Africans accuse African Americans of "appropriating" their culture (legitimate criticism?)

[IllmaticDelta]

@ Lost1

Check this vid out..it talks about Palmwine, Highlife and Jazz

 

[K.O.N.Y]

could you go more in depth on how techno was birthed. That video alluded to Detroit creating it from euro bands/music had me like . They named some of them in the vid

 

[IllmaticDelta]

could you go more in depth on how techno was birthed. That video alluded to Detroit creating it from euro bands/music had me like . They named some of them in the vid

There were European bands making Electronic Music but it was stiff and robotic synthpop





Kraftwerk were actually trying to imitate James brown/Funk through electronics

You mention how even though you loved black music it wasn't your sound. What's interesting is how, very early on, you were embraced by black America – or certain parts of the black American concert going public at least.

KB: "That happened not too long after my first encounter with Ralf and Florian. In 1975 we went over the Atlantic and spent 10 weeks on the road. We went from coast to coast and then to Canada. And all the black cities like Detroit or Chicago, they embraced us. It was good fun. In a way apparently they saw some sort of very strange comic figures in us I guess but also they didn't miss the beats. I was growing up with the funky beats of James Brown and I brought them in more and more. Not during Autobahn or Radioactivity but more and more during the late 70s. We took some black beats into our music and this was very attractive to the black musicians and the black audiences in the States. In a way probably it reminds me of what The Beatles did. They took some Chuck Berry tunes and they transferred it to our European culture before taking it back to America and everyone understood that. In a way that was probably what we did with black rhythm and blues. But we mixed it of course with our own identity of the electronic music approach and European melodies. And this was good enough to succeed in America.

The Quietus | Features | A Quietus Interview | Karl Bartos Interviewed: Kraftwerk And The Birth Of The Modern

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The influence of James Brown is something you’ve spoken about before, how did you manage to incorporate his rhythms into a style of music that was very different.

You just do it. Because if you do one thing for the first time, there are no footsteps in the snow. This was the funny thing, we had this idea of making in music the same thing as in animation pictures. You draw the whole world and you have the image of the world – but it all looks different, because it’s drawn. It’s not a photo of a duck – it’s a drawn duck. Or Mickey Mouse – it’s a drawn mouse. And then you have a tree, but it’s a drawn tree. And because of that you change from a realistic point of view into something else, which is a jotting of it, a concept of the world. It’s not real. And then you can explain things much better.

So, James Brown. If you use this artificial environment of synthetically generated sound, and you use the same off-beats taken from James Brown, it sounds familiar but different. It’s the same off-beat but somehow everything is changing, because it’s a new texture. But it’s the same timing [taps on the table], it’s the same rhythm. But it has changed, somehow it has this twisted thing. Tarantino. He gives us a very well-known character, but the hero now is a black guy: Django Unchained. So the main character is suddenly black, and it’s really cool because it gets a twist, and you can’t relate it to anything you’ve seen before. And that’s what we did. Through the different texture it got a twist.

In Simon Reynolds’ rave culture book Energy Flash, Carl Craig says, “Kraftwerk were so stiff, they were funky”…

We had the offbeat, and you have to know how to place offbeats and not exaggerate them. Sometimes, if people are really good drummers, they make so many offbeats they just wipe each other out. But if you have just one offbeat, and you repeat it every four bars, then it becomes so strong it becomes a formula. And I’m always after a certain formula that you can repeat in your mind. It’s just the right offbeat at the right time.

I think there’s an element of repetition in James Brown’s music that’s also relevant…

Johnny Marr told me this funny story. There was a new guitarist who wanted to be part of James Brown’s band, and the old guitarist said to him, “Hey guy, can you play this on the guitar? Bee-be-de…bee-be-de…bee-be-de…”. And the new guitarist says ‘Pffft, that’s easy’. And the guy says, ‘Yes, it’s easy, but can you play it for three hours?!’.

Interview: Karl Bartos - The Monitors






The Detroit dudes got a hold of these same electronic instruments but made it funky/loose/danceable in a way Europeans couldn't

At the age of sixteen, Atkins heard electronic music for the first time, which would prove to be a life-changing experience. In late-1990s interviews, he recalls the sound of synthesizers as being like "UFOs landing." He soon had his first synthesizer and abandoned playing funk bass.[3]

“ When I first heard synthesizers dropped on records it was great… like UFOs landing on records, so I got one.…It wasn’t any one particular group that turned me on to synthesizers, but 'Flashlight' (Parliament's number one R & B hit from early 1978) was the first record I heard where maybe 75 percent of the production was electronic.[4]







Techno was always more "robotic" sounding than house because Detorit dudes were on that "Afrofuturastic"tip whereas the Chicago dudes were trying to revive Disco. Techno is influenced by Chicago House but just more robotic

