anapoulin

[anapoulin]

End of Semester Class Reflection

In addition to my reflection about my final project, I also wanted to post a reflection for the Black Popular Music course itself. This course taught me about the intricacies of the issues in the music industry that prior I was mostly unaware of. Of course I've always known that the music industry hasn't been kind to people of color. But taking this class blew that can wide open for me and I feel like a fool for having not been aware of it before. All of American music as we know it stems from Black music. We aren't normally taught this truth. This is something I will carry with me through my journey in the music industry.

I feel now I have the tools and better understanding to listening to some of my favorite music with an understanding of where it truly comes from.

[anapoulin]

Final Project- The Struggles of Black Women in the Music Industry Website link!

[anapoulin]

Project Reflection

In this project, I attempted to highlight the similarities of the prejudice women of color face in the music industry throughout three different decades. The purpose of this was to show that the industry is stuck in the past and women of color still to this day, have to fight an uphill battle to claim the respect that is rightfully theirs. I attempted to do this through a multimedia website that focused on three different Black female artists. I analyzed their similar struggles and summarized their lives to show the similarities. I hoped that creating this website would make the information accessible to everyone. I also hoped that it would be an easy way to allow it to be shared. The audience was broad, but I was mainly hoping that men (mainly white men) would be impacted by this information. I shared the website with several of my friends within the Northeastern Music Department. I feel I achieved most of these goals. The one thing I wish I would have done better would be the actual sharing of the website. Besides friends, family, and fellow students, I started to run out of people to share the website with fairly quickly. Also, I think unfortunately women took an interest in the site much more than men. My female friends and family gave me feedback and took a legitimate interest in the topic. My male friends and family however didn’t express the same enthusiasm. I realize that I cannot make people care who do not. But I wish there could have been a way for me to get the men I showed the website to be more engaged.  I also think what I could do better in the future is to have friends post links to the website on their social media so even people could have access. 

I learned to troubleshoot during this project most when it came to building the actual website. Having never attempted to build a website before, it was a challenge for me to learn how to use the software. Many times I was confused and frustrated with it but I had to keep going. I used a lot of tutorials, blogs, and even the help of my friends to get the website running smoothly. I also troubleshot the actual focus of my project. I started with a slightly different focus. As I researched though and worked on the project, I found some aspects of that focus weren’t feasible. This caused me to have to re-evaluate several times. With a social issue like women’s rights, it's hard to find a focus that hasn’t been covered in depth before. And while using a popular topic within women’s rights would have been easy, I realized it wouldn’t be contributing anything to the conversation. From my understanding, the point of this project was to engage with the community and bring awareness to issues that intersect with Black Popular music. Regurgitating what has already been said wouldn't achieve that. It was this thought process that brought me to my topic and concept. I know that even if I didn't fully achieve all I set out to, I at least added something new to the conversation. 

I developed the skill of academic independence during this project. I completed the project alone which was a challenge for me. I am someone who unfortunately needs constant instruction. As a perfectionist, I like to be completely sure what I’m doing is correct. Due to the nature of the online class, my perfectionism posed a challenge. I had to learn how to navigate this project and its requirements alone. The prompt for this project was fairly open-ended as we could pick any topic we wanted to focus on within our social issue. This was hard for me, as I often feel in school that I don't fully understand what I’m doing. I had to trust that the work I was doing was good and on the right path. This is a very valuable skill I’m going to bring into other classes this coming fall semester.

[anapoulin]

Project Rationale

I've chosen to work with the social issue of women's rights. For my project, I propose to create a website centered around the intersectionality of women's rights and racism. I feel the music industry is stuck in the past, and still operates the ways it did decades ago. Racism and sexism are rampant. I propose to demonstrate this by choosing three famous female Black artists from different time periods ranging from 1900-now. By giving brief biographies of these women, then focusing on the struggles they've faced in the industry due to their gender identity and race, I can compare their struggles and show how even the leading Black female musicians of today are still dealing with what their pre successors did decades before. I think using a website format with a page for discussion and interaction is the best way to get the message out and make is accessible for everyone.

[anapoulin]

Sista Dee Interview Reflections

This was a very great interview. It was really powerful to me to hear from a woman as well as a local. I took a lot of points from this. First off, I liked learning about the musical culture for somewhere other than the United States. The steelpan yard is a very interesting concept and I even did some outside research on them after this interview. It brought me back to one of our first lessons where we learned about the ring shouts. Not so much for the musical content but more because of this idea of gathering together to make said music. Another point I took from this was how many people of color are behind so much in the music industry that don't get credit for it. When Sista Dee mentioned all of her father's work and even his work on movies it was crazy to me that I hadn't heard of him. It just further shows me that there's a lot of work to be done for representation.

