Where are the Diasporadic DJs?

A couple of years ago Tanzanian megastar Mr. Nice, whose music I much admire, came to do a concert here in Stockholm. I missed it. Never even heard of it. The concert took place in the immigrant-heavy suburb of Norsborg, far out on one of the subway lines, and as this video shows the attendance was almost 100% diasporadic East African. Any white faces you might spot in the crowd are very probably friends or spouses.

At the parties of DJ Thomas Gylling, who plays Soca, Dancehall, Reggaeton and other caribbean music at large upscale clubs in central Stockholm, the reverse is largely true. Here's a video montage of some crowd photos - there are probably a couple of diasporadic Trinidadians and Jamaicans in the crowd, but I'd guess not many. The majority are middle-class Swedes, some of mixed race, most white.

Now, I'm not going to tiresomely go around and try to argue that this is all somehow wrong. It's inevitable, considering the different cultures and classes involved. But what I do wonder is - why isn't there more exchange of DJs between the two club forms?
I'm a frequent RSS feed subscriber to a whole bunch of sites of DJs in the "nu whirled music" scene, like Dutty Artz and (Rupture's) Mudd Up! and (Maga Bo's) Kolleidosonic and Wayne and Wax. As DJs, they all frequently advertise club nights they participate in. I've been searching through some of the names on the bills and found almost none that regularly play events for a diaspora in the same country. I think DJ Chief Boima (weclome to the blogging world, dude) might do, from some of his comments, but it's certainly not a frequent occurence in general.

And as for the opposite, DJs who regularly do diasporadic events doing mainstream club nights, that's unheard of too, no matter what kind of music is played. Sweden has loads of interesting clubs playing non-european music, like Re:orient Club. Looking over their DJ roster you do see non-swedish DJs but none of them are from the same set that would play your local Lebanese night. No, names like "DJ Shazam" and "DJ Cheb Oman" belong to white europeans, not arabic immigrants.

It seems that deeply entrenched diasporadic DJs just never get to play to more mixed crowds in different settings than the diasporadic one. And I'm kinda wondering why. How come you never see someone like DJ Oslus DJ a party of largely college-educated white kids? If you're after knowledge of African music surely someone like that would be a good choice. Are they not good enough? Don't they send out the right kind of hipster signals?

I think there's a deep inherent danger in only allowing middle-class DJs with existing access networks to present music from the developing world. The DJ is a story-teller and manipulator and can form the discourse concerning a musical style at will - are we only ever going to hear one side of the story at party nights? I do realise that bringing a new audience and revenue stream to people might alter what they play for the worse. But is it worth the risk of one-sidedness in transmission and translation?

If Mr. Nice ever does come back to Stockholm I'll try to go see him, whatever the venue and however uncomfortable I'd feel. I'm keeping tabs on the community now through the Kenya Stockholm Blog. But wouldn't it be awesome if some club promoter would have the courage to bring him and his DJs to Berns instead?

Esoteric Research Methods #4: Youtube most viewed

You guys know I'm not overly fond of Youtube and its astoundingly annoying policy of blocking videos by country, but it is by far the biggest video site out there and a brilliant source for all sorts of video material. I think I've discovered more new stuff via the "what's related" link list on YouTube than any other method in the past year, and the site just keeps growing with new material.

Another interesting way to spot new YouTube videos (and consequently new music) is by looking at the various lists of most viewed videos available on the site. Obvious and not esoteric, you might say, but it's surprising how often you can come across music you've never heard before, seemingly randomly ascending to the heights of the day list or week list, pushed by a crowd you bear no regular relation to.


Here's just a few of the videos I've come across today (as a random sampling moment) from the recesses of the Rap & Hip Hop - Most Viewed list. The focus is definitely on stuff I would not usually access through other channels, ie. nothing American generally.

