Tune-Yards member goes to "Kill White Fragility" workshop, throws dance parties

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/arts/music/tune-yards-merrill-garbus-creep-private-life.html

this def needed a whole new thread, thx whiney

you're mad because you see this as performative wokeness, i guess? what's more maddening, seeing a popular musician learn some shit about white privilege and wanting to share what she learned, or starting a thread about it where you rename a six-month workshop on race at the East Bay Meditation Center the "kill white fragility" workshop?

new album's not bad btw

You participated in a six-month workshop on race at the East Bay Meditation Center while you were working on this album. What was the most surprising thing you learned there?

The whole thing was surprising. We met twice a month, looking at Buddhist principles and our roles as white folks in the community, with readings and videos. A lot of it — learning about a concept like white fragility, for instance — was like, “Oh my God. There’s a word for this?” Instead of walking through the world with this huge amount of defensiveness, [thinking], “I will not be racist,” to say, “Merrill, you are racist, simply by being brought up white in this society. So how does that feel? And let’s move from there.”

what a terrible thing for her to share. ban tune-yards

sorry, ban tUnE-YaRdS

thread title is a play on this ILX classic

CocoRosie member goes to "Kill Whitey" Ironic dance parties and gets called out by brainwashed.com as racist

oh, i didn't make the connection. i know a lot of people whose eyes would roll out of their sockets at the idea of "white fragility" and i'm forced to interact with them on occasion, so i assumed that's what you were doing too, sorry

only '00s kids will remember this

Maybe her next album will be called 'Performatively Woke' and have lyrics confronting the complexities of not only being a white woman playing African-influenced music but singing about singing about her own white fragility and cultural appropriation.

i can't listen to her voice. i tried to listen to the video in the nyt story and i couldn't do it. i really like her sister's work though. her album on autumn/feeding tube is so cool. also reminded that she has a song with the line "hello everybody, there's a nazi living in my head..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQ-r1hmMH8

In a time when artists from Kendrick Lamar to Solange are making vital music about why black lives matter, what does a white musician have to add to the conversation about race?

That’s the question, isn’t it? I constantly question, “Do I deserve to be here?” Why am I talking to you, for instance? This is a privileged place to be. I wish I could say, “I’ve sat and meditated for so many hours on my whiteness that I have something to say.” But I have no idea! And I think it’s O.K. not to know that.

this kind of seems like useless hand-wringing that does nothing to actually help anyone or make the world a better place?

to be fair it is followed by this

That being said, there is plenty that white people can do. A lot of the answers that I got doing that workshop were answers I didn’t particularly want to hear. Like: “Talk to other white people.” My first response was, “No! Why would I want to talk to Trump supporters, or my family that I don’t agree with?” But I will. I don’t want to alienate my fans who voted for Trump, because I want to talk to them. I want to talk about it all.

but what exactly is she going to say when she talks to the Trump supporters if all if the only conclusion she can come to is this fatalistic shrug?

Classic thread title !

Her opener on her upcoming tour is Xenia Rubinos, who is a) fucking incredible live, I'd be more excited to see her than Tuneyards and I really like Tuneyards, and b) is Latina and political as hell. So Garbus is doing more than going to workshops and scratching her chin, she is actively promoting non-white musicians to her indie fanbase.

xenia rubinos is really good yes

yes.

I think her Trump voter fans probably didn’t come on board until after the Pazz and Jop win. They only like winners.

I can't imagine that she has a single Trump-supporting fan

xp

feel like it is easy to clown her but from reading that article she seems to genuinely be looking at systemic inequality rather than posing as #Resistance. that East Bay Meditation Quote from KM is pretty rad. her answer to the best movie she was was really cool.

imo the headline and image they chose to go along with the article does more to set it up for clowning.

clowning this may seem easy but i'd really rather clown her dull music

actually one of her recent songs sounded ok, but she really has put out some bad stuff down the years

the one xenia rubinos song I heard sounded exactly like 311 with jazz vocals lol

so a new favorite?

very much so

you can certainly see why tuneyards is a fan when you watch this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GCRO4FnVNQ

he one xenia rubinos song I heard sounded exactly like 311 with jazz vocals lol

― kurt schwitterz, Thursday, 18 January 2018 18:08 (eleven minutes ago) Permalink

This is one of the lulziest band descriptions I have ever heard

hell yah she got that chad sexton snare ping on every song

the piccolo snare must be stopped

we should have a piccolo snare thread

these dudes have got the best snare sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9yoebrgzYA

agree so much w the picollo snare hate. i dont want to hear a tennis ball, give me something crunchy. i want to hear those little strings of metal brushing on the drum head with every hit.

