Moroccan rapper Don Bigg “crosses over”

When I interviewed Don Bigg in Casablanca in 2008, he told me that his goal was for his albums to be in the rap bins at Virgin and FNAC, not the World Music bin. Steeped in the hip-hop tradition, there was no place other than the rap category where his music belonged — still, as a non-Western artist (rapping in Moroccan Arabic), there was always a chance he’d end up in the World Music bin. His new album Byad ou K7al (Black & White), released 24 Dec. 2009, reached #10 on the Amazon (France) list of best-selling album downloads. A chart without genre breakdowns (no bins, virtual or otherwise) creates another kind of reality. If you search “musique du monde” on Amazon (France) Bigg is nowhere to be found but search in the “hip-hop/rap” category and, voila, there are the tracks from his new album.

Here’s “Itoub” from Bigg’s new album:

TRANSLATION OF ITOUB courtesy of Don Bigg (much respect to the big man)

GOD BLESS (ITOUB)

Yeah
That’s what’s up
I see you man
Thank you thank you thank you
God bless God bless God bless God bless
That’s what’s up that’s what’s up
God bless God bless God bless God bless

HOOK 1
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man

VERSE 1
To all those who held me down since the beginning, God bless, god bless and thank you
I ain’t never gon’ forget where I came from and thorns are
Erect at home and come see that
Bigg ain’t never gon’ recover from the rap music sickness
I ain’t never gon’ forget y’all no matter what happens
In front of my parents, moms and pops happy
See me in the papers remember all
The rehearsing and chilling in the hallway
Aah yeah, that’s what’s up man
I won’t forget Masta Flow back in the days of “lblan bayn”
Yo Bigg, rap in Arabic
What you crazy, you trynna make a fool of me?
If I hadn’t followed Masta Flow’s advice in that room
You would’ve never bought the cd I wanted
You would’ve never heard Bigg on the beat
And I would’ve never stood in front of you and sang

HOOK 2
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man

VERSE 2
Yo Imam Malik, you where I put my head up at
That’s where I learned to rap when I used to cut class
They used to call me a hard-headed shorty
I used to pass the year, fighting with my teeth
Whether they wanted or not, I used to pass
Even though the whole year I be in the school yard kissing
Since a kid my intention was making madd loot
Don’t believe me? Ask 7ershawy
College saw me on the road to Jdida
It was the school bus, I ain’t had a whip
Mobb Deep in class, not the lollipop
God bless the copy center
When we graduated, they were to thank for our grades
It’s raining, and the nigga in the jaguar just slammed the door
God bless, now the niggaz with the sticks is here
They left those who started shit and fucked up those they wanted

HOOK 3
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man

VERSE 3
God bless, God bless the fans
Ladies and niggaz
I see y’all, keep pushing up the country with us
All those who bought my cd and didn’t regret it
God bless those who dissed me, the nerve of them! They got no shame
God bless all y’all brothers
Thank you thank you thank you man
Black and White, Black and White, and Moroccans Till Death
God bless the streets that showed me
The bad from the good and got me addicted to rap music
God bless the media that forgot me, that put me on, and that dirtied at my name
God bless the rappers that diss me
Get your ticket, tell them let me in the line
God bless belqas Hisham
Put two fingers up in the sky, staright

HOOK 4
Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man

Those who held me down since day one man
Today I wanna sing about them man
I wanna stand up, salute them and say
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man
God bless God bless God bless God bless
Thank you thank you thank you man

Don Bigg’s MySpace page

Don Bigg Works the Room (from Afropop.org)

December 28, 2009
Categories: Genre, Moroccan Music, Popular Music, Rap/Hip-Hop, World Music . Tags: , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

Race & Chinese Pop Culture

Earlier this year, China picked , a young man from Hangzhou, for its national volleyball team. Last month a 20-year-old Shanghainese, , made the last 30 in the Chinese version of Pop Idol. Neither event would have attracted unusual notice but for the one thing the two young people have in common: they are in a small, and for China, novel category of mixed-race citizens, children of black fathers. Their emergence into the limelight has forced the country into an uncomfortable and often shocking debate about what it means to be Chinese.

Both have been widely discussed on the Chinese internet in terms that have not been publicly acceptable in the US or Europe for half a century. Both Lou Jing and Ding Hui have been treated as frank curiosities: netizens comment on their white teeth, Ding Hui’s athleticism and Lou Jing’s sense of rhythm. On the show, the presenters repeatedly referred to Lou Jing as “chocolate”. Contributors to the nation’s websites indulged in altogether cruder epithets, indulging their imaginations on the subject of sex between a black man and a Chinese woman. (from a column by Isabel Hilton of the Guardian:  ”How volleyball and pop have shaken China’s idea of race”)

Ding Hui

Lou Jing (and her mother)

Hilton’s column discusses issues that were glossed over or completely ignored in much of the media coverage (check out CNN’s story on Lou Jing for a prime example). Chinese racism persists despite decades of avowed solidarity with the developing world, including Africa. For non-Han Chinese, acceptance as civilized” is granted to the extent that they come to resemble the Han (90%) majority. The reaction to Ding Hui and Lou Jing reflects an ongoing debate on the definition of Chinese identity. And, it isn’t going away. There are pressures from “minority” groups for equal rights, if not territorial autonomy, and Hilton reports that there were 3000 “mixed-race” marriages in Shanghai last year and that up to 100,000 Africans have settled in Guangzhou (known as China’s “chocolate city”). Pop culture will undoubtedly be one arena in which the struggle to define Chinese identity will be played out. And racial issues will surely come into the foreground again. If only to be cashed in on. The Chinese reality show, Go Oriental Angel (an American Idol / Britain’s Got Talent knockoff) had only gotten moderate attention from the Chinese public until the producers included Lou Jing, the daughter of a Chinese mother and an African American father, as one of the five young women chosen to represent Shangai. As the story unfolded, it appeared that Lou was chosen more for her appearance than for her talent. Although to this listener, as bad as she was, she didn’t stand out from the other contestants. Lou quickly became a media phenomenon, provoking an onslaught of attacks (mostly by anonymous internet postings) and  a rare debate in the media about questions of race and racism in China. The producers of the show exploited the public interest as much as they could, including having Lou rap.

From the Guardian:

  • Young, gifted and black: China unveils, Ding Hui, its new Olympic hope
  • China’s black pop idol exposes her nation’s racism

    • December 24, 2009
    Categories: Popular Music, Race . . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

    Deciphering Watcha Clan: Interview with Jeffrey Callen

    As the year wound down, I found myself thinking a lot about my favorite albums of 2009. They’re not falling into an easy categorization but there is a thread that ties them together. They all are based on crossings of musical boundaries. My runaway favorite album of 2009 is Omar Sosa’s Across the Great Divide, a brilliant jazz album that does the usually impossible: tells an engaging story, melds music and spoken voice, and makes a profound musical statement without losing the listener. A wonderful album that ignores boundaries of musical genre as it traverses the Black Atlantic, incorporating a diverse range of musical influences (including the incredible “Northern Roots” singer Tim Eriksen), to capture the musical and spiritual profundity of the Middle Passage. The other album that keeps finding its way to my digital turntable is the debut release of Warsaw Village Band. Brilliantly executed Polish music that crosses musical borders—check out the wonderfully funky “Skip Funk” and “Polska Fran Polska,” an inspired meeting of Swedish and Polish dance musics—but always remains rooted in Warsaw. It has a sense of travel, meeting, and exchange but it’s always rooted in a sense of place, a sense of home. That sense of musical travel, meeting and interchange is what is drawing me to cds this year. Last year’s Snakeskin Violin by Markus James was another effort that worked for me but there are all the misses, mostly World Music endeavors that perpetuate the worst of the North–South colonial heritage under the auspices of intercultural understanding. It’s the forefronting of the “Western” artist or musical reference and a certain rhetorical smugness that stands out. But all of this is just preamble to an album I don’t know what to do with. I should hate it. It’s rootless, “multi-cultural” music produced by “musical nomads.” On the surface, it’s all too precious but it’s got something and, sometimes, it’s got a lot.  (to read more click: Deciphering Watcha Clan: Interview with Jeffrey Callen).

    Watcha Clan

    December 22, 2009
    Categories: Afropop.org, Gnawa music, Journalism, Popular Music, World Music . Tags: , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

    Genre Boundaries: World Music & the Space between Artist Self-Identification and Music Industry Categorization

    A recent conversation with “Northern Roots” singer Tim Eriksen set me to thinking about the strategic nature of genre identification. Eriksen is an exception in that he has created his own genre label to identify his quirky mix of  American “roots” material. For him it’s hopefullly a way-station on the way to defining his work as simply his own — in the way that a Bob Dylan album is always first of all a Bob Dylan album. Still, for most artists, genre identification is a necessary exercise in balancing self-identification (comfort with a label) with industry categorization (so interested listeners can find you). You got to play the game if you want to get heard.

    Nowhere is the conundrum of genre more tangled than in the so-called World Music realm where issues of marketing and how to sell to the Western consumer take precedence. Although, aesthetics and some power dynamics have shifted in the almost three decades since World Music emerged as a marketing term. The following observations still seem pertinent.