German hip-hop always features heavily on the list and I'm not overly fond of it - there's something a bit dour and formulaic about the beats and too strong a boom-bap emphasis to appeal to me immediately. One track that stood out a little bit though was Ghettobass by Azad (page 1, this month), which at least has some interesting drum machine programming now and then. French hip-hop is usually a bit more fresh and indeed something like Suis-Je Le Guardien De Mon Frere by Sefyu (page 3, this month) is considerably more exciting to me with a very engaging bass riff and atmospheric synth line.

And while we're eating off Europe's biggest countries, how about Spain? Emsis by Tr3s Monos (page 5, this month) is sample-based (which usually a no-no for me) but I like the way it's built up and the floating synth line. Italy is plenty represented on the list too, with 'U Tagghiamu 'Stu Palluni...?! by Combomastas (page 2, this week) a clear highlight - how much more gangsta does it get than Sicilian rap, especially stuff that feels this Sicilian?

The best of the big European countries is totally Poland though. With its minimalist synth-oriented sound something like W Aucie by Sokol feat. Pono & Franek Kimono (page 1, today) totally rocks my world. Sokols record company, Prosto, is well-represented on Youtube and practically all the material is killer, with a recognisable signature sound that's one of the most unique and interesting on the continent. Polish hip-hop outside this one company is not as strong but Warto Rozmawiac by CeHa (page 1, today) is also a pretty good track, I like the pitch-bent keyboard.

Of course, there are limitations to this sort of approach. All the countries I've picked out are European with a population of 40 million or more, and that's hardly a coincidence - there's bare representation on the lists somewhere from Libya, Hungary, Brazil, Holland, Denmark and Australia, but all with considerably weaker material. The genre limit means it's almost entirely straight hip-hop and that other genres don't get a look in. But even so, in just a few minutes I've picked out a whole set of songs that by all accounts are interesting and lead on to other equally fascinating threads of research. Tell me what other random sampling approach could possibly accomplish that?

Manele is for the Kids

Just gotta post about my favourite young manelist at the moment, Ionut Cercel. And when I say young I honestly mean young: this is truly the next generation of Manele singer.



The kid can't be more than ten in these videos (although there are some available where he's a little older), but he's already a fully accomplished manele singer. His vocal technique really shines on some of his slower tracks, while remaining noticably the voice of a young boy, and there's a feeling that child stars rarely are able to put across. I like.

Still, it's obviously not destined to end well and I do worry about someone this young in the music industry. Apparently a product of an eager (manelist) father who put him in a TV show, age 4, he's now 12 and out promoting his album. Some of the pictures in an album like this are quite disturbing, especially the one where he's holding a bottle of Carlsberg. There's obviously a trend with child stars in manele (with other boys like Babi Minune) and while I guess they're adorable it's maybe not that good a sign really.

Let's hope he'll manage to outlive his child star status in any case, 'cause he's obviously very talented. (A few more videos.)

Genres that Last

"Hey hey, my my/Rock'n'roll will never die"
-- said Neil Young

Well, I guess so far he's been right. Rock'n'roll hasn't died. But since Rust Never Sleeps came out in 1979 countless genres of music have disappeared or been relegated to dozy nothingness. Insignificantly small ones that blipped by on the radar. Big ones that defined an age. Some are even dying now.

But not rock'n'roll, that's survived well since the seventies. And whatever Nas has to say about it, not hip-hop either. Dancehall is doing remarkably well, again. Soca has faired better but shows no sign of seizing up. Punk is doing okay, if on a smaller, subcultural scale. Bollywood has produced some great material recently. Soukous too. And R&B -- well, you know R&B. How come this is so? Why do some genres seemingly go on forever, thirty years or more, while others fizzle out immediately?


Well, there's the obvious stuff. Vagueness is helpful. Very large size with different groups forming different understandings is probably a good idea. Chance definitely has something to with it, with the large arbitrariness of how labels are applied denying new ones survival or creating ones that are especially strong.

In general, for almost any genre that manages to stay strong over nearly thirty years, the ability to absorb generation shifts is incredibly important. Something like "rock" solves this by having each generation take over the label but kick out its current practitioners - there was no opposition in both prog rock, pub rock and punk rock being genres of "rock" in Britain. Thus the inevitable generation putsches don't necessarily involve getting rid of genres, and different groups and scenes in different circumstances all adopt the label.