The Belleville Three

The three individuals most closely associated with the birth of Detroit techno as a genre are Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, also known as the "Belleville Three".[3] The three, who were high school friends from Belleville, Michigan, created electronic music tracks in their basement(s). Ironically, Derrick May once described Detroit techno music as being a "complete mistake...like George Clinton and Kraftwerk caught in an elevator, with only a sequencer to keep them company."[4]

While attending Washtenaw Community College, Atkins met Rick Davis and formed Cybotron with him. Their first single “Alleys of Your Mind”, recorded on their Deep Space label in 1981, sold 15,000 copies, and the success of two follow-up singles, “Cosmic Cars” and “Clear,” led the California-based label Fantasy to sign the duo and release their album, Clear. After Cybotron split due to creative differences, Atkins began recording as Model 500 on his own label, Metroplex, in 1985. His landmark single, “No UFOs,” soon arrived. Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Robert Hood also recorded on Metroplex. May said that the suburban setting afforded a different setting in which to experience the music. “We perceived the music differently than you would if you encountered it in dance clubs. We'd sit back with the lights off and listen to records by Bootsy and Yellow Magic Orchestra. We never took it as just entertainment, we took it as a serious philosophy,” recalls May.[5]

The three teenage friends bonded while listening to an eclectic mix of music: Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Bootsy, Parliament, Prince, Depeche Mode, and The B-52's. Juan Atkins was inspired to buy a synthesizer after hearing Parliament.[5] Atkins was also the first in the group to take up turntablism, teaching May and Saunderson how to DJ.[6]

Under the name Deep Space Soundworks, Atkins and May began to DJ on Detroit’s party circuit. By 1981, Mojo was playing the record mixes recorded by the Belleville Three, who were also branching out to work with other musicians.[7] The trio traveled to Chicago to investigate the house music scene there, particularly the legendary Chicago DJs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles.[6] House was a natural progression from disco music, so that the trio began to formulate the synthesis of this dance music with the mechanical sounds of groups like Kraftwerk, in a way that reflected post-industrialist Detroit. An obsession with the future and its machines is reflected in much of their music, because, according to Atkins, Detroit is the most advanced in the transition away from industrialism.[8]

Juan Atkins has been lauded as the "Godfather of Techno" while Derrick May is thought of as the "Innovator" and Kevin Saunderson is often referred to as the "Elevator"[9][10]

 

[emoney]

I understand that,she doesn't .She gets hella defensive. Might be because she's female though .

Even guys like Akon and Wale (who were both born in America but with immigrant parents) have talked about (in interviews and their music) hatred they have received from American Blacks growing up. So it's not just a female thing. @Akan/Igbo saying it was light hearted joking probably engaged in that tormenting and teasing his/her self.

 

[emoney]

Subsaharan Africans wouldn't even be able to live in America if it wasn't for Black Americans

They'd still be in their impoverished 3rd world shytholes

Subsaharan Africans owe American Blacks their LIVES for being able to leach off of black Americans hard work

Do other immigrants owe their lives to Black Americans? or is it just Sub Saharan African Blacks that do?

 

[emoney]

They're responding the same way you African-Americans are to cops slaughtering innocent black men in the streets and imprisoning millions of the other blacks in modern day slavery known as the prison industrial complex. I guess one thing can be said for blacks throughout the entire globe is that we're ALL the white man's bytch, huh?

Don't get it twisted, while you African-Americans have to worry about just white Americans, Africans have to worry about EVERYONE from white Americans, to the Chinese, to the Russians and the Arab world as they scramble for our continent and it's precious resources.

So yeah, you might have to "live under racism in a society dominated by whites", but we have the ENTIRE world on our necks preventing that next Patrice Lumumba or Thomas Sankara from emerging. So don't minimize our struggles to bolster yours...

Black American inner city neighborhoods and Black African nation states are in the same predicament.

Both are being dominated economically by foreigners who seek only to siphon the wealth and resources out without putting anything back in.

How can people not see that the Chinese, Indian, Arab, Jew and European merchants operate the same way in the hood that they do on the continent?

I'm not sure what the solution is but that much at least needs to be understood.

 

[emoney]

Most Igbo were captured and sold by other Igbo from different clans or towns.

I was about to post this.

The Igbo were not invaded or conquered by any other neighboring African/Nigerian group so the fact that they got to the Americas in such large numbers was primarily internal. And if majority of Afro-Americans descend from them that is even more an indict on the black on black self hate because the Igbo sold each other out into slavery in the same way that African-Americans turn on each other at the drop of a dime.

 

[emoney]

true, A lot of Empires were actually Angry At the Europeans for outlawing slavery. And went to war with them.

my point is that There were certain people who were members of Groups that aided Europeans, that were given special privileges after Colonial times(EX the Hausa who dominated Nigerias politics for a long time) .