That's not a piccolo snare, nor is it especially ping-y? I like it when snares are really crushed w/compression and you can hear the ring. Not as in fashion as the tuned-down, muffled, no-rim-shot '70s sound these days though.

Questlove is your guy for piccolo snares, but he keeps it super dead and muffled so it sounds like a '90s rap sample.

damn dude we were just playin sheesh but this is 100% a piccolo snare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3btG0g5_Zg

also that song has the color amber kind of energy all over it

http://youtubedoubler.com/mHYv

Ugggh I do not like that drum sound, you're right though it's totes 311.

man I don't joke about snare sounds

Chad Sexton & P-Nut somehow ended up being more influential than Weezer or Nirvana?

look they're a tite rhythm section ok

thread title is a play on this ILX classic

would have been much better as a revive/reboot

311 comparison is tough but fair

I know it's the album title but man is that one misleading url

That first Xenia Rubinos song was great - it reminded me of Battles. The second one, with the fake jazz vocals, sucked, though. So which one is more representative of her work?

last album mostly v good - try 'black stars' or 'right?'

You're going to want to read @annkpowers' conversation with @tuneyards. https://t.co/pt89RFOQke pic.twitter.com/7HhMbFZOfR

— Lars Gotrich (@totalvibration) January 19, 2018

says the white artist who frequently appears in vaguely "tribal" facepaint

I mean, she's not wrong. But there's room for a nuanced discussion there. If you're sampling OR performing the music of a (sub)culture that you're not a member of, I think it's incumbent on you to bring visibility to that culture and and engage directly with it whenever possible (pay your dudes, essentially). And the more successful you are, the more important that responsibility is.

So... this thread has forever ruined Xenia Rubinos to me. Thanks.

IDG what the difference is between sampling vs covering vs imitating the style of. Why is sampling, in particular, colonialism more than those other things? Isn't it actually far less so, given its history?

"I am doing this thing that I feel guilty about so I'm going to criticize others for doing it while absolving myself by 'admitting' I'm doing it. I really own my privilege."

Imo because it's easier to do thoughtlessly. And when you're covering/performing you sort of can't help but do it your own way, as opposed to literally taking the sound of something else. See also white producers who heavy sample black voices, can be a weird vibe.

xp

She literally has her own radio show where she does this...

https://www.redbullradio.com/shows/tune-yards-claw/episodes/moor-mother-nkisi

d-40: "Popular music is generally speaking all appropriative of Black popular music"

i would be v interested to hear thoughts from d-40 or anyone else on why they think this is. the broader the answer, the better

With Jazz it's broadly true, but there are a load of other influences in there, son Cubano (partially African itself), marching bands, possibly even Irish folk music.

https://www.tagg.org/others/dvorak1895.html

hmm that red bull link is cool but it's like, a mix she made of a bunch of performers. i was expecting it would be a show where the performers would actually perform.

also it seems like playing records on a radio station is literal sampling the music lol

She also did a thing for "Bullseye" recently where she talks about Johnny Clegg's "Moliva": http://www.maximumfun.org/bullseye/bullseye-jesse-thorn-errol-morris-merrill-garbus-tune-yards

Obviously RBMA (or anyone else) giving her the chance to record a concert with some African artists would be rad but logistically speaking I dunno if that's the standard we need to hold ppl to, mixes and shout-outs are valuable to get ppl into this music.

also it seems like playing records on a radio station is literal sampling the music lol

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Monday, January 22, 2018 9:31 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is such a weird take, how does your mind work?

It's not a concert show, but the two artists in question collaborated on a new tune.

i would be v interested to hear thoughts from d-40 or anyone else on why they think this is. the broader the answer, the better

― ogmor, Monday, January 22, 2018 9:13 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There are vast tracts if academia devoted to this but the short broad answers are “colonialism and slavery”

it would be cool if she would just hype a few African artists she loves. people sometimes make fun of Paul Simon or Talking Heads or Peter Gabriel or Joni Mitchell for appropriation but I've ended up listening to a bunch of African artists just because I learned about them from these guys (even if just from the liner notes).

― droit au butt (Euler), Monday, January 22, 2018 9:04 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

TBF one of her better points was that a restrictive visa system seems to have made it harder for foreign artists to tour the US and bank on that exposure. Although at the same time, my guess is it's not the artists sampled by Paul Simon-level artists who have the hardest time. And anyway, it's not like the sampling artists are participating in making the visa system restrictive

rolling self-flagellation 2018

it would be cool if she would just hype a few African artists she loves.