    World Music “fusions” are often little more than marketable forms of aural tourism in which exotic locales are tamed and made approachable for Western consumers. This use of “fusion” reflects the overwhelming preoccupation in Western discourse with “difference” in which interactions with non-Western cultures are presumed to be infrequent and of minor importance. While this orientation has come under intensive critique during the last several decades, it still exerts an intense pressure upon the Western mindset (see for example the writings on this by James Clifford and Arjun Appadurai) — plagiarizing myself from my dissertation French Fries in the Tagine (2006).

    World music means music of the poor…. You get music from the poor and try to get the rich to listen to it… It’s like a big European producer coming in and saying “This is a good sound but you know it’s not well-exploited. We are going to do something better with that” (Interview of Reda Allali of Hoba Hoba Spirit, 2002).

    Allali, of the Moroccan band Hoba Hoba Spirit, was stating a sentiment I heard repeatedly from African musicians, including Moroccan rapper Don Bigg and Malian bandleader Cheikh Tidiane Seck (for Salif Keita and Oumou Sangare). World Music is not a category meant for them and it doesn’t satisfy them, artistically or financially. It’s a matter of who has the control, musically and financially. But what about the opening up that can occur with crossing cultural and musical boundaries. That is the primary emphasis of Western artists who make the journey across musical boundaries between North & South, Western & Non-Western. I must admit that I disregarded the sincerity of that sentiment in forming my opinion of the World Music phenomenon. A recent interview of French World ‘n’ Bass ensemble Watcha Clan set me to reconsidering my opinions. For me, it’s still in process. Below are extracts from some of the source material I’m considering: the interview with Watcha Clan (available in full at Afropop.org) and a piece I wrote on Moroccan musicians and their positionings regarding the World Music label a few years ago (available here).

    Watcha Clan

    …but there are all the misses, mostly World Music endeavors that perpetuate the worst of the North–South colonial heritage under the auspices of intercultural understanding. It’s the forefronting of the “Western” artist or musical reference and a certain rhetorical smugness that stands out. But all of this is just preamble to an album I don’t know what to do with. I should hate it. It’s rootless, “multi-cultural” music produced by “musical nomads.” On the surface, it’s all too precious but it’s got something and, sometimes, it’s got a lot. (to read more click: Deciphering Watcha Clan: Interview with Jeffrey Callen).

    Hoba Hoba Spirit

    The songs of Hoba Hoba Spirit fuse rock ‘n’ roll, reggae, and punk with cha’abi and gnawa. The members of Hoba Hoba Spirit were among the numerous musicians I met last year in Morocco who are creating music that transcends the narrow constraints imposed by the Moroccan music industry and media. Many of these musicians are making music that blends Moroccan traditions with musical styles from around the world. They feel this is simply a reflection of their lives which are both rooted in Moroccan tradition and enmeshed in webs of connection that make rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, reggae and salsa as much a part of their world as cha’abi, melhoun and gnawa.  Like numerous other musicians from the global South, they are  not interested in creating raw material for American or European artists or acting as exotic aural scenery for the Western market. (to read more click: Don’t Call it World Music).

    December 22, 2009
    Categories: Genre, Popular Music, World Music . Tags: , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 1 Comment

    Rock ‘n’ Roll & Ritual (’80s Peter Gabriel)

    From the back of the concert hall, the five-person ensemble, four dressed in simple black clothing and one in simple white, proceeds through the crowd, playing drums. As they reach the stage, the synthesizer takes up the same rhythm and the band members pick up their instruments and don headsets. The singer, dressed in white, re-appears from the back of the stage, his face, now clear in the stage lights, in stark black and blue make-up that recalls, to some, a shaman from some non-specified culture and, to others, the image from his latest video.

    That’s the intro to ““I need contact” (from Performance and Popular Music), a piece I wrote in 2006 for inclusion as a chapter in Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time, edited by Ian Inglis, a pop music scholar at Northumbria University in Britain.  The chapter analyzes Gabriel’s use of ritual in his live performances of material from the influential Security album and discusses the musical sources (and inspirations) Gabriel drew upon.It’s going to be reprinted in 2010 in Peter Gabriel: From Genesis to Growing Up (Michael Drewet, Sarah Hill & Kimi Kari, eds. – London: Ashgate Publishing) and I think it stands up pretty well. The use of ritual in secular popular culture, especially music, is a continuing interest of mine and a key element in my research on Moroccan alternative music. 2010.

