INTERVIEW WITH MORGAN CRAFT - October 10, 2008
The following interview took place at Rocca AlMiledo Studios, Toscana, Italia.
Q: How has the move away from New York, which many would consider the center of the world, affected your work, your ideas? I hear you live a pretty isolated life on a mountain deep in Toscana.
Morgan Craft: Yeah, very isolated. The village we live in has a population of eight hundred people. It's been three years since we moved so I can definitely see results. It's true, most artists still insist on living in the city. And most cities now could be interchangeable anyway. I know there is the fantasy of going to a megalopolis to meet likeminded people, have all these experiences, etc. and on a certain level you can. I spent ten years in NY and I don't regret that. You can't buy the lessons of struggling for your art amidst eight million people, trying to find out who you are and what you believe in. I even think it's necessary, if you want to be pursuasive as an artist in the twenty first century, to know what the city life does to one. But then I'd turn around and say there is definitely a time to leave. All of the art I've loved was about change, trying something new. And to me, all art comes from the life you live. I'm very critical of the new technologies coming out now but one aspect that is very exciting is the reality of being able to do what you do no matter where you are. A laptop and a cell phone can keep you just as connected as you ever were. I can't believe more people are not taking advantage of this. Then again I can understand why. Art is not being developed along the lines of innovation but of business. Most people don't want to risk not being on the scene and missing that big break. But break into what? Into the establishment. But I look out there and don't see anything I want to waste my time breaking into. The relationship between art and nature shouldn't even have to be mentioned but I can't remember the last time I heard anyone say it. It's just not modern enough to talk about essential things like plants and trees and mountains and oceans. It seems like everybody is rushing to be cyborgs. And I can only speak for myself when I say that walking on concrete between buildings along a grid which never changes just doesn't fulfill me. I think for an artist, living within nature is the original well of inspiration. Our job is probably the closest to the way nature works than most other endeavors. I can't express how important it is for me to wake up in the country, with fresh air, space and time to really develop. I don't feel any contradiction in being concerned with a music of the future and living a very rustic life. I chop wood, take long walks through the forest, tend a garden, live simple, and then walk inside to a fully operational studio set up. That, to me, is the future. Building a connection with the earth and the body feeds directly into the creativity. Also, when you're isolated you can't run for the distractions like you used to, all you've got is the work you say you love to do, but do you really? You can't fool yourself. And I know that is a very scary place for people, that ledge, that reality away from the fashion, away from the friends. So to go back to your question I'll say that moving here has influenced every single aspect of my life in a beautiful way.
Q: Do you feel there is a relationship between spirituality and avant garde / experimental musics?
MC: Absolutely. For me, music / art is a spiritual quest, period. They are the same thing. When you start to ask where inspiration comes from then you are dealing with spirtual matters. The breath, flowing naturally, allowing that energy to work through you, these are matters of the spirit. You can see that most people these days refrain from talking about this, but there was a time when it was much more open. Something happened maybe around 1980 that we're still dealing with. I can't say what exactly or when exactly but something shifted. They tried to stop the progress of all these different musics. Jazz, rock, pop, all were rewarded for stopping their progression. Money got big, keeping it safe and marketable got big and the media kept up the pressure. People started talking about maintaining traditions. Music that always was about progress was now told to stop, no more forward motion. And when you stop you no longer are spiritual. Spirit doesn't stop, at least I can't see any evidence of spirit stopping. Where does nature come to a stop? All is morphing, pushing forward, shedding skin, eating one another. So when these people say "we'll pay you to stop", they are trying to keep us away from spirituality. It's about control. Technology also became the focus at around the same time. And the thing with electronics and computers is that they are actually in advance of the people using them. The machine is more powerful than the human at that point. It becomes very easy to let the machine do the playing because the sound is immediately gratifying. I'm not against technology, but it takes time to get inside of it, just like it takes time to get inside of any instrument. So the art moves away from the human and that in turn affects culture because people are listening to this new music and are being transformed away from spirituality, away from the human.
Q: So you're not a big fan of laptop music?
MC: I've heard plenty of great computer based music. I'm not critical of the computer in itself, I'm critical of laziness. It takes about twenty years to really start to find out what you and your instrument can do together, twenty years to get to a symbiosis, and right now this computer music is not that old. Obviously the pioneers get all of my respect, back when it was fresh. Now, since everyone in the first world can afford a Mac it's not very exciting. I've loved the sounds that I've heard and I let them influence me. It stretches out your ears, gets them away from habits, ruts. But now is the time when we'll see who the real artists are. Everybody has heard what these programs can do, now it's time to hear what the human can do through these programs. And this is where the work comes in. The time you have to put in if you really love something. I think you'll see a big shift in these next few years once the cat is out of the bag on how these things work. Right now it's just fashion, it's peer pressure and fashion. You read the magazines or go to the experimental festivals and they make you feel bad if you're not staring at a screen. I don't buy it.