The Hausa/Fulani together both dominated Nigerian politics for much of the country's existence. In fact, they do even today. Mohammed Buhari (current Nigerian President) is a Fulani and the country's richest man Aliko Dangote is a Fulani. Hausas are mainly the Fulani elites foot shoulders as they are not as educated (especially on Islam as most of them have a general or exoteric knowledge of the religion).

But back to the empires angry at the Europeans for outlawing slavery...that is the case in Ghana with the Ashanti/Asante. Amongst Afro-Americans, Asantes are a group that get praise for fighting the British (Yaa Asantewaa) but what is not discussed is the reason why they fought them in the first place. The Asante Empire one of the most powerful in Ghana only fought the British because they were losing their monopoly on the slave and gold trades. It's funny how they get credited for being revolutionaries when they conquered small and weaker Akan tribes and sold them into slavery as well as some of their own tribesman into slavery. The Yoruba in Nigeria are a similar group of selling their own into slavery. A lot of larger West African tribes really need to just STFU about slavery and the Afro-Americans who descend from those groups need to STFU because they descend from people who sold their own out. I'm talking about the Asante, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani....many of the groups AAs claim they descend from were the biggest sellouts during the colonial period.

 

[Samori Toure]

Even guys like Akon and Wale (who were both born in America but with immigrant parents) have talked about (in interviews and their music) hatred they have received from American Blacks growing up. So it's not just a female thing. @Akan/Igbo saying it was light hearted joking probably engaged in that tormenting and teasing his/her self.

My family has not been immigrants to the USA since slavery. My parents were born in Tennessee. My grandparents, great grandparents, etc, are from Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.

I wrote that the teasing that new Africans to the USA receive from Africa Americans is the same type of teasing that African Americans from the North use to give to African Americans from the South in the USA. It is just teasing. Africans do that same teasing to each other too, when so one moves from a small village to a big city like Lagos. Hell we are all Africans so relax.

 

[emoney]

All of this just comes from jealousy man

They wanna be responsible for our cultureEverything that makes US Black Americans greatThey even wanna look like US

They want our spotThey just wanna be like usMama africa look up to usWe smack her pon the head

And the way they attack light skinned black American peopleWe all know what that's really about Go get some self-esteem africa

Take your spot?
Be like you?
Look like you?

lol you sound like a delusional negro

What grown African adult over the age of 30 is trying be like you? look like you? or take your spot?

High-school is over and being cool no longer counts for anything anymore.

Light skin "Black" American people are attacking Africans because you might feel unauthentic as you have high doses of Caucasian blood (which makes you react and think similarly to them without knowing). A lot of you Aframs are stuck between a rock and a hard place....You hate and loathe Africa but then you live in a country (America) that is dominated by people who hate you. Many of you feel superior and different and think your too good to go to Africa and integrate with the people there but yet have no problem integrating and intermingling with White people here in America. See the hypocrisy? What you demand from Africa (land, resources, power) you don't from America? Why wasn't Liberia created on the American continent?

 

[emoney]

QUOTE ="Randall Flagg, post: 14455239, member: 15508"]Why won't you Africans lead the way since you're superior, your numbers are bigger and you have more resources than us measly "AAs[ QUOTE ]
They have entire countries to themselves. They are the majority in their countries.

Means very little in a global community. The same argument could be made that Afro-Americans have entire cities and communities to themselves so why aren't they leading and doing better? Detroit and ATL are predominantly Black cities but it doesn't matter when they are surrounded by CACs. Same way it doesn't matter that Nigeria and Ghana are predominantly Black countries when the world economy is dominated by Eurasian peoples. Your not looking at the fact that there is a bigger order in play. Black Sub-Saharan African countries are trapped and surrounded in the same way Black inner city neighborhoods in America are trapped and surrounded.

 

[emoney]

So I guess Africans have no culture because none of it is hot globally?

Why would you even want your culture to be commodity? like African-American has been reduced to. Culture should be intimate and shared by those with lineage to it's origin, not universal for any and everyone to partake in.

 

[emoney]

You mean the whites you claim as black to prop up your accomplishments?

Good point! A lot Black "Firsts" were not accomplished by actual Black people at all...usually mulattos. Even today, their first Black President (Barack Obama) came out of a white vagina and his father was stereotypical dead beat daddy

 

[emoney]

The Irony in this post is just too much.

You do realize the American Power structure uses African Americans to Push American Cultural Supremacy(via the Media) Upon the World.

And what do yall get in return? Oh yeah, getting shot in the streets by cops, and being trolled by cacs saying

"ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS WORK HARD AND PULL YOURSELF UP BY YOUR BOOTSTRAPS"

But let them tell it we are just jealous because they are superior and we want their spot lol (a spot given to them by White Americans)

 

[DabbinSauce]

Liberia

You see what we did when we got over there right

They even look like US

We took your shyt

bytch ass tree climber