She does do that! isn't that cool?!

http://www.okayafrica.com/tune-yards-merrill-garbus-africa-in-your-earbuds/

Good piece

https://theoutline.com/post/3009/tune-yards-i-can-feel-you-creep-into-my-private-life-review?zd=1

I took "Popular music is generally speaking all appropriative of Black popular music" to be a statement about a continuing ongoing process of development rather than just a statement about historical origins (which I've read plenty about). would you centre its american-ness in the same way?

She does do that! isn't that cool?!

http://www.okayafrica.com/tune-yards-merrill-garbus-africa-in-your-earbuds/

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Monday, January 22, 2018 10:16 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok that is cool! I can't make myself listen to an artist who spells her band name like that but I can check out the African artists she's hyping at least

African pop music slays; everyone knows this. They play William Onyeabor at Panera now. I went through a short phase three years ago where I didn’t want to listen to anything but Afrobeat and Highlife etc. It’s not surprising to me that tons of white artists want to emulate this kind of music. (Want to use this moment to put in a word for Super Mama Djombi.)

It might be my own deficiency but I am really, really turned off by Garbus’s felt need to engage with this music hyperselfconsciously “as a white person” — to constantly ask herself what it means “as a white person” to be inspired by music created by black people. It feels condescending, like she thinks she needs to “protect” this creative work from herself. It just gets everything backwards: really infectious music is impossible not to appropriate, not because it is weak, but because it is strong. The music has captured her, not the other way around.

She gets to profit from it while others don’t because the world is fucked but I don’t think it’s going to get any better by white people singing about how they can “smell the blood” in their “white woman’s voice” or whatever — twisting the process of cultural exchange into something perverse.

*super mama djombo not djombi.

Wow treeship, really surprising us all with those thoughts so out of character. What a way to contribute to this discussion.

It might be my own deficiency but I am really, really turned off by Garbus’s felt need to engage with this music hyperselfconsciously “as a white person” — to constantly ask herself what it means “as a white person” to be inspired by music created by black people. It feels condescending, like she thinks she needs to “protect” this creative work from herself. It just gets everything backwards: really infectious music is impossible not to appropriate, not because it is weak, but because it is strong. The music has captured her, not the other way around.

She gets to profit from it while others don’t because the world is fucked but I don’t think it’s going to get any better by white people singing about how they can “smell the blood” in their “white woman’s voice” or whatever — twisting the process of cultural exchange into something perverse.

― treeship 2, Tuesday, January 23, 2018 7:59 AM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but what about the album?

So her name really is Garbus? I thought you were all just dissing her there for a while.

just because it's well-intentioned doesn't mean it's not utterly useless, she should have handed Rubinos her studio time instead

The album is kinda boring, though? I'll always love whokill for the awesome layered patterns, but everything she has made since than has seemed a bit simple. Thing was, she definitely drew on African influences, but she also filtered it through her own process, making it different. Seeing her live was so awe-inspiring.

It does annoy me to see reviews complaining that her music used to be a 'tonic' but now it's not, and that's bad. White Americans wanting to be confronted with their privilege only in ways that makes them feel good.

I like this album pretty well. On first few go rounds nothing grabbed me as much as the catchiest stuff on the first two, but it's good music for driving or doing the dishes or whatever.

Content-wise I think this is otm: white artists trying to sort of position themselves culturally by acknowledging this in their press cycles are both 1) an encouraging sign, discursively and 2) a little embarrassing, usually

I'm assuming she knows she's at least risking embarrassment, but she still thinks it's important to be upfront about all of it. The outline.com review posted above makes the good and obvious point that her music is most universal when it's about stuff other than being white. But I do think that's kind of a catch-22 -- don't acknowledge privilege, get called out for being unaware; acknowledge privilege, get called out for having the privilege to acknowledge privilege. idk, I think it's probably good in the broad scheme for people to try to wrestle with this stuff. Seen as part of broader shifts rather than as some standalone thing that's going to make or break the cultural discourse, it's more healthy than not. Mostly though I like her/their sounds and grooves.