Q: Even so, don't you think computers are the future instrument? I mean, you play the guitar which some might call a dinosaur. How do you reconcile wanting to play the music of the future on an old instrument?
MC: The future is right here in our mind. An instrument is only a tool to achieve the impossible. So you could play a stick and a stone and if your mind is facing toward the future then you're infinite. That's one thing you learn from getting past the steep learning curve of an instrument, that you have every single sound available to you no matter what you play. In the early stages you want to maybe get all this gear to make strange sounds or something but that's not really futuristic. In fact you'll see how dated these gadgets will sound any day now because the machines are not all of the future. The future is the soul. The human is still the future, still the center of our explorations in conjunction with the new technologies. But the first concern is to get the mind free, then everything else just opens up. You become much more dangerous and exciting when you carry the space travel and weapons and truths around in your head. For me, I love pushing a traditional instrument into new territory, because the guitar has a history, and I can really see myself in relation to greatness in the past. I'm always aware of how far they took it which keeps me on my toes to come with something new.
Q: Are you competetive?
MC: You know, obviously art cannot be measured in any terms of better or worse, but I like healthy competition. I like to be pushed and I like to push. I don't think it has to be a bad thing. See, I come from athletics first, I'm not one of these frail arty folks who never used their bodies. I learned alot from sports and I have a great deal of respect for athletes. The discipline it takes to learn your art is very closely related to the discipline needed to be an athlete. So in terms of competition I think we can take certain aspects and apply them to art practices in a healthy, positive way. I think it's good to have people who can challenge you, people that force you to get back in the lab. I'm just saying we can use it as one particular facet of this process called art. I wouldn't want to rely on it completely, I just want it as an option.
Q: You say you're an improvisor but your work doesn't really fall into the niche we have come to associate with improvised music. I mean, judging by your new work you obviously love structure, melody, harmony, rhythm, which free music tends to eschew altogether. How do you view your methods?
MC: Oh man, this is really what I want to discuss. OK, improvisation, as a word means one thing, as a style of music means something totally different. I'm not interested in styles. I'm an improvisor, which means every time I sit down I don't know what I'm going to do. I have no idea what it's going to sound like. I don't care one tiny bit about the style of music called 'improv', in fact I think most of the people who play 'improv' are liars at this point. They get up there and think they have to play like what 'improv' is supposed to sound like. They're liars. I have no interest whatsoever in playing an already established sound. I view improvisation as standing as near to the spark of creation as humanly possible. That's the goal, that's what I'm really trying to do. Total improvisation, pure improvisation, no heads no chord charts. I want to be free to go in any direction. If I want to set up a structure, or play a melody, I can, but I do it in real time. I feel like it's the next step after jazz to completely step out on the limb, no net. But I have to do it in a way that is honest to who I am. Everything I've ever heard is in me in some way or another and might appear in some guise or another. But there is also the possibility of playing something new because to play along with creation, in real time, is to play beyond yourself. You try and get beyond your own judgement so that things can happen. We always follow inspiration. Inspiration leads the way and we always follow. But if we can get right up to it, then anything can happen. To me, nothing is more exciting than playing something for the first time. That's the rush right there. So in analyzing that I realized that every form of music known to man was initially improvised. After that they remembered or wrote it down and it might have become a style or genre, but initially it was improvised.
I'm focused on finding something new. And I think the new cannot be thought into existence. It's somewhere beyond thought, out there. Not everything has not been discovered yet. The real breakthrough for me was getting to the point where I saw my life as improvisation. I went past just thinking about music or writing all the way down to my actual life, my whole person. I thought that for me to really find out what improvisation was I had to put myself in a position, physically, where improvisation was the only option. I bought a one way ticket to an island in the pacific with $500 in my pocket and ended up staying a year and leaving with $10,000. I think that was the frontier I needed to cross, mentally, spiritually, in order to truly understand what I wanted to do with music. I wanted to play within the flow of life. Every situation has a flow, an energy, and maybe the best we can do is ride with that. So now I live and it's like dipping into a stream for water the way I play or the way I write. I try not to think too hard or judge too harshly what comes out. I try and allow it to happen rather than forcing it. And I believe that if we can exist in that place we'll never run out of ideas, never run out of energy.
