Sweet Thing, You've Got Me Singing...

It sometimes takes a lot for me to like a song, especially if it has a strange hook or a goofy sound to it. I won't even give a song one listen if I can't take it seriously. That's how I used to feel about Teena Marie's "Ooo La La La." I could never get into that song, mainly because of the part where she sings "ooo la la la." It was just too weird and corny for me to give it--or the rest of the song--any merit.

I could never understand the popularity of "Ooo La La La." I remember my schoolmates singing it with such abandon and I just couldn't relate. Even when the Fugees did a remake of it with their hit "Fug-Gee-La," I was so against the original version, that their decision to do this prevented me from taking them seriously (at least not until "Killing Me Softly" came around). Yes, I was that diametrically opposed to the song. It just seemed, I don't know, beneath Teena to do something like that. With her body of work--including hard-hitting hits like "Square Biz," "Portuguese Love" (my personal favorite), and "I Need Your Lovin'"--"Ooo La La La" just seemed cheesy and so much less than the soulful sound I had come to expect of her.

And it takes a LOT for me to expect high-quality soulful music from a white artist. But Teena was no ordinary white artist. She was one of the few that could truly capture the essence, not only of soul music, but of the black culture inextricably linked with it. At the same time, she didn't exploit R&B culture or treat it like a commoditized item to be studied, mastered, and regurgitated like other artists of her persuasion. This is most demonstrated by the fact that in many instances, you could hear the "white girl" shining through loud and clear in much of her singing. But intertwined with those "vanilla child" sensibilities were the "chocolate" influences,
manifesting an effortless marbling that truly reflected her life.

I'd always figured she discovered black culture (including the music) as an adult, fell in love with it, became inspired by it, and created music within the framework of the black aesthetic as a natural progression. It wasn't until I read a recent news piece about her that I learned she was actually raised around black people. It's no wonder her personality, demeanor, and locution came off so authentically. She didn't model her sound and style off of any specific artist like many of the contrived "blue-eyed soul" artists do, and then have some marketing machine force-feed her down our throats. Her sound was uniquely her own and added to the rich fabric of R&B music rather than regurgitating a pale imitation of it. She had a genuine love for soul music and just let that love express itself naturally in her body of work. That authenticity--along with her skillful writing, singing, and musicianship--made fans of the genre gravitate towards her music without all the hype and PR peddling.

Every black fan of R&B music probably has their own list of white artists they'd consider truly and authentically soul singers/musicians. Everyone's overall list might vary, but I bet Teena would top most people's list as the epitome of "blue-eyed soul"--the standard-setter.

To give a sense of how "soulful" Teena was, picture the kind of white woman that would bring some bomb-ass potato salad to the neighborhood block party that would be all the rage--not that "German" stuff with the new potatoes and vinegar, but the good stuff with the mayo, mustard, hard-boiled eggs, and paprika! One minute you'd see her parting some child's hair with a jar of grease, barrettes, and ribbons nearby. The next, you'd see her leading the electric slide line, singing the lyrics to some obscure Funkadelic song, loud, strong, and pitch-perfect. Exhibiting the kind of behavior that would confuse all the newer black folks, having them falsely rationalize, "Oh, she must be Creole then. She Creole, right?" THAT was Teena!

There was just something genuine about her that made her easy to respect and treat as "one of our own." She wasn't one of those artists that hopped on the bandwagon of studying and imitating R&B music for the mere profit of it. And that type of artists is so dreadfully easy to spot. R&B music--at least up until the 2000's--was more than just music; it was an expression of the attitudes, personalities, and mannerisms of the artists producing the music. And a lot of that was a reflection of the black culture in which these artists were raised. Their formation as R&B singers/musicians incorporated the lifetime of experiences they'd had as members of the African-American community and it came through effortlessly and naturally in their music and mannerisms. This rich interconnection of cultural heritage, personal identity, and musical formation gets cheapened by the industry-manufactured "blue-eye soul" artists whose aping often reduces us and our mannerisms into caricatures.

Words cannot express the level of insult and irritation I've felt seeing these outsiders--some not even American, let alone African-American--get the hype, praise, recognition, and oftentimes preferential treatment over those who were raised and continue to live in the culture that inspired the music in the first place. Seeing these artists use "urban" music as a stepping stone to their intended careers of as pop artists, rock stars, or even actors--e.g. Pink, Mark Walberg, etc.--once the "Ooh-look!-A-white-person-who-can-sing/rap-like-a black-person!" fad dies down only adds insult to injury. So the fact that Teena always stayed true to R&B music makes her even more endearing to fans of the genre like myself.