my heroes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GICR7qSzWg8

"spirit, not location, is the essence of our theme/why not come and join us in our own dream"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH4YpT4rrrw

definitely she should be like Paul Simon who screwed Los Lobos and African contributors out of songwriting credits then almost got himself killed purposefully pissing off the ANC by breaking the boycott of South Africa

tbh that was a ballsy move, Paul Simon seems a lot more dangerous as "guy who dodged ANC hit squads" than "short-ass songwriter jerk"

I want to thank this thread for the excellent turn away from cultural appropriation discourse to 311 discourse; but also, to curse this thread for making me laugh so hard this morning that my back went into spasms and is apparently gonna be bothering me all day now >:O

xpost he's just lucky he didn't get murked because Try Little Steven called it in off

"So her name really is Garbus? I thought you were all just dissing her there for a while."

yes? I don't know why you'd think that was a diss

we're all bozos on this garbus

the garbus is what oscar the grouch drives

I was more surprised that her name was Merrill.

the only people with that name I've run into are around my age and from somewhere northeast
*rolls wikipedia dice*
born 1979, lived in NYC and Connecticut, bingo

I'm assuming she knows she's at least risking embarrassment, but she still thinks it's important to be upfront about all of it. The outline.com review posted above makes the good and obvious point that her music is most universal when it's about stuff other than being white. But I do think that's kind of a catch-22 -- don't acknowledge privilege, get called out for being unaware; acknowledge privilege, get called out for having the privilege to acknowledge privilege. idk, I think it's probably good in the broad scheme for people to try to wrestle with this stuff. Seen as part of broader shifts rather than as some standalone thing that's going to make or break the cultural discourse, it's more healthy than not. Mostly though I like her/their sounds and grooves.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, January 23, 2018 7:19 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my feeling is, the notion of confronting & wrestling w/ privilege does not need to be the literal text of your work; it should instead inform the process of creating your work. racism is famously "a distraction" which forces its victims to wrestle with its consequences before they can do their own work; confronting privilege should be about reversing that dynamic, so the privileged person has to wrestle with racism's implications before deploying their work. But if it becomes the text, it's just creating *more* work for the racialized subject (as described in the review linked upthread)

this is not an absolute rule, but I think it explains what feels 'off' about projects like this and macklemore, which center an assumed white listener

hiring black performers, artists, working with black PR people, managers etc.: good

writing a song about how you're really thinking about this stuff:????

don't make the fact that you've wrestled with privilege a part of your 'brand' unless by that very act it's actual giving ppl some material benefit... idk just feels kind of exploitative otherwise

imo

good post deej

xp

nb this is not to say that her music does not appeal to black listeners or something, i'm thinking of this more from a process pov than from the product one...haven't heard this album

this is not an absolute rule, but I think it explains what feels 'off' about projects like this and macklemore, which center an assumed white listener

the central message of a lot of these 'how to be a good white ally' guides like the workshop she went to is that the most useful thing you can do as a white ally is talk to less enlightened white people afaict, so I guess this album is her version of that? (same for Macklemore's stuff is this vein) Possibly the problem is that "maintain contact with your Trump-voting relatives/workmates and challenge them when they say racist things rather than just avoiding them" doesn't 'scale up' to a pop star's relationship with their listeners?

i think public artwork and conversations with human beings are really different things; and there's an economic aspect to your work that doesn't exist for your conversations (or i.e. these conversations on this message board. I write about rap music, but i tend not to bring explicit discussions of my own allyship into those conversations bc its a different contract with the reader: 1) lots of people reading about rap aren't white & don't care about my own personal relationship with race, they want to know why they should care about fredo santana or whatever, and 2) it would feel weird on my part to make my personal neuroses/handwringing about that stuff a part of the brand on which i've built my career. This isn't to say that I never talk about race in my writing (i do all the time ) i just try to do so w/ the assumption that i'm not always writing for a white audience

which is to say i think its also worth pointing out "Talking about race" and "talking about how to be a good white ally" are not necessarily synonymous, and one can connect with um trump voting relatives by example as much as by um instruction

Or by uppercut

lol... i think uppercut is prob more effective than lecturing sometimes too

To be fair, if you read the lyrics to the album (as opposed to her interviews about the album), there's very little explicit "whiteness" stuff. There's one line -- "all I know is white centrality" -- and then the song "Colonizer," which is basically about being trapped yourself in constructed race and identity. Most of the rest is pretty abstract and could be about race but also about a lot of other ways of struggling to connect and communicate. So I don't think she's made some kind of "Whiteness 4 Dummies" record.

good posts deej

Ya good posts deej

thanks *revels in rush of allyship dopamine*

+3 ally points

90k+bennies to u ally online savings account