Q: Obviously the connection between jazz and improvisation must be an influence, how do you view your work in relation to jazz or blues?
MC: I'm a Bluesman. It took me a long time to reach that conclusion because I wanted to come up with a new term to better describe what I do, but at the same time I wanted to acknowledge an origin. The blues is arguably the original artform in the transition from the African to the black American. The blues as emotional zone, not the style it has become with the twelve bars or whatever, but the blues as emotional landscape. I want to feel that connection to the past and at the same time illustrate the evolution into a futurism. I want to connect and draw from the source. Jazz represented the advanced form of the black American musician. That's where I recognized the combination of mental, physical and spiritual brilliance. It was the domain of philosophers and intellectuals and arcane equations. It had the confidence and poise and elitism that inspires me to reach as deeply as I can. That's the beginning of my interest in improvisation. But maybe where I feel differently from other musicians who loved these musics is the fact that I never actually wanted to play them as a form. I didn't see the point in trying to go back in time. I related to the necessity of finding a way that was unique to my experience as a human and, obvioulsy, as a black American. And if I did that honestly then I knew I wouldn't be betraying the masters but, in fact, doing exactly what they would need me to do. I knew that I would be able to sit down with Braxton and the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Butch Morris and we'd be speaking the same language. Black genius is forever progressing. There is a line all the way through Robert Johnson to Charlie Parker to Grandmaster Flash to Goldie. So I had to listen to everything, read everything and then develop my own approach to sound as a logical progression from that essence. As Cecil Taylor said, each man is an academy. You have to create a language out of all the strands of genius that have come before, mixed with your own unique experience. So I just brought it all to the table and never looked back.
Q: What about Africa? Obviously the blues is not the beginning, it too evolved out of something.
MC: Absolutely, but for my intents and purposes I choose to concentrate on what I am. It's not to deny any connection to Africa or Europe or the connections we will make with Africa and Europe in the future, it's just that I want to make sure we have a clear, individual, original voice to bring to the summit as Americans. We can't come trying to be things that we're not. We do have a tradition, albeit a young one. We do have a pantheon of masters. America was and is a petri dish where all kinds of mutations occur. Africans who survived slavery and absorbed the European influences became a new species. Now, at this remove we are no longer Africans, we are Americans. It always amuses me to see these bohemian American blacks with the beads and kente cloth talking about kings and queens when they've never even been to Africa. The temptation is strong to want to identify with antiquity but I think it's much more important and exciting to not only come to grips with what we are, but to exacerbate and revel in this new opportunity. To turn our pain into genius, which is what the blues truly is.
Q: What about your feelings on issues of race? Do you feel any sense of responsibility to black culture?
MC: I do and I'll tell you why. In America, no matter where I go, I'm black, period. There is no discussion or acceptance of me as being Norwegian and German, that is not yet possible, even though they are as much a part of me as African. I'd rather not waste a bunch of time and energy trying to convince everyone I'm white too. When I look around and see who owns all of this stuff, I mean, who owns jazz, blues, hip hop, who owns the magazines, the books, the films, I realize that we do not control the means of communication. It's astonishing to see that even now, with all the tools we have at our disposal, we still don't have a black owned creative music magazine. And I'm talking creative music, not pop or hip hop. Of course that's just the tip of the iceberg. Someone has to be willing to say that shit is off, totally unbalanced and destructive. Someone has to ask the black creative sector what they plan on doing. I mean, it's great to have other people put up the money and put out your books and records but it's much bigger than the money. We have got to build. We have got to invest. We have to plant the seeds and be patient so that this next phase growns properly and strong. We have to allow for constructive criticism. We have to strive to make brilliant work. So I have to think about the future of a brilliant race. I see that I am part of the next generation of black people in America, being mixed and trying to amplify the strongest aspects of both cultures within myself. This has nothing to do with reverse racism or superior versus inferior or anything like that, I love my mom, you know. But I see what those who are in control choose to show. We're being represented by other cultures who may or may not care to see black Americans being progressive. Why would they want that? Why would they actively encourage us to own our means of communication? That would be taking a huge chunk out of their pockets. How much money do you think these people are making off of what we do? And not just money, but how much control are these people effecting? We have to be the ones showing that our lineage is one of the strongest on the planet, capable of infinite variety and depth. I feel very excited because the world hasn't seen what the black American can really do yet. It's coming and I have a role to play, absolutely.
Q: Are you a hip hop fan?