Teena's biggest hit was "Lovergirl," which was probably one of her least R&B-sounding songs. She could have ridden the wave of success by altering her sound and style to retain the popular audience she'd garnered with that hit, but instead she went back to her R&B roots with follow-up albums that produced hits like "If I Were a Bell," "Still in Love," and, yours truly, "Ooo La La La." I actually could never get into these later songs; for me, the magic was in her earlier 80's tunes like "Behind the Groove," "Aladdin's Lamp," "Turnin' Me On," and "Now That I Have You." But even though her later songs were less appealing to me personally, I still respected her longevity and her ability to make hits that still resonated with her audience as a whole--and for decades after she debuted. Her body of work is nothing short of impressive, and for that main reason I am sorry to see her leave so soon and unexpectedly.

Teena was a genuinely talented artist who knew how to create a song--a soulful song--that really touched her fans. She is truly one of the few white artists I'd actually say made good R&B music--not good R&B music for a white person, but good R&B music PERIOD! She has my utmost respect, and so with her passing, I have now made it a point to listen to every song that is currently being played on the radio in her memory. As fate would have it, "Ooo La La La" is the one in the heaviest rotation nowadays. So instead of changing the station to avoid that corny "ooo la la la" riff, I'm leaving it on to play for the song's entire duration. And wouldn't you know it? The song has actually grown on me and has become an earworm of sorts, the kind that can only be satisfied by playing the song--over and over again. In other words, I can't get enough that song now--after all this time!

So Teena, Sweet Thing, you've finally won me over with this one. Without a doubt, you've got me singing "Ooo La La La" and other songs along with countless others who appreciate your musicianship and your dedication to the R&B genre. Rest in peace, Soul Sista.

Assez, Assez, ASSEZ!

In my profile, underneath "Favorite Music" is the phrase: "R&B before it died." I mean it partly in jest and partly not. In my opinion, R&B music, as I've come to know it, truly has died. With the exception of a few songs here and there ("Rude Boy," "Deuces," etc.), what constitutes today's R&B music has very little to do with the "rhythm and blues" sensibility that used to place it into a class by itself. For all intents and purposes, today's R&B is basically pop music sung by former R&B artists.

Music producers of today just don't seem to value the art of good instrumentation. They literally combine insipid riffs played from several synthesized instruments (bass #6, piano #22, etc.), throw in a basic drumbeat, and voila--a song has been produced! With such a lazy attitude towards the instrumentation, I won't even bother holding my breath for groundbreaking lyrics that inspire self-reflection and change. That pipe dream died somewhere between India Arie's "Video" and this nonsense.

Back in the late 90's Lauryn Hill told us "MC's ain't ready to take it to the Serengeti." Well, today's MC's seem even less ready than before. But to be honest, at the time that Lauryn opined this sentiment, I wasn't really ready to take it there either--at least, not in the sense of truly listening to her songs' Afrocentric themes and learning from them.

I wasn't ready to hear Lauryn speak about Menelik and the other African czars who kept it "civilized" in "Forgive Them Father." I literally couldn't hear her call to the "bredren" and "sistren", telling us to "come again" and elevate ourselves above the self-destructive, single-minded pursuit of "that thing." Likewise, I wasn't ready to take the journey with Speech to revisit the ghosts of our painful past to understand God's plan for us. I was among those who didn't know what Caron Wheeler meant when she told us to "follow good feeling through and let the superficial pass [us] by, living in the light." And I wasn't ready to chant with Les Nubians at the end of their song "Desolee," crying "Enough! Enough! Enough!" to all the people in developed nations who turn a blind eye to Africans' suffering.

Assez de faire semblant pour lui qui sait dit intelligent, ses geants sans sentiments. When Les Nubians first came onto the scene with "Makeda," I was ready for their French answer to the American-born R&B music genre. I was so ready that I spent a year learning French, just so that I could sing songs like "Sourire," "Princesses Nubiennes," "Bebela," and "Desolee" and learn the meaning of lyrics like the one heading this paragraph (which translates roughly to: "Enough pretense on the part of those who call themselves intelligent--giants without feelings").

I was heartened by Les Nubians' attempt to reach out to Americans in the African diaspora and share their stories from an Afro-French perspective. I appreciated their efforts to marry intricate beats and refined instrumentation with inspirational messages of Pan-Africanism, spirituality, and connection with their African roots. But while I was ready to appreciate all of this, I wasn't ready to really hear it. After translating the lyrics to "Desolee" along with "Demain," and comparing them to Les Nubians' only English-language track, "Sugar Cane," on their debut album, Princesses Nubiennes, I could recognize the connections among the different songs' tales of oppression, exploitation, and suffering in Sub-Saharan Africa, but I didn't take it seriously. I thought the subject matter was esoteric and something only people living in Africa (where Les Nubians were partly raised) or Pan-Africanists like Fugee and Soul II Soul alums would harp on. Basically, I was ignorant. I didn't realize that imperialism is alive and well today, even as we transition into 2011.

