Fuck Vampire Weekend, Next Stop... Soweto
» Am I the only one who doesn't want my "African" music coming from kids whose wardrobe cost more than the annual income of the musicians they're jacking?
Am I the only one who doesn't want my "African" music coming from kids whose wardrobe cost more than the annual income of the musicians they're jacking?
I shouldn't judge, I haven't heard VW's new album, they might be ripping off other poor countries by now. But in the event they're still Afro-pop, here's a lesson for you affable whities whose idea of culture is a Benetton ad with a black guy in it.
Thanks to Strut, we can look forward to a whole year of exploring underground South African music of the late 60s and 70s, as they're kicking off Next Stop... Soweto, a three-part series that will extend into summer 2010. The fist 20-song disc, which will be available February 1, delves into the golden age of mbaqanga--a fusion combining elements of rural Zulu music and harmony vocal styles with Western instrumentation.
With Next Stop... Soweto, Strut trace some of the amazing music that often only appeared on short run 45s at the time, including tracks by smaller and lesser known bands that plied their trade under apartheid during the years before the tumultuous Soweto uprising of 1976. Thanks to several years of painstaking research and vinyl archaeology by compilers Duncan Brooker and Francis Gooding, we're able to hear the township sounds of South Africa without a yuppy filter.
Melotone Sisters with Amaqola Band, "I Sivenoe"
Posted on January 25, 2010. More on: next stop... soweto, mbaqanga, vampire weekend
defending VW and ignoring the good music being discussed in this piece is what I love most about reader comments. shame on us for looking further than the prescribed fashion and getting to the source of today's popular music. man, I guess we don't have the right, nor the brass balls to express how we're not buying into colonialist African music. we needn't even bothered, right?
— Blake on March 24, 2010
yeah.. well go fuck yourself! vampire weekend if anything are building up the african sound. they use these african instuments, incoporating an otherwise untouched musical culture into a more mainstream environment if you want traditional african music, you'll listen to a traditional african artist, not vw, therefore they are not taking away from that genre. they are preppy and if you dont like it fine. but fuck off if you're going to bagg the fuck through them and cristise their creative acheivements. what the fuck have you done with your life to comment on theirs!? what makes you think you have a right to tell people how to play their music. if all music conformed to the pop culture it'd just be lady gaga and fucking ne-yo avalible. variation is the essense of life. therefore vw allows people to choose what they want to listen to, it gives us options. if you dont like it fine, but FUCK YOU if you think you can tell them how they should make their music to conform to your standards.
— mark. on March 16, 2010
That's all good and well, I find VW just as annoying as the next guy. I mean they did just blatantly rip-off Paul Simon's Graceland. But I wonder how much Strut Records are paying in royalties for this series of releases? It seems to me that they're also just stealing more of the township sound.
— Ernst on January 28, 2010
I agree that self-labeling your music "Upper West Side Soweto" is unforgivably insufferable, but making the focal point of your article some trite bashing of an entirely forgettable indie band that no one will care about in a few years instead of the series itself, well that's almost just as lame.
— dbag on January 26, 2010
Ahh, now I want to dig out "Indestructable Beat of Soweto" volumes 1 and 2. No colonial imitation could ever come close.
— Sjimon on January 26, 2010
Amen, Derek. Amen.
— JainDoh on January 25, 2010
From what I've heard from Vampire Weekend, they sound like a bunch of bougie college dorks watering down Paul Simon's Graceland (which is saying something). How they connect to genuine African pop is beyond me. Fuck Vampire Weekend, indeed.
— Paul H. on January 25, 2010