MC: I think alot about the producers, people like RZA, DJ Premier, and the Bomb Squad. I don't care about them not playing instruments or not knowing theory, they don't need it. I say stick with your MPC and Technics and go all the way deep to the point where you can do anything. We need them to be virtuosos. We also need them to not worry about this thing called hip hop. When they start breaking through that frontier you won't have to worry about is it hip hop, it will be great art which exists outside of any category. Here's the thing, I feel that hip hop, like jazz and blues, is done. It's a form now and as soon as you step outside of the parameters of that form then it's something else. I want the something else now. The world needs the something else now. I want the stuff you can't pin down. What really is difficult for me is looking out at my generation and seeing all of this referencing. So much of the art now is just taking the surface concerns of the past and putting a new face on it. I don't see anyone saying that we have to push into some new territory now, or that what we're doing isn't good enough. Where is that confidence and brashness that says we're gonna do something the world has never seen before? I'm so tired of this hero worship. You can't say that you want to make music with the same relevency and intensity as Miles, Mozart, Monk, or Ellington, without people thinking you're an egomaniac. It's shameful. The world is changing so incredibly right now and we need the music and art to lead the way. We have to reach deep down to pull up some truths because the world desperately needs it. We need to accept the responsibility of being positive and dedicated to finding new methods.
Q: How can you remedy this situation, and if you can't, then how do you function?
MC: I've had to think long and hard about this, spent many years wishing for others to appear, wishing for some sort of community, wishing for some elder to come and annoint me. Then, I reached a point where there were only two options; I could keep going like I was, lamenting all of the things that were not there or I could embrace the situation and turn it to my advantage. I'd say this really hit me about a year ago. I began to see the positive aspects of going alone. I didn't have to wait around for people, rely on people who maybe didn't care as much as I did about something, and the most important part, I could move faster. I sometimes feel like I'm building a new machine now. I'm drawing in as much information as I can and keeping all the parts that resonate and discarding the rest. I'm a scavenger. I'm leaner, I'm not dragging around all sorts of unnecessary baggage. I used to go around being excited about something I was reading or hearing and try to turn others on to it. Now I just keep my mouth closed and let that energy circulate inside of me, I just let it simmer and boil and it drives me. I love seeing the connections between all these different elements and I love not having to convince anyone that they're there. I'm the proof whether something fits or not. How I move through the world is proof of what I'm feeling. I'm getting faster, clearer, stronger. My eyes are open and I'm trying to give everything a chance. It's funny though, the age I'm at, the age my peers are it, this is the transition. I'm seeing how other people are evolving and I'm not saying anything. I'm seeing the work they're making, seeing what they talk about. I've let everyone go, I've stopped trying to carry people.
Q: What are your views on academia? Do you think it's possible to learn creativity in a classroom?
MC: Well, firstly, I've not had the experience of attending a four year college so my opinions are based on my observation of others. I think we've seen a shift in thought relating to higher education. We've also seen a shift in thought about what art is and how you go about doing it. Having technique now is almost laughed at. Having ideas is the cutting edge. Duchamp kicked the door down and Warhol decorated the room. Now, I love both Duchamp and Warhol and Yoko Ono and Fluxus, but the fallout is that nobody knows what is actually good anymore. So if there is no standard and no technique, well, I guess anyone can do it. So the schools have become flooded with people who would obviously rather be sipping wine at their gallery opening than sitting behind a desk selling insurance. Fine, I understand that, but it doesn't mean that's really what they should be doing. On the music side I see all these examples of kids being lavished and rewarded for adhering to a particular dogma. They are the ones in line for the grants and teaching posts. Calcification is being held up as the proper standard. So, at this moment, the work of the university is just muddying up the waters. They need the tuitions, the teachers need jobs, so nobody says anything. I wonder how many professors weed out 90% of their students because they can see that art is really not for them? I don't think it happens too often. Art is life. Art is the experience of being alive translated into another form. So how do you teach someone about life by sitting inside a classroom? You can't. The best you can do is tell the student that they won't be finding it within those four walls. But then enrollment drops, people start losing money and jobs etc. So my opinion is no, you cannot teach creativity in a classroom.
Q: So how does the information get handed down if there are no universities?