Embarrassingly, it took a mainstream publication like the New York Times to finally jolt me out of my (willfully?) ignorant stupor. In one of their recent articles, a reporter detailed how Malian farmers are being displaced by foreign investors whose only intentions are to till the land and produce food for their own countries. Raping and pillaging the Motherland is nothing new. I know this. I'm aware of the atrocities surrounding blood diamonds and other "conflict minerals," the rationale for fair trade, and the other casualties of developed countries' hegemonic pursuit of wealth and power. But I still couldn't help but be struck by this article, especially after reading the callous remarks of the Malian officials who said the foreign investors would actually make something useful and productive out of the arable land, despite the fact that most of the spoils would be exported out of the country. These officials had little to say about what would become of all the displaced rural inhabitants and their livelihoods.
I've heard of corrupt government officials in Africa who live high on the hog at the expense of their people, but something about the sentiments of the Malian officials in this article seemed to really affect me. After all this time, I finally get it. So along with the accounts of yesteryear detailing the corruption and oppression caused by Idi Amin and other African dictators, I now have this NYT article as a modern-day account to point to when I hear these lyrics in "Desolee" (translated):

Chaos organized by the law and its soldiers. Men and women condemned under oligarchic rule. They design their schemes and sinister plans, already lost before having the chance to effect positive change.

I wasn't ready to hear lyrics like these before, but I'm ready now. I'm ready to hear calls to arms like "Desolee," with its melodious lyrics harmonized over captivating instrumentation that commands your attention long enough for the words to sink in and resonate (sooner or later). I'm ready to groove AND learn what these crooning scholars have to say about the state of the world as they see it. But where are the Nubians, Lauryn's, and Speech's of today? Where are the songs that speak on today's stories of struggle and oppression? The refrain in "Desolee" ends with the following sobering truth: "Sorry to break it to you, but the powers that be know how substandard our living conditions are. They won't do anything about it, but they know that we're struggling and we'll always be struggling." Michael Jackson put it more simply by saying, "all I wanna say is that they don't really care about us." That was in 1995. Does anyone have anything to say in 2010?

In Lauryn Hill's song "Superstar," she challenged late-90's recording artists, saying "music is supposed to inspire, so how come we ain't gettin' no higher?" I wonder the same thing. Why aren't any of the mainstream acts trying to infuse any kind of wisdom, spirituality, or cultural pride into their music? It can't be that difficult. I'm not asking them to elevate themselves to the level of Lauryn who "sparred with stars and constellations, then came down for a little conversation." I just want something half-way inspiring. They can even be lazy about it and just slap a modern-day spin on the refrain from Sounds of Blackness' "Optimistic" (the one that goes "You can win as long as you keep your head to the sky." And, no, that rebellion-promoting "Whip My Hair" doesn't count either!)

As with my former, less enlightened state of mind back in the day, today's youth may not be ready to hear the intended messages in the lyrics of "conscious music," but you never know when and how those pearls of wisdom might blossom in the young listeners' minds and what kinds of calls to action they might one day inspire.

I'm so sick and tired of the vapid noise permeating the airwaves today--noise that doesn't elevate us, but debases us and makes us ignorant and soulless. As all of these thoughts run through my mind, the ending refrain of "Desolee" takes on a new meaning:

Assez, assez, assez de suffrance.
Assez, assez, assez de l'ignorance.
Assez, assez, assez de misere.
Assez de pouvoir.

Translated it means: Enough, enough, enough suffering. Enough, enough, enough, ignorance. Enough, enough, enough misery. Enough power.

Yes, to the people in power causing all the suffering and misery in the world and paying these "superstar" entertainers to make empty, meaningless music that distracts us and keep us ignorant of your organized chaos:

Enough, enough, ENOUGH!

Video Games: Programming Executives to Be Followers

Apparently "action video games" make you smart, at least according to one NPR segment.

