Re: [microsound] jazz and race

[Data General <btausig@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sure, I agree.  But just because it's general doesn't make it meaningless:

when people argue that laptop music is disproportionately in the hands of
whites, I counter that this is a narrow viewpoint which overemphasizes
a particular piece of hardware.  More broadly (thus the generality)
electronic music is a style which remains bound to cultural exchange.

Yes, it would be nice (responding to Kim here) if there were more
diversity in electronic music, but it would also be nice if people
recognized that diversity which already exists.  Laptop music is a tiny
subset of a vast, interrelated musical context.  Someone mentioned
hip-hop, and of course there's midwest techno and house which are produced
largely by people of color.  I hear the same kinds of experimentalism in
these genres as I do in improvised laptop music; i don't think they're as
dissimilar as we sometimes make them out to be.  e.g. I believe that ideas
cross racial boundaries quite fluidly in electronic music, and to call
laptop music culturally white is to miss the keyboard for the keys.

b

On Wed, 4 Jun 2003, vze26m98 wrote:

> On 6/4/03 at 10:05 AM, Data General <btausig@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > comparable, not identical.  it's music equally informed by
> > music with roots in europe and africa.  Like jazz, electronic
> > music is the product of a racially-defined encounter.
>
> But at that level of generality, it seems you could argue that many
> American cultural manifestations would be comparable: dance, Rock music,
> everyday language, fashion, comedy, film...
>
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