MC: It has to become less formal, less financial, more personal. It's not the concept of teacher and student that feels wrong but the system in place for the student and teacher to actually interact. The need is for elite instruction, think tanks, spaces where one can go to discuss and access information, getting people to be the best they can be. Black people have always had to use informal methods for instruction. During the heyday of jazz you just went down to 42nd street and all the masters were right there. If you wanted to sit in or learn you had to be ready to get your head cut. From what I've heard if you didn't have it together you'd get tossed out of the club. These days nobody is being honest because of the fear of not moving up the ladder of the grant world or the gig world or the press. Or maybe it was someone's living room over drinks and a smoke. Discussions were being had, there was some building going on. Now those spaces don't seem to exist, or at least I don't know where they are if they do. The masters are all spread out across the planet teaching at the universities. I don't think this is an accident. I happen to think it's very smart to keep the black geniuses from getting in the same room. Who knows what might happen if they got together? Maybe they'd figure out a way to get their own money together to build a situation independent of present day schooling. Sounds quite dangerous indeed. So offer them decent wages and the prestige of being real university professors and split them up. That kind of situation they can just walk into, the structure is already in place. But to build something from the ground up takes time. And there may be a period of invisibilty, even derision. We have to be willing and able to forego the gratification of institutional accolades. We have to be willing to go underground for a time. Not only am I willing to do that, but I'm proposing it. For starters I say we get together some of the great minds and just have dinner. It's that simple. Forget composing those impressive salvos and manifestoes and just have some dinner. No pressure, no agenda, just dinner and drinks.
Q: Dinner and drinks? That's it?
A: That's all I ask. If we could have Cecil Taylor, Outtara Watts, Suzan Lori Parks, Naomi Klein, Butch Morris, Randy Moss, bell hooks, the Bomb Squad, Samuel Delany, Kara Walker, Michael Jordan, RZA, Anthony Braxton, Kodwo Eshun, Tiger Woods, Greg Tate, Adrian Piper, Tricky, Amiri Baraka, Venus Williams, Meshell Ndegeocello, George Lewis, Serena Williams, Wole Soyinka, Goldie, Zadie Smith, Vernon Reid, Rob Swift etc. get together with some of the younger generation for dinner, I think everything would naturally go to the next level. Let me make this clear, I'm not just conceptualizing, I'm serious. I'm putting the call out right here for this to actually happen, and I know just the spot. It's time for the standards to be set back up to the level of being able to change the planet. Standards that can inspire one to action. To show by example what it means to operate on that level. To illustrate the difference between greatness and fashion.
The time has come for a black methodology, a black technology. Cecil talked about that in the seventies and I don't know of anyone who has picked up the thread. I'm not talking about a model of exclusion, you know, we don't need another era of black nationalism, we must collaborate with the entire world, but we also must understand who we are and be in control of our productions. Pan-Africanism has fallen from our discussions and our actions and it needs to be back at the forefront. There are other ways of doing things and I think the future will be about the combined efforts of all African peoples worldwide, in solidarity and open to the influences of other cultures to build Africa and explore space and beyond.
LETTER TO SCRATCH MAGAZINE - November 1, 2006
In response to Thomas Golianopoulos' article in issue #13 'where the female mcs?': who gives a fuck. Where the female PRODUCERS?!!!
Here's one theory for why there aren't more women producers: from an early age, it is proved to a girl over and over that alot of doors open for her just by looking good and sexy. The weak ones take this easy road. The message is: the world will reward you instantly if you just concentrate on looking desirable. Show a little sumpin'sumpin' and alot of doors will open. Why bother sitting all alone in a room looking busted, breaking your head over OMS, m-points, extension conflicts, bass lines, serial & firewire cables, NS-10 fuses, phasing, hot kicks, old SCSI ports & rca shorts? There is no time to perfect wily feminine affectations when you're hunkered down in the lab. You best believe that. (And i do not wanna see a chick trying to rock an MPC with a french manicure unless she's Flo-Jo or Sheila E.).
Yes, I've seen your little spots on CynnaMixx & Miri Ben-Ari(#6), Tachelle(#10), Dj Naturally, Spinderella and Stoni (all issue #5), but only a couple of them are actual beat-makers and please leave the bitch in camel-toe shorts (#13) & the worse-than-useless Trina spot (#8) for your dumb cousin XXL !
Let me be clear by saying that this is not about affirmative action- put a woman on just cos she's a woman neither, cos if women aren't gonna come correctly they may as well stay in the salon.
This brings up another topic: the fact that most of these so-called 'super producers' don't even touch all their gear! Call me naive, but i was convinced the heavy producers won their title cos they were bangin' out the beats, sampling, sequencing, recording into protools, editing & mixing, in addition to bringing the creative juice. The trusty excuse is that these guys get big and upgrade to working in expensive studios where you can't just come in and rock an SSL after running your Mackie for a decade. Fair enough. But some of the hottest tracks i've ever heard was when these guys were still hungry, making tracks by any means neccessary, on any piece of gear they could get their hands on. Resourcefulness is the soul of hip-hop and the undisputed hot shit! So because the term 'producer' is so misleading these days, let me clarify. Why your magazine was kicking ass is because it's been speaking to the active producer: the hands-on-the-gear-diggin'-in'-the-crates-wiring-they-own-patchbay-producer as opposed to the the passive producer, i.e., the-sit-on-the-couch-at-the-back-of-the-studio-smackin'-on-popeye's-chicken-giving-orders-kind-of-'producer'.
