Piety in Deep House and Neo Soul (Moodymann and Badu Related)

Can of worms, time. Lets see if anyone'll bite.

""Pious" implies either a) a reverence which isn't present in the album at all, or b) a certain amount of lecturing, which just isn't the feeling I take from her commentary - when she talks about her people, about society, there's a generosity and compassion there which "pious" would preclude. See the line "To my girls on prescription pills" in 'Soldier' - a pious singer would castigate them for their behaviour. Erykah just sings, warmly and understandingly, "I know how you feel". Which isn't surprising - 'Me' is followed immediately by 'My People', and she pretty much explicitly states that she is her people. She's not above her characters, and just cuz she's kicking people in the ass and sharing her wisdom doesn't mean she's not including herself in that. Actually, putting 'Me' so near the start of the album is a statement of her intent not to be pious."

Lex c'mon this is classic sympathetic interpretation. You could just as easily say that "I know how you feel" is condescending in its assumption that she understands everything that other people go through. Conflating yourself with your people could just as easily be an arrogant reduction between her personal shit and the shit of a community. This is Christian Piety 101. Of course she's not lecturing girls on prescription pills - no-one within a very broad swathe of the liberal/lefty/artsy community would do that, and Erykah pretty clearly belongs to that community. But her politics on this album also remind me of a lot of lefty broadsheet writers over here who do strike me as - yes - rather "pious" in their scrupulously Jesus-like identification with the poor and the oppressed and the imperfect. I mean, good on them, better that than the other way round - but an air of piety goes with this territory no matter how nuanced you try to be.
― Tim F, Monday, February 16, 2009 10:11 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

This is Tim quoting Lex and then responding on the 2008 polls thread.

I'd be interested in getting back to some of the discussion around Deep House that was inspired by some of the whole pipecock furor. Its pretty difficult to argue that there aren't really chasmic cultural differences between African American artists working in Deep House and the European dance market. I'm not as interested as going back into that whole thing as I am in asking if if might possibly have to do with the deep roots that parts of Deep House have in gospel?

I know that all the dance music people in here have heard that, but its a case in point.

I was also wondering what if Tim would be so generous as to unpack his thoughts regarding Piety, initially he seemed to dislike it in the discourse around dance music. Now he seems to be reacting negatively to a Pious attitude in a Neo Soul artist. Arguably Moodymann and Badu are working in similar ways as artists.

I was wondering if its possible to distinguish the genuine respect that both these artists seem to feel for the cultural legacy of rhythm and blues over the last 60 odd years from Piety. As an afterthought, I didn't really get into New Amerykah until I heard it massively high on Vicodin after a back injury. For me it works as well as Screw Music for downers.

There also seems to be a sort of European fetish for crackly soul samples in dance music.

Arguably Theo Parrish and Moodymann, and probably Omar S and Jus Ed wouldn't have as much of a following as they do in Europe without this. I've read so many reviews praising "warm soul chords" and the like from Phonica and other places.

A lot of the old beef with rave from Derrick May seemed to be around European audiences taking music that came from his soul (paraphrasing here: his culture, his love of the music) and turning it into rave music.

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/images/minefield.jpg

I'm aware of this. Not looking to hurt any feelings or start an 800 post insult fest.

where is the badu convo from

From the middle of the 2008 album poll.

It kept crashing my browser so I wanted to move this segment somewhere else.

Alan this is an interesting thread topic but i should be clearer re my thoughts on these issues:

1) I don't really think the Badu album is terribly pious, I just think Lex wasn't disproving Frank Kogan's argument that it was by quoting her lyrics. I'd actually put the Badu album in the same category as DJ Sprinkles: even when they threaten to be pious the vision is much too idiosyncratic and oddball to become so in a negative sense.

"Piety" also implies adherence to orthodoxy, which you couldn't say that either artists are caught up in. India.Arie's big singles strike me as a more archetypal example of neo-soul piety.

2) In terms of objecting to piety in dance music, I've really been objecting to piety in dance music crit and dance music discourse - the ritualistic support for particular artists, labels etc. based around notions of worthiness, which starts to take on a moralising tone - i.e. it is morally better to buy Moodymann records than Henrik Schwarz records. It doesn't just happen on the axes of race/class/nationality though. Three years ago there were a lot of people acting as if it was morally superior to buy Villalobos records (as opposed to, say, Get Physical stuff) on the grounds of the former's more rigorous artistry.

What I object to isn't the nature of the music being supported (often it's marvelous, and itself not very "pious" as such), but the way in which the critical reaction becomes reflexive and adherent to set of presumptions about what is "right" and "wrong" in music. This strikes me as lazy criticism.

Thanks, that was the clarification I was looking for.

I was a little bit bothered by conflating lazy (Pious) criticism with the very complex social or cultural attitudes that some of these artists display. Although I'd venture that Mr Cox probably follows something like this as his highest ideal.

What this all really reminds me of is a scene in the movie Ray.

Ray Charles was starting to use gospel elements in his RnB, and his girlfriend at the time in the movie told him it was sacrilegious. Mixing the carnal (RnB) with the sacred (Gospel) was a majorly divisive aesthetic choice at the time. As the gay son of Christian minister this is sort of pet subject of mine.

Actually the thing I most love about Deep House is that sometimes it crosses the boundaries between the sacred and the carnal in ways that are difficult to quantify. Ways I feel display some measure of transcendence.

The more pious attitudes re deep house that I tend to rail against (predictably and boringly at this stage, I know) usually downplay the carnal aspect. At the same time the spiritual component is secularised as "soul", which in this context is quasi-mystical but not religious.

Maybe I'm just not terribly nuanced: something like "Church Lady" or "He Is The Joy" or "My Joy" captures that conflicted vibe you talk about a bit more obviously (and therefore effectively) for me.

Like, I adore the DJ Sprinkles album but only the context gives it any carnal connotations for me - it doesn't feel sexual so much as elegaic and very sad. Of course there's no reason why it can't be both but I don't feel like the album is even trying for the former vibe.

not 'dance person' but 'dance panda'

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/WidowOfDestiny/Jiggle_Panda.gif

You're probably right Re DJ Sprinkles, it feels very abstracted from the New Jersey scene of his younger days.

And the sad thing for me is that all of this music can function very easily as low volume lounge music.

personally i think the sense of piety in UK house is much more interesting

Like what part of UK House in particular?

I'm mostly familiar with the UK's neo disco people, that and some of the Defected artists that seem to be big with the London scene right.

Right now.

Can't type today.

stuff like JBO and paper music and glasgow underground.

like they are always pledging allegiance to US house scenes, but what scene were they really think they were doing justice to when they did "london x-press"?

the scene of bald guys who like football and real ale

Surely all this piety is more a projection of the characteristics of the fans onto the artists than it is intrinsic to the music...

Yeah, that accords with my argument above Jacob (though a lot of the artists who get this treatment spend a lot of time building their own mythology, so it blurs a bit).

What about Osunlade?

Takes the whole House as pseudo-religion into, well, actual religious territory.