I loved Sista Dee's points about being a woman in the music industry. I relate so much when she talked about not being taken seriously and having to prove yourself. I feel that very much so in the music scene here in Boston. There have been many times my band and I (an all women group) have attempted to get into some of the basement/student led music venues but have either been ignored, laughed at or rejected. In the music industry especially it seems these old fashion, racists and sextist ways of thinking are very prevelant. On that note I also loved her points about the cliquiness of the music scene in Boston. I feel that very heavily here. There is an overarching feeling of constant competition. She's absolutely right in saying that we need to come together and support each other. We all have our own struggles and it's our job as musicians to help, support, and give everyone the fair shot they deserve in this industry.

[anapoulin]

Warren Harper Interview Reflections

I loved this interview with Warren Harper especially because I'm a Music Technology student, so this spoke to my soul so-to-speak. It was very interesting to hear about the way they used to send recording through the mail across the country to have the different instruments recorded. This not only relates to my Music Recording classes lessons, but also makes me reflect on how good us engineers have it today with the ability to send stems over a quick email.

Some of the points I took from this interview were his points about the origins of Go-go music and his perspective on popular music being more regional that overarching. I always think of popular music as what's on the radio, but I've never approached it from a location standpoint like that. I think this stems from the American perspective which I feel is this idea that whatever is popular here, must be popular everywhere. When in reality that's not true. Another point I want to mention is when at the beginning Warren talks about how because of our capitalistic society, that capitalism has been almost imposed upon hip hop as a way to mass produce it and capitalize off of it. I usually relate this concept to rock music and what some people consider the "death of rock" when it became mass produced an therefore no longer honest. It was interesting to think about this in relation to Black popular music, specifically hip hop as refered to in this interview.

Also loved the point where Mr. Harper talks about meeting Wonder Mike who sang Rapper's Delight. It's one thing to learn about that type of history as we've been doing, but it's another to hear from someone who witnessed it. I've noticed most of our guest speakers so far are people who've lived through the rise of hip hop from their childhood until now and it's very cool to get that sort of perspective. It makes me wonder what we're living through now in Black popular music and how people will look back at it when I'm at the same age of our speakers.

[anapoulin]

Dr. Kofi-Charu Nat Turner Interview Reflection

I truly enjoyed this interview with Dr. Kofi-Charu Nat Turner. I loved that he referred to North America as Turtle Island in respect to the Indigenous people of our continent. One of the points I took from this interview was his mentioning of intergenerational trauma and being mindful of that. We often forget that trauma is stored in the body and even our generations' past trauma gets sent down to us. This is so important when speaking on a topic like Black popular music because so much of how Black Americans have been treated in this country was and still is very traumatic. I am not a POC, so I would never claim to understand that trauma, but I can say I feel very deeply for those who are. Being mindful and aware of this is so important to successful learning.

When Dr. Kofi-Charu Nat Turner talked about visiting the mothership and this idea of black excellence it reminded me of our lesson about the late 20th century and how as the space race was going on a of Black artists and musicians applied this idea of space and other worlds to themselves.

I could tell in this interview that early hip-hop artists had really made an impact on Dr. Kofi-Charu Nat Turner in terms of having pride and loving himself. This was really wonderful to see/hear from him and it made me think of how despite the odds these artists had accomplished their goal of getting battling stigma.

[anapoulin]

Jeff Robinson Interview Reflection

There were a lot of interesting points to be taken from this interview with Jeff Robinson. What I found most interesting though was when he talked about getting into the "zone" for a musical performance. I feel as though that's a pretty overlooked piece on playing live. So much of what makes music so good is it's human aspects. The ability to sympathize and relate with the musician whether it be through their use of lyrics or the emotion of them playing. This idea that Jeff proposes of putting yourself sort of into the song by channeling love or any energy really towards a person or a thing was very interesting to think about. This is often what makes a truly memorable performance both musically or through other channels such as acting, as Jeff also talked about. I could tell by the way he talked about getting into the musical zone that he took a lot of inspiration from what you do when you act, which is essentially getting into the zone of a character.

Mr. Robinson's oral history on the roots of Black popular music confirmed for me a lot of what we've learned in the lectures and readings. When he spoke about how most modern pop music come from jazz I thought back to the lectures where we learned how minstrel music was essentially the first form of popular American music. It further cemented to me how essentially all of American music comes from Black music (similarly, I would argue most of America's history is built off the backs of Black Americans.)