I got my start producing in '96 on the Ensoniq ASR 10 & EPS 16+, then on an Atari ST 1040, Akai S900, 2 turntables and a mixer, then moved on to a Mac, Topaz 24 track board, E-mu SP-1200, Akai S3000, Cubase vst, Lexicon mpx-1, blah blah, etc. I play & record drums/instruments into my Mac, loop them, sample hits into my Akai, scratch from the Technics hooked up to distortion pedals, play bass lines, bang on the SP, mix it, etc. Shit, it's humble, but i thought that's what i was supposed to do as a 'producer'.
Take this letter as a roll call, first for all the hard-working producers who take pride in being on top of their vision from start to finish and secondly, for men and women to awake from their mental death chamber.
And to address another reader's (Slash) on-point letter in the last issue--please, please, please don't sell out, i.e., forsake the dedicated producers by taking the short-cut to what you think the masses want to chew on because don't we all know it, there is so much bullshit out there. That's why your magazine was so exhilirating. Y'all responded to his plea to leave the artists off the cover with this: "great producers are DEFINED by breaking artists". This statement is only valid from an a&r, money-grubbing point of view, not a musical one. CASE IN POINT: how many straight accappella albums have rappers put out vs. how many instrumental albums have producers put out? (I'll be generous and guess it's 1 to 1000). And of all people, why couldn't Primo have his own cover (#9)? The dude is blessed producer-general magic and you had him all squashed up against a wall behind Nas like an unwanted step-child!
(p.s. Jerry, i know your job is mad stressful. You gotta deliver to the man. Welcome to the modern slave trade. Was it Mr. Rheingold that made you add the rapper-starlets on the cover to up the sales? I appreciate the energy you're putting in so please help uplift colored people by staying on track. I promise to God, I will sacrifice making that extra cash for my son in exchange for him knowing that there are some people trying to live in truth. Word on my seed and fruit!
p.p.s. Lizz, I know you gotta care about this subject as a top-position woman of color.)
-Mutamassik
DE-NILE + by MUTAMASSIK - January 21, 2006
commissioned by the New York Foundation for the Arts(
www.nyfa.org) for their 'rants and raves' column. due to word-count restraints, the entire piece couldn't make it on their site. this topic, in fact, has been edited/damn-near censored by every publication/interview i've brought it up in except for in Veronique Mortaigne's piece in Le Monde(1998) and Nebulisa's African Sun Times interview (1999)
1) Egypt: a Brief thought on North African colonialism or "de-Nile" of/to Vulcanize or Afro-Asiatic Mokkassar
North Africa is under the Arab umbrella now. Egypt, for example, has officially been the 'Arab republic of Egypt' since 1971, 1300 years after the original Arab invasion. surely as Israel's expanding threat grew, so did the need for the surrounding nations to come together under one banner. there have been many attempts in history at forming a Pan-Arab league. when it was for the sake of peacefully unifying quarelling peoples, liberating Palestine and dissolving colonialism and imperialism all over N. Africa and the Middle East it was truly a noble feat. but what happened as a result is that alot of fundamental Aboriginal/pre-Arab cultures have been disregarded or generically assimilated. the original colonialist became the colonialized to become once again the colonialist.
the fact is that many N. Africans are not entirely Arab if at all: the Gnawa of Morocco, the Berber- the Tuareg- the Kabylie of Algeria-, the Copts, the Nubians...
Egypt, like the other N. African countries, has always been made up of incessant waves of foreign conquests/migration in some form or another: Persians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Turks, Romans, French, Arabs, British, Assyrians, Kushites, Babylonians, and yes, Nasser, even Jews... and perhaps even Spacemen! and let's face it, they've all tried to claim Egypt as their own. and despite their misgivings they've all made it what it is today--to try and extricate one thread would be to destroy the entire textile. from a cultural point of view, the fabric has fused, Vulcanized. politically though, that kind of Idealistic Unity(which in fact is quite Real) doesn't make for profit and therefore it is more opportunistic to proclaim it solely an Arab republic. economically, it would gain nothing from being called an 'African' country, which as far as i'm concerned is what it is First.
