. Most of the established pirates now also broadcast online and reach people all over the world - perhaps in the future they'll just be token FM broadcasts to give a sense of realness/London grounding to the deterritorialized online operation.
What I would miss about the loss of FM is the sheer randomness of coming across an unexpected signal while scanning the frequencies. Also radio is in some ways harder to censor than the internet. Repressive governments, like in China, can block access to websites but anybody with a radio can pick up a signal without the police or anybody else knowing they're listening to it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)