    Album cover from Peter Gabriel Plays Live

    Gabriel has continued create interesting and sometimes innovative pop music (and hits) but, for me, none of it has the creative spark of his ’80s work after leaving Genesis.  The latest effort, the forthcoming Scratch My Back, is interesting in theory, featuring Gabriel covering a dozen songs written by other songwriters. The set list if intriguing but the instrumentation (an orchestra) plays into Gabriel’s worst musical instincts that haven’t had such free rein since his over-dramatic and sometimes treacly performances with Genesis on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Selling England by the Pound. At least that’s my impression from hearing clips of the first three tracks — AND I hope I’m wrong. Check it out yourself at PeterGabriel.com.

    December 21, 2009
    Categories: Musical Performance, Popular Music . Tags: , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

    Queering Pop Music Studies

    I had a female impersonator for years named Jean LaRue. I didn’t tell you about that. She was out of Oakland. I don’t know if she is living or dead. She was with me for years. Name was Jean LaRue. (August 14, 1998 Interview of Clarence ‘Little Red’ Tenpenny).

    “Little Red” was one of my richest sources of information (and knowledge) when I was doing research for my Master’s thesis on the blues nightclub district that existed in North Richmond, California from the mid-40s to early ’70s. Red mentioned Jean LaRue in our first interview but didn’t mention that she was a female impersonator until a later conversation.  That remark sparked my interest and led to later research, which resulted in my writing “Gender Crossings: A Neglected History in African American Music”*,  an analysis of the exclusion of female and male impersonators from the history of African American music. I’ve also written an encylcopedia entry for the long-delayed but forthcoming Encyclopedia of African American Music: “Transgendered Experience in African American Music” (a terrible title — not my choice). {Digital copies of this entry and/or my MA thesis Musical Community: The “Blues Scene” in North Richmond, California available on request

    Also, check out Sherrie Tucker’s excellent article “When Did Jazz Go Straight? A Queer Question for Jazz Studies” in Critical Studies in Improvisation (2008). An insightful article that asks the right questions (and kindly cites my article “Gender Crossings”). I haven’t checked it out yet but Sherrie is one of the editors of Big Ears:  Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies that was published in October, 2008.

    Female Impersonator Jean LaRue with the Red Calhoun Orchestra (from "Woman's a Fool to think her man is all her own" -- Nationwide Production, 1947 -- available from ACinemaApart.com) Not the Jean La Rue that Clarence Tenpenny told me about. La Rue seems to have been a popular stage name for female impersonators (i.e. the famous British entertainer Danny La Rue).

    * published in Queering the Popular Pitch in 2006 (Sheila Whiteley & Jennifer Rycenga, eds. – New York & London: Routledge). 2006.

    December 15, 2009
    Categories: Blues, Gender, Jazz, Popular Music, Queer Studies . Tags: , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 8 Comments

    "The Virtual Maghreb" (The Beat, Vol. 28 #1 — 2009)

    The Virtual Maghreb:  ”The digital world has created greater access for artists, particularly those from small markets whether due to geography, language or genre. Particularly good news for alternative artists in small countries and that brings us to alternative music artists in Morocco. The virtual world has created a platform for alternative artists in Morocco (hip-hop, fusion, rock, electronica, singer-songwriters) that was hardly imaginable 10 years ago.” {Click on the link to read more}

    Reda Allali of Casablanca rockers Hoba Hoba Spirit

    December 15, 2009
    Categories: Journalism, Moroccan Music, Popular Music, The Beat . Tags: , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 1 Comment

    Review of King Sunny Ade at the Independent in San Francisco (Afropop.org)

    King Sunny Ade in San Francisco – review of King Sunny Ade in San Francisco in June 2009 and the re-release of Seven Degrees North.


    December 13, 2009
    Categories: African Music, Afropop.org, Journalism, Popular Music . Tags: , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

    "The Blues Metaphor" (Moroccan Roll column from The Beat, Vol. 27 #4)

    _The Blues Metaphor_ (Moroccan Roll column from Vol. 27 #4) — discusses the often-tenuous use of the blues as a metaphor to describe and pigeonhole genres of popular and traditional music, particularly music from Africa or the African diaspora).

    Tinariwin -- a "bluesy" Tuareg band

    December 13, 2009
    Categories: African Music, Gnawa music, Journalism, Moroccan Music, Popular Music, The Beat . Tags: , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

    “The Sentir is a Whole Civilization” (Moroccan Roll column from The Beat, Vol. 27 # 3)

    “The Sentir is a Whole Civilization” (Moroccan Roll column from Vol. 27 # 3) — A look at the use of Gnawa music, particularly the sentir (or hajhouj), in Moroccan pop music from the ’70s Folk Revival (i.e., Nass el Ghiwane) to “fusion” efforts of the last decade in Morocco, Algeria and beyond

    Gnawa sentir of hajhouj

    December 13, 2009
    Categories: African Music, Gnawa music, Journalism, Moroccan Music, Popular Music, The Beat . Tags: , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

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