it wouldn't be such a problem if the Aboriginal Cultures of N. Africa were not so unappreciated in their own countries. the interest in them comes mostly from the outside rather than from within the country of origin--- from Black scholars, uprooted mestizos, the sanitized French museum, the German anthropologist, the British cultural center, the 'world' music festival where musicians are paid to play barefoot in galabeyyas for rich Scandinavians while after the gig they're rocking pepe jeans and nikes, the hip producers begging to have their tracks laced with some Gnawa soul authenticity...{reminding me of what is being done to the Aboriginal People of America. nearly wiped out, then corraled & pieced back together for some archive.}
undoubtedly, the people of the Arabian Peninsula brought with them a cache of knowledge, Science, Poetry...that Illuminated the world . and the African-Arab marriage in particular has bred an incredible breadth of culture (Music that i fanatically promote worldwide, Mathematics, Science, Medicine, Spirituality, Art, Philosophy, Meta-Physics, Architecture, etc). but it has been fraught with strife, one partner just being too domineering. examples of this:
the Algerian guy in Paris who was getting fresh in French. i snapped something back in Arabic, thinking he looked pretty F.O.B. [also assuming a certain unspoken comradry between Arabic-conquered/speaking peoples dispersed in the West--the Yemeni & Palestinians in the N.Y. bodegas appreciate even my primitive Arabic]. i was shocked by his explosive reaction. 'ena mabakallamsh el a'aaa'aarabeyy!!'('i don't speak aaaarabish'), overpronouncing the "a'ayen" in a derisively exaggerated manner. he went on spurting some insults in French. a nearby table of Maghrebeen burst out laughing, somehow knowingly. as it turns out, my man was a Kabylie, some of the most fiercely resistant people to the Arab conquest, insisting on speaking their Vernacular instead. they are not alone. the Nubians became ever more insistent on retaining their Pre-Arab language after the slap-in-the-face of the Aswan High Dam from 1960-71 forcing 90,000+ people from their homes(on a tour bus with the Nubian-Egyptian singer Mohamed Mounir going to a show past the Pyramids, his brother Mahmoud explained to me his intense need to go back down home to open a cultural center for preservation of the Nubian language). the Copts of Egypt and Ethiopia in a usually more passive way have been resisting for 14 centuries, Berbers protested vehemently in 1980 against the mandate making Arabic the official language of Algeria...
and then there's the late-night arguments with my Sudanese friends in Cairo, a couple of whom consider themselves absolutely & completely Arab(those more devoted to the Prophet) and the rest who consider themselves a mix as they very well are.
the dictionary defines an Arab as anyone who's primary language is Arabic...oh, if it were only so easy...!
why is it so important for the world to consider Egypt African? (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria & Morocco are more likely than Egypt to be identified as African countries). because Africa must be given it's due, unabridged props. in the broadest sense. because Africans and Europeans have been in 'de-Nile'- claiming the 'real' Africa begins sub-Sahara (and here's what's really messed up-- i don't know too many Egyptians that claim to be Africans. you're likely to hear, 'i'm an Arab' or 'i'm a descendent of the Pharaohs' or 'i'm a Muslim' before you hear 'i'm an African'. is it because Egypt is physically connected by the Sinai to the Middle East? or does the tug of the Mediterranean sea pull too hard? or has Africa been purposely truncated to curb it's mind-blowing riches or have the various colonialists brain-washed Egypt with their standards of Eurasian beauty and power?) peoples' conception of what Africa looks like has to be revised to include the North African populations Pre-Arab & Post-Arab. [like Pan-Arab efforts that united the Arab-conquested lands, this is a Pan-African-Derived movement that is not based on territorial expansion and dominance, but on geographical, anthropological and continental fact]. African-Americans have been quick to realize this. maybe that's why combining this Music with Hip-Hop feels so good.
i find that one of the only sanctuarys is in the Music i do where the arguments and influences can battle themselves out, convulse, break bread together, get bashed into place in an inspiring, juicy pulp, still alive and kicking as sonic plasma should be. Afro-Asiatic Mokkassar.
epilogue: it's time for anyone who has roots in that part of the world to step up and represent correctly. but, do we in the West, have to dumb down to Americans' cultural illiteracy by coming up under one generic umbrella (it's way more complex than that, what about Iranians?) to shed a positive light on a part of the world that is deeply misunderstood and unfortunately misrepresented in the West more than ever? all of us here in the West that would be considered 'moderates' or 'liberals' by this ignorant U.S. govt. can help it. but not at the expense of not also recognizing the variety within what is politically known as the Arab world. some people in the movement fear that such discussions will detract from the show of unity and solidarity and hurt the cause.