It turns out that non-gamers use the parietal cortex--an area specialized for visual-spatial processing--while gamers use the frontal cortex--an area specialized for higher cognitive functions like planning, attention, and multitasking. So basically, since the neural networks in the gamer brain's executive centers are being underutilized from a dearth of real-world strategic planning and complex decision-making, this area is being recruited and re-purposed to handle the quick, reactionary planning and decision-making involved in high-stakes mortal combat. In other words, young American brains are being rewired for virtual military training. And since video gaming apparently narrows the gender gap when it comes to performance on spatial cognition tests, little girls can be heartened to know that their future as military drone operators is just as secure as that of their male counterparts. (In my best Spice Girl accent: Geh-ole pahwah!)

This finding is nothing more than confirmation for the people pulling the strings that video games can be used reliably and successfully to program young, malleable brains and entrain our youth to follow orders in an increasingly desensitized context where they're less capable of questioning what they're doing (in the grand scheme of things) and why they're doing it in the first place. What's worse is that video games, in one study (cited in a NYT article), have been linked to increased inability to sleep, which could ultimately have a negative effect on a person's ability to develop a sense of self. All the more reason to use video games to ensure that our future drone operators are indoctrinated to conform to the status quo and follow orders!

The study cited in the NYT article suggests that gaming-induced sleep deprivation could lead to an inability to synthesize information, make connections between ideas, and set priorities. So while the NPR segment's producers are hailing video games' ability to "boost brain power," I'm wondering how much this alleged increase in cognition will serve the American citizenry when its time to make the real-world decisions that matter in the broader society? And since the area designed for executive cognitive processing is being re-purposed to focus on the narrow-minded pursuit of virtual combat, what other brain area(s) will be recruited to handle complex decision-making? Will it be the now underutilized parietal cortex? Some other area? No area at all (and thus no complex decisions being made by the citizenry? I'm sure the Powers that Be would LOVE that last scenario.)

When NPR begins the segment by telling parents to fret not, "video gaming may have real-world benefits for your child's developing brain," you have to wonder who will be at the receiving end of these "real-world benefits"? I already have my sneaking suspicions, but do enough of parents have even an inkling of a clue? Hell, do today's parents ever have a clue? Don't bet your civilian life on it. Our next crop of compliant precision fighters is well on its way.

iSpy

First video games, now this?
I could never jump on the e-book bandwagon. Along with a preference for holding and thumbing through a physical book, I've had a growing fear (or paranoia--call it what you will) of our collective knowledge and cultural memory being deliberately shifted to the less stable virtual environment, increasing our likelihood of losing this valuable information forever. Add to this the idea of e-readers being used as "tracking devices" and my skepticism is solidified.

I really wish people would exercise more caution when it came to these devices. Convenience ALWAYS has a cost. If it's cheap in the short run, it's guaranteed to be exorbitant and painful in the long run.

Caveat lector.

Creative Destruction

It's been a while since I've posted here. Lately, I've been having a hard time finding the motivation to write. One reason is because I've had two major documents looming over my head: a thesis for school and a "Statement of Professional Achievements" for my job. As hard as I try to be a good writer, I'm not a very gifted one. So the creative juices that help me articulate my thoughts in a (hopefully) coherent and interesting manner are overtaxed if I have too much compulsory writing on my plate. And so, I took a vacation from blogging.

Another reason I've avoided writing on this blog is because of its somewhat forced premise. When I first created this blog, I named it "Tacos and Fries" to reflect an interest in taking information from seemingly unrelated sources and synthesizing it all into a completely new understanding that would offer a unique perspective on a variety of topics. I won't go into the details of why this is a difficult standard to live up to, but suffice it to say that it is very time-consuming and quite limiting. As much as I still prefer writing posts within this framework and will continue to do so, I no longer want to be stifled by the pressure of having to adhere to such a demanding formula all of the time.

So to divest myself from this self-imposed pigeon-hole, I'm changing the name of this blog to My Creative Destruction. This phrase from the economics discipline roughly refers to destroying older systems of wealth in order to create newer systems of wealth. Even though the notion reflects all of the ruthless nihilism that makes me despise capitalism--not to mention reminds me A LOT of the "New World Order"--it is still a good analogy for what I need to do on a personal level in order to evolve. I'm very cognizant of the periodic need to break open the shackles of comfort and predictability in order to progress. Now is the time to break free, and I hope to do so with this blog, not just at the present moment, but at any point in the future when it's necessary.

With this name change (and slightly different look) will likely come a different tone and overall purpose for how and why I will write future blog posts. I've decided to retain the previous entries because it will give the reader an honest picture of where I've been (mentally, psychologically, etc.) and how this blog has evolved. I'll probably ask the same questions and make the same observations as before, but with less of the screaming and fist-shaking at the "PTB" that was characteristic of those earlier posts. I don't know where this new direction will lead me, but I suspect it will be an interesting journey nonetheless. Bon apetite.