Soca, dancehall and Bollywood (to name three) are different though - here it's pretty much one continuous scene with stationary and/or gradually shifting centers, yet they've remained vital throughout. I think the other possibility for a scene that will outlast its original generation is music that's very clearly functional, with a group of actors (sound systems, carnival organisers, movie makers) competing against each other and demanding good quality product from musicians. This way institutions benefit from constant development and encourage it, gradually brining in young talent instead of excluding it.

This is all idle speculation in any case. I'd love to hear anyone with a really long-lasting genre that doesn't fit either the "functional music" or "vague term that stands for something rather than represents a scene" criteria. In particular, I think the Jazz scene might have gone beyond either (with non-functional music and respect for the elders and institutions), and I do think some genres will change around over time.

Hate Thy Neighbour

The phenomenon of prole-hate in music is a curious beast. Otherwise sensible people, considered members of academia and the middle class, will passionately hate certain types of music. They will overlook all its qualities, disparage its musical appeal and consider it the worst kind of crass commerciality. And it happens over and over again, with surprising frequency, in all sorts of contexts.

Chris at Word The Cat posted about one such hated-but-brilliant genre last week, Romanian manele, and how it's hated by everyone from script kiddies to literature professors. But certainly I've seen similar diatribes against funk carioca, new orleans bounce, UK garage and so on. It's amazing how socially acceptable it can be (certainly chav-hate in the UK completely is). Certainly it can be partly explained by some sort of hegemonistic pushing of the values of the bourgeoisie, but in the end I'm not sure that's the primary motivation. Actually, I think its a lot simpler than that.


One thing that almost all of these kinds of accounts have in common is the bog-down into details about clothing, manners, appearance and other factors that have very little to do with the actual music. I think this gives a clue to what it's actually about - it's a hate of the people rather than the music, and the music gets swept along in it all. And not just any people either: it's almost always the people you don't like or didn't like as a kid in your immediate surroundings. People don't hate "proles" across the globe but close to their own community. Hence the hate for manele which is actually a hate for roma in disguise.

The same sort of argument can be made when it comes to subcultures - is there anything a "proper" hip-hop lover hates more than their immediate "neighbour" in southern hip-hop? People can dismiss loads of music but only get truly livid at the stuff that they encounter near (but not in) their own social surroundings. (A similar thing can be seen with hardcore and punk people against emos. At this point the connection to class gets tenuous indeed...)

I'm certainly not immune myself to this stuff. I can't honestly listen to or appreciate french house or britpop (among other things) because the people in the discos in York were listening to it when I lived there. Nasty fucking music for nasty fucking people! I'm trying to get past these sentiments but it's damned difficult. Maybe the worse you feel about it the more powerful it actually is, look at punk and rock'n'roll...

I think this is partly why I can appreciate writers who are completely outside the music they write about, like Fredrik Strage here in Sweden. He may write for (and I quote) "the ad executives, who want to be hip (but don't actually want to get 'down')" (AH-H) but the fact that he is so distanced from the musics serves to create perhaps a better communication between high and low than if he'd be standing right next to it. I'm not sure if this partly contradicts stuff I've previously said, but there you go.

Update: Gorgeous Bourdieu quote on this subject: "Social identity lies in difference, and difference is asserted against what is closest, which represents the greatest threat."

And now we're going to Stockholm and the votes of the Birdseed Jury. Hello Stockholm!

Hello Belgrade! I must say you've put on a great show tonight - these are the votes of the Birdseed jury.

[Now that I've plowed through them all I was going to a top ten of my favourites and a top ten of my predictions. But heck, I'm going to be so optimistic that I'll just post my favourites and make those my predictions too - I believe in the Eurovision audience, and "quality" in Eurovision terms can't be defined as anything other than broad pop appeal.]


1 point to Russia (video) (article)
2 points to Turkey (video) (article)
3 points to Moldova (video) (article)
4 points to Denmark (video) (article)
5 points to Croatia (video) (article)
6 points to Ukraine (video) (article)
7 points to Bulgaria (video) (article)

8 points goes to... Bosnia (video) (article) Bosnia and Herzegovina eight points. Bosnie et Hercégovine huit points.

10 points goes to... Azerbaijan (video) (article) Azerbaijan ten points. Azerbaïdjan dix points.

And our 12 points goes to... Malta (video) (article) Malta twelve points. Malte douze points.

Thank You Stockholm!

Iceland, Norway, Denmark, UK, Georgia, Serbia: Dreg Round Out

The very last (well almost) post of Eurovision entries rounds out all the entries that don't fit into the other categories, should have been in other categories but weren't, or that I've just not had the energy to write about before. All of them should ideally have got their own, well-considered entries but time is running critically short.

Let's start off with four more mysterious retro offers.

Eurobandid - This is my life
Uploaded by nostalxia

I grew up listeing to this sort of music, being a total Eurocheese fan around the age of ten. That was in 1991. And however much Iceland has updated some of the electronics and adapted the song to Eurovision stylistics with that soaring duetting, it's damned hard to look beyond the fact that it's essentially a stylistic borrowing from an era that falls into the Uncool gap. (Usually stuff more than a couple of years old up to maybe fifteen-twenty years old is always going to be uncool. Although the early nineties are possibly on the verge of a pending revival what with the renewed interest in Portishead and stuff.) In any case, it's gonna take some more clever reworking than this to get it contemporary - they could easily make something decent by keeping the vocals and changing the backing.

Maria Haukaas Storeng - Hold on Be Strong
Uploaded by nostalxia

Norway's entry sorely needs heavy restructuring. Currently it's some sort of ABCABCC', of which the B part is so completely out of place it's ridiculous, with a totally different melodic feel and no apparent connection to the rest. And then C', the repeat of the bit that must tentatively be considered the chorus, goes into the same feel - bombastic broadway rather than popped-up folk song. It's major confusing and won't fly in this competition, where simplicity is utterly the key. They should have just gone for the verse and the chorus, added a Hardangerfela and written different lyrics for the second instance of the worse, walking before attempting to run.

2008 Denmark - Simon Mathew (Semi 2)
Uploaded by nostalxia

The last Scandinavian entry also suffers from some gelling issues, with a straight-up happy chorus that doesn't really seem to work with the more relaxed verses and a strangely uncompelling bridge (though a decent middle-eight). That and its near-painful Danishness should prevent me from liking it. But the last half is killer: Beatles-like drive at a high level with a great horn part, good voice, lovely harmonies and a compelling singalong quality that could easily have gone along for several more minutes. I think this could be Denmark's most successful entry for years.

Andy Abraham - Even If
Uploaded by Galiza

Yes, it's memorable and stuff. But the UK's entry falls under my strong aversion to fake old-style music and I'd rather not be poking at it too much. Soul fans might well vote for it anyway. *shudder*

And now for an entry that should have ended up somewhere in the previous two posts but inexplicably was forgotten.

Diana Ghurtskaia - Peace will come
Uploaded by jief75

I seem to have, eh, mislaid Georgia's pop entry with rock guitars last time but it fits well enough into that theme, with its touch of Bond-themeishness and its unusual lyrical content the only stand-out features. The eastern-ish chorus is probably the best part.

eurovision serbia 2008 - Jelena Tomasevic - Oro
Uploaded by jief75

And finally host country Serbia's entry, which I'm a bit afraid might be the first step towards an Ireland-style development. First they become more and more successful at perfecting a formula, then after they win the quality of the entries slowly starts decreasing as the pattern becomes more superficial and formulaic. This isn't bad but it's nowhere near as dramatic as the best stuff; "low-key" might be the first step towards "smoothed-out". (Actually Greece is doing something similar - haven't their characteristic up-tempo pop songs become way more dull since they won it?) Watch out for a couple of bombs followed by a turkey in years to come.

There. I'm done. In time for the Semis. Phew.