it is not to fracture unity, but to EXPAND the world's notions about who we are, how broad and deep this 'we' really is. just in the same way that Egypt has to be reconfigured into the African dialectic as a whole to expand peoples' notions of what Africa means. it is the truth.
otherwise, this kind of homogenization is nothing short of colonialization/ imperialism.
p.s. upon my husband's urging, i have to add that my father is Italian(Tuscan from Rome) and my mother is Egyptian(Sa'aidi Copt from Cairo) and i was born in Italy where i grew up partly, but mostly in Ohio, WV & Pittsburgh (Rustbelt, U.S.A.). in our household, we were only allowed to speak Italian which my mother learned fluently. my father, however, never learned Arabic. he used to joke that he bought my mother from a Bedouin caravan for 4 camels and a donkey. a sort of domestic colonialism(a whole other essay). the roman emperor's dream of pharaonic war booty...
2) hark ye, goddess/empress!
since i've been in n.y., i've come across an ever-expanded circle of people who simply adore stroking egos by calling eachother 'goddesses'. the people i'm referring to generally have nothing to do with santeria, candomble', hinduism, yoruba, etc. you can tell by how glibly they use the term. beyond even 5 %er speak(which, come on dudes, i got less brains than you?). if you've ever been an artist in n.y. you probably know what i'm talking about.
maybe it's to compensate for their lack of self-worth as humans. to lift themselves out of the banal backdrop of their past lives and rise beyond mortality, to banish the mundane and mediocre with one wave of their magic batons(oh yeah, when they're not stumbling around on heels over-promoting their latest gig or throwing a benefit party...for themselves!).
maybe you really are a 'goddess'(i can't be the judge of that), but i am not. suffice it to call me a perceptive human, and unneccessary to call me 'empress'(i'm decidedly anti-imperialist!), 'queen'("God save the queen, WE MEAN IT, MAaAN!") or any other ridiculous faux-regalia. thanks for the compliment though. fyi, i produce fouls stenches and liquids. i don't know what kind of shits 'these goddesses' of your self-canonizing mythology take. i'll have to read up on it. [re: advise Gray & Moore, Homer, Edith Hamilton, E. A. Budge...]
3) "breaking my nuts about 'breaking my nuts'"
for every time i've used that phrase there's been someone on the other end of it(often my older brother) chiding or correcting me with 'what nuts?!'. this is the response i should have prepared: the ovaries are almond-shaped and sized (almonds=nuts). furthermore, they 'break' cyclically, prompting a mess of blood and guts and stuff. now to be used with clinically approved aplomb.
4) selective unconscious: art dies regurgitated
As artists, we need to write about, document, reflect on our work, for sure (art/music are interchangeable). especially with more daring explorations of sound that have not yet rotted in the ornamental container of established forms. Words can be:
a frame for the work to be viewed through, part of the music itself, a springboard from which the listener's mind can jump confidently into the otherwise inaccessible body of water, a motivation for artists to understand and develop their work, or a preemptive note to future critics who might think they know better...and yet, all of these metaphors for words and music can be meaningless rhetoric spiraling further away from the intuitive nature of it & into the convoluted passages of the inner intestinal brain where art is not made but digested and excreted!
5) which came first, credit addiction or pharmaphilia? (both promote the bad habit of unaccountability for one's self)
the problem with credit cards is that they validate consumption by any means neccessary, proliferating irresponsibility for actions, eating away at any sense of a shared responsibility as a societal whole, that an individual's actions affect the whole. each of us being a microcosmic reflection of the national 'big picture'. "Why shouldn't we have a cushy ride through this life", my-ex-neighbors-in-Brooklyn-who- have-a-RangeRover-and-you-know-for-a-fact-they're-poor-as-hell & so many other Americans ask. The 'piece of the pie' ideal was to use the plastic to borrow an opportunity for a better life, pay it off diligently and rest in peace. That's not the reality of the situation. Some people are addicted to gambling/risk-taking/luxury. early education on the gravity of the matter is what's lacking. (and by gravity, i mean literally people are seduced into digging their own graves) Ignorance is calculated in the interest of Interest. (once in the grave, one can barely shovel out a little dirt that would be the monthly interest, never quite able to chip away at the principle itself). accountability just does not seem to factor into the american way of life(it took the Catholic Church 500 years- by way of J.P. II, a Pole who stepped up, because the Italians & Spanish were troppo preoccupati con 'la figura'- to apologize for the Inquisition/Crusades!!!). similarly, the legal drug-pimping by the pharmaceutical industrial army staffed by it's medic mafia(the hardly legible print or barely discernible rapid-fire t.v. