{"id":304,"date":"2008-03-08T16:57:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T21:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/?p=304"},"modified":"2015-01-07T14:09:13","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T18:09:13","slug":"critical-distance-por-la-ventana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/?p=304","title":{"rendered":"Critical Distance, Por la Ventana?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\n\u00bfQu\u00e9 reflexiones?<\/em><\/p>\n

Tonight in San Fran, DJ \/rupture<\/a> — never one to let his critical eyelids slack — will be digging thru his kumbia krates alongside the Zizek gang<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Carolina @ Sound Taste<\/a> framed her excitement around the neo-cumbia thing (coming soon to NYC) by noting that her “critical distance has gone out the window.”<\/p>\n

And two days ago, I must have seemed similarly (uncritically) enthusiastic in my response to a fellow ethnomusicologist’s query about joining a panel on cumbia for the annual meeting this fall. I wrote:<\/p>\n

Ah. I’m afraid I’m seeing this a little too late — I’m already committed to another panel on a different topic — but this is a subject of increasing interest to me. Not sure how many LAMSEM folk are aware, but there has been a remarkable resurgence of interest in cumbia (\/tecnocumbia \/nueva cumbia \/cumbia crunk \/etc.) across the Americas and Europe (via the blogosphere) in the last several months. A lot of this interest is due to a burgeoning scene in Buenos Aires, associated with a club night called Zizek; several of the producers involved in the movement are currently touring the US:
\nhttp:\/\/www.myspace.com\/zizektour
\n<\/a>
\nWould have loved to write something about this, but alas, not this time around. Just wanted to share, though.<\/p>\n

Best,
\nWayne<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shortly thereafter, another colleague on the LAMSEM list (for the uninitiated, that’s the Latin American[ists’] section of the Society for Ethnomusicology), emailed me offlist to provide a reality check (and curb my enthusiasm?) —<\/p>\n

\nHi Wayne,<\/p>\n

This is certainly interesting, but I don’t think it’s really accurate to say
\nthat this marks a “resurgence” of interest in cumbia music. Cumbia never went
\nanywhere: it’s still massively popular among working-class types from Texas to
\nBuenos Aires, as it has been for decades, though what are popular are
\ndistinctly blue-collar versions of cumbia that I think are unlikely to be
\nattractive or interesting to the people in this particular scene. This, to me,
\nlooks more like a resurgence, or maybe “surgence,” of interest on the part of
\nclubbing uberhipsters (“Zizek”? really?) bent on transforming cumbia in ways
\nthat separate it completely from the mainstream cumbia scene (what we would
\ncall “appropriation” if it were Deep Forest doing it), and which is likely to
\nremain completely apart from the massive levels of everyday cumbia consumption
\ngoing on in peoples’ back yards and parties. Don’t you think?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s what I wrote in response:<\/p>\n

Actually, I’ve been thinking “surgence” would have been a better word
\nsince I sent the email. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that cumbia’s
\npopularity across Latin America has ever really waned. Heck, even
\n“hipsters” of various stripes (as well as those who disdain stripes)
\nhave had an ongoing romance w\/ the genre — e.g., Delfin (a phenom
\nproduced by Chilean h-sters), or in a different way perhaps, Manu
\nChao, who was way ahead of the “appropriative” curve.<\/p>\n

Still, point taken — I enthused a lil too loosely.<\/p>\n

But though I think you’re right to finger the upper\/middle class
\ncharacter of the B.A. scene clustered around Zizek (a jokey name
\nreflectively referencing the theorist’s Argentinian bride), I think
\nyou rush to judgment and overlook some (additionally) interesting and
\nsignificant things about it. For one, although no doubt transforming
\nthe music (and in some innovative ways, I’d note), the source of
\ninspiration for these guys is precisely the blue-collar stuff, the
\ncumbia villera of B.A.’s slums. Moreover, the surging interest in
\ncumbia across the cosmo-urban musiconnoisseurosphere extends beyond
\nArgentinian remixes to Texan cumbia crunk. And in recent months, this
\ninterest has extended to Colombian champeta in its most, if you will,
\nplebian form. And it’s worth noting in this context that that
\nexcellent compilation we discussed, The Roots of Chicha<\/em>, was issued by a
\nBrooklyn-based record label. Sure, there’s always something that
\nsmacks of “slumming” with this kind of class-crossing interest in
\nmusic (and often a bit of racialized exoticism to boot), but in that
\nway it’s no different than the mainstream embrace of jazz, blues,
\nhip-hop, salsa, bachata, merengue, soca, reggae, you name it.<\/p>\n

And I think that your comparison to Deep Forest is off-base and leads
\nus to an unfair and facile dismissal rather than a closer engagement
\nwith what is going on in B.A. and the blogosphere. For the most part,
\nthe Zizek artists are not sampling distant sounds for their cosmo
\ncocktail parties. Rather, they’re synthesizing their own versions of
\nthe music that pervades their local soundscapes (backyard sounds can
\ncarry). In a sense, one could argue that they’re grappling with class
\nand cultural divisions in B.A. as much as they may be benefiting from
\nthem. It is a fair question to ask whether these scenes (will)
\nintersect at all. Far as I know, there’s not much crossover between
\nthe neo-cumbia scene and the cumbia villera scene. It would be great,
\nas has happened with the international and middle-class interest in
\nfunk carioca, to see this (re)surgence of interest in cumbia translate
\nto new opportunities for the “everyday” “people” with whom you seem,
\nunderstandably, concerned.<\/p>\n

For one more stab at class matters, allow me to quote Carolina
\nGonzalez’s proposal that she likes this neo-cumbia stuff in part b\/c
\n“the crisis perversely made Argentines like the rest of us Latin
\nAmericans, jodidos<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

With your permission, I’d like to post this exchange to my blog. Some
\nof the Zizek dudes read it occasionally, and I’d be curious to hear
\ntheir reactions. Let me know. If you’re not comfortable having your
\nname on this, I’ll probably just do so anonymously. I’m happy to print
\nany response you might have too.<\/p>\n

Thanks for the thoughts!<\/p>\n

w<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So today, since I haven’t received a response yet & want to get this off my chest\/inbox and into any readers’ heads who want to turn it over, I’ve gone ahead and posted the convo as is. If I hear back from my dear colleague and he assents, I’ll print any responses below. But at this point, I’m more interested in hearing responses from the readers of this occasionally enthusiastic blog. <\/p>\n

I told ya, I’m an unabashed bass booster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

One more thing, though: if we’re gonna call a spade a spade, a much better fit for the Deep Forest indictment would be a certain globe-trotting DJ making a cumbia podcast and editing out the local shoutouts<\/a> from villera artists. <\/p>\n

Or perhaps (and maybe a bit more ambiguous) Salim’s “minimal” techno smash, “Heater,” which has — nonetheless — done a great deal to bring the sounds of cumbia to wider audiences and has (however inadvertently) shined some light on Alberto Pacheco’s “Cumbia Cienaguera.”<\/a> Moreover, at least Salim, despite apparently going for a laugh-factor, seems to acknowledge<\/a> where the riff came from (though he could have done better than allowing it to be described as a “legendary folk composition” — even if, sure, it may be — and citing the actual recording he sampled).<\/p>\n

Plus, I must admit I have trouble hating on such a fun-filled track and video —<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

& I’m not really the type to throw rocks, knamean. Indeed, @ Beat Research<\/a> over the last couple months, I’ve gotten no little mileage out of playing my own mashup of Salim’s track and the Pacheco original, letting the latter dictate the form for a lil poetic justice. Props to both of em for inspired renderings of well-worn source code. In the spirit of “Big Gyptian<\/a>,” “The Lion Seeps<\/a>,” “Code of the Beats<\/a>,” et al<\/a>., es un homenaje —<\/p>\n

w&w, “Heater Cienaguera”<\/a>
\n[audio:http:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/wp\/audio\/wayneandwax-heater-cienaguera.mp3]<\/p>\n

Pues, algunas preguntas: Have I (too) tossed critical distance out the window? What does “critical distance” do for us (or them) in such a case? Why might it be important to have a more cynical take on such things? Why might it be important to resist a cynical interpretation? Can an embrace of (neo-)cumbia support a progressive, responsible stance on musical circulation and cultural representation? Or is such engagement an impediment (in some remote way) to social justice, yet another appropriation with no social value (except to cynical ethnomusicologists)? Do such questions matter only to academics spinning their wheels<\/s> webs of culture? <\/p>\n

I ask some of these only partially rhetorically, and only partially as an academic. I ask them also as a listener, a DJ, a musician. <\/p>\n

At any rate —<\/p>\n

     \u00a1viva la cumbia!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00bfQu\u00e9 reflexiones? Tonight in San Fran, DJ \/rupture — never one to let his critical eyelids slack — will be digging thru his kumbia krates alongside the Zizek gang. Yesterday, Carolina @ Sound Taste framed her excitement around the neo-cumbia thing (coming soon to NYC) by noting that her “critical distance has gone out the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[400,132,401,89,191,10,122,116],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academic","tag-argentina","tag-blogging","tag-cumbia","tag-ethno","tag-latin","tag-traxx","tag-whirledmusic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8580,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/8580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}