Cultural appropriation and covers

[PainInTheBass]

Meanwhile on Basschat.Africa. ...

[Geek99]

34 minutes ago, ian61 said:

 

 

How about UB40?  I dont know if Ali's voice is naturally black sounding or he's putting it on.....but it certainly sounds appropriate and the band and entourage was full of black comrades and great friends. 

 

? 

He probably absorbed it from the multi cultural hotspot he grew up in. He played with black musicians for years. Like my accent it probably comes and goes depending who he is with and what he is doing. 
I don’t think he’s putting it on 

[cetera]

39 minutes ago, ian61 said:

How about UB40?  I dont know if Ali's voice is naturally black sounding or he's putting it on.....but it certainly sounds appropriate and the band and entourage was full of black comrades and great friends. 

 

I'm more offended by their homogenised, twee pop-reggae tbh.

 

How about Tim Westwood? More Ali-G than Ali-G....

[chris_b]

4 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

I recall Maureen Lipman saying that gentiles should not play roles depicting Jewish characters. I believed that was what acting was.

 

So Jewish singers can only sing Jewish songs? Maybe Jewish comedians can only tell Jewish jokes?

 

This is getting very silly.

[tegs07]

10 minutes ago, chris_b said:

 

So Jewish singers can only sing Jewish songs? Maybe Jewish comedians can only tell Jewish jokes?

 

This is getting very silly.

Meanwhile whilst we’re all distracted Musk and his cronies steal our future.

Edited 1 hour ago by tegs07

[Dankology]

12 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

 

If I haven't lived in a yellow submarine, or got my kicks on Route 66, or can't remember the summer of '69, there are certain songs I can't play because I can't relate to them? 🫤

 

There are lots of grey areas here but perhaps you've hit something key in talking about how you might "relate to" a song.

 

All the ones you mention here are generally positive, feelgood songs and most people would be able to lose themselves in the moment (even if they were listening to the lyrics, which is perhaps questionable in itself) by having similar feelings of community, hope, nostalgia or whatever without having driven on the same road/lived in the same submersible/whatever.

 

But if the song is born of something more negative (eg of racism, the politics of a certain area/era, past personal abuse etc) I think you have to be more careful in what feelings you allow yourself to indulge: you risk being anything from insensitive or crass all the way through to seeming to trivialize the original intent of the song.

 

For me, I find dentists gurning through Chicago blues on PRS guitars a bit cringeworthy but hardly a hate crime, ditto John Power singing Redemption Song, albeit perhaps quite a bit more cringey. At the other end of the scale I think I would very much struggle listening to a privileged white youngster sing Strange Fruit or a current British political protestor (of whatever persuasion) sing Ohio. 

 

Which is not to say that I think you can only sing happy songs... but I think you can usually tell the difference between an attempt to share in some sort of cross-cultural community and a crass/cynical/tone-deaf attempt to channel someone else's experience.

[tegs07]

30 minutes ago, Dankology said:

would very much struggle listening to a privileged white youngster sing Strange Fruit

Just as well the Ukrainian jewish heritage Abel Meeropol had no such qualms or it would never have been written.

Edited 56 minutes ago by tegs07

[Dankology]

5 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

Just as well the Ukrainian jewish heritage Abel Meeropol had no such qualms or it would never have been written.

I think you rather prove the point made in my final paragraph there.

[tegs07]

8 minutes ago, Dankology said:

I think you rather prove the point made in my final paragraph there.

OK so the criteria is a middle class person can only get involved if the end result is good? So does that include Siouxsie and the Banshees? Would Abel be open to abuse if the words were clumsy and who gets to judge what art is good or not anyway?

 

Edit: My take on this is just be sensitive to the subject matter. If Eric Clapton had covered I shot the Sheriff in a fake Jamaican accent it would have been parody. As it was IMO it was neither offensive nor anywhere near as good as the original.

Edited 35 minutes ago by tegs07

[Misdee]

17 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

OK so the criteria is a middle class person can only get involved if the end result is good? So does that include Siouxsie and the Banshees? Would Abel be open to abuse if the words were clumsy and who gets to judge what art is good or not anyway?

 

Edit: My take on this is just be sensitive to the subject matter. If Eric Clapton had covered I shot the Sheriff in a fake Jamaican accent it would have been parody. As it was IMO it was neither offensive nor anywhere near as good as the original.

The cultural appropriation accusations on that song could get a bit complicated, bearing in mind that Bob Marley was half Welsh, or half English, or half white Jamaican, depending on who you believe.

Edited 24 minutes ago by Misdee

[tegs07]

4 minutes ago, Misdee said:

The cultural appropriation accusations on that song could get a bit complicated, bearing in mind that Bob Marley was half Welsh, or half English, or half white Jamaican, depending on who you believe.

Indeed. Not that any of it matters. He was just Bob Marley. One of the greatest songwriters ever.

[Mickeyboro]

2 hours ago, cetera said:

 

I'm more offended by their homogenised, twee pop-reggae tbh.

Agree with you, and the current line up is diabolical, but UB40 in their prime (a different matter) probably turned a lot of people on to the real thing. I am one of them.