I really related to Jeff when he spoke about his own musical history and background. Especially the part about feeling like he took a sort of zig-zag path to reach his prefered instrument. I too feel as though I've taken an "off the beaten path" course to music. It took me a lot of years to come to music and accept that it was what I needed to be doing. I've been playing guitar since I was 14 but I repressed my desire to study music for a very long time up until transferring into Northeastern music program. I think my motivation has always been a combination of things. I first turned to music because it allowed me to understand emotions I couldn't put into words. When I felt I had no one I had music. Now that I've gotten older and play music myself, my motivation has shifted from one of self to that of others. I want to pass on how music helped me to other people if that's possible. I'm not the greatest singer or player, but I feel I have something to say that people can relate too. Music is constantly transformative for me. it's like one minute I think I know all there is to know about it and I'm at my peak and then I turn around and I know nothing again. It's always challenging me on a personal and emotional level.

[anapoulin]

Reflections

I will use this space throughout the course to write short reflections/notes/thoughts on the texts, multimedia, and coursework provided.

Week One-

One thing that stuck with me from this week's lessons was the fact that minstrel music was the first form of popular American music. I think I've always assumed the first form of popular American music was European orchestral music. But, hence the name, that's European not American. This has made me really think about how so much of our culture as Americans is built off the backs of African Americans.

Week Two-

Something that I took away from this week's lessons was the way blues divas used their music as a way of scholarly commentary and expression. It's interesting to me how they were denied the usual forms of expression of these things at the time, such as written publication, but despite that found a way to be heard.

Week Three-

One thing that stuck with me from the lessons this week was the Big Mama Thornton and her music being stolen. Recently, there's been a lot of discourse around a new movie coming out about Elvis, who famously took the song Hound Dog from Big Mama, giving her no credit. I was shocked to find out that even in today's more progressive modern age there was no highlight given to this fact in the movie or in the discussion surrounding the movie. I think it's another painful reminder that the industry is still not equally for women of color.

Week Four-

I liked the information about Hendrix's national anthem performance at Woodstock from this week. My family is a very big classic rock family and that's a performance that I've watched about 100 times from childhood till now. It makes a lot of sense now having learned more about his life this week and his moving to the UK/his aggravation with the direction the US was heading towards with the war etc. I always knew he was performing it that way as some form of protest but it carries more weight now.

Week Five-

Loved learning about Afro-futurism. This concept of feeling "alien" is interesting because it's not necessarily in the negative way. It seems like Afro-futurism takes that very real alienation Black Americans feel but reclaims it as a more positive thing. Like how in Stevie Wonder's Saturn, he's saying on "saturn" his people don't have wars or poverty etc. So therefore being an "alien' is a melancholy sense of pride.

Week Six-

I liked learning about the origins of hip hop in this week's lessons. Grandmaster Flash and early hip hop stars use of record sampling has arguably redefined the modern pop industry. It's something I utilize myself as a music technology major. When I learned about early hip hop in another class at Northeastern, we'd learned about the actual process of sampling using records at the time, and the different ways they would manipulate the record playing on the needle to create the unique sound.

Week Seven-

From this week's lessons, I want to reflect on what we learned about the Black Eyed Peas. Growing up I assumed they were just a fun pop group. I was totally unaware of their different musical/cultural pursuits and impacts. I actually wasn't even aware that they were a fully African American group. Therefore it was very insightful to learn about how a group that shaped a large part of my childhood has a connection to Black popular music.

[anapoulin]

Goals

My goal for this course is to change my perspective on popular American music. As most of us, I've been taught about American music and most American history through a non-POC perspective. I believe this is extremely damaging as I haven't been given the full truth about our history (and musical history) as a country. This miseducation is very prevalent in our culture even today and I hope taking this course will allow me to learn the truth and hopefully even pass it on to others. My personal musical goal outside of this course is to hopefully create music that speaks to people. Music has always been the center of my life because of how it's been able to ease the burden of living and all that comes with it. I hope to one day create something that gives that same feeling to others. Even if it's just one person.

[anapoulin]

About Me

I am a second year transfer student at Northeastern University in the Music Technology Program. I play guitar, piano, sing and write my own songs. I have an interest in all things musical and artistic. In my free time I love to paint, draw and write. I love old jazz music, classic rock, indie rock and singer songwriter music. I'm very passionate about feminism and gun control. I find myself most drawn to the issue of homelessness in the United States and it's an issue I hope to be able to positively impact one day.