Before I do that, I need to vent a bit: the only benefit I could think of (and I'm surprised I came up with any) to writing in a style like Kodwo Eshun's (i.e. obtuse, unclear, full of buzzwords and pseudo-buzzwords that even Google define: couldn't clarify) is that it forces one to read critically, to the point of anger and frustration, in an attempt to try to wring some sort of meaning out of the text. Which is admittedly what I attempted to do, so here goes.
Early in his essay, Eshun describes the 21st century as
a cultural moment when digitopian futures are routinely invoked to hide the present in all its unhappiness.Turntablism fits right into this: In a time and place where African Americans were living in the "projects" and struggling with violent gang influence, people like Afrika Bambaataa used turntablism, a new, technologically reliant art, to overcome their less appealing circumstances.
Eshun later makes a perfect space for turntablism, first connecting Afrofuturism and music:
It is difficult to conceive of Afrofuturism without a place for sonic process in its vernacular, speculative, and syncopated modes.From there, he allows for the technological characteristic of turntablism and mixing/sampling:
...the Afrodiasporic musical imagination was characterised by an Afrophilia that invoked a liberationist idyll of African archaism with the idea of scientific African modternity, both held in an unstable but useful equilibrium.So now we have the pursuit of new art forms explicitly tied to Afrofuturism, and we have a balance between older African tradition and newer African adoption of science and technology. Turntablism is the new art form, and the balance is between the old (older phonograph technology, older preexisting records, "older" analog interaction between musician and instrument) and the new (new sound mixers and technology, new beat tracks and music, new techniques). Thus turntablism is established as an integrated part of Afrofuturism.
Besides the defined, explicit connection, turntablism and mixing seem to be connected to Afrofuturism and the tradition of countermemory in other ways. The idea of writing Africa into history through countermemory is represented when DJs take classic American music, like the childhood record Bambaataa famously introduced, and add their own maybe-cultural touch. In the same way that a Caucasian historian might not recognize history when fleshed out with African experience, new listeners may not make any connection between the familiar records and breaks, and the scratches and beats that are based on them. Somehow, without any sort of narrative to rewrite an erroneous history or describe a more positive future, turntablism perfectly represents the blend of countermemory and future sight characteristic of Afrofuturism.
Whew, I'm calmer now.
No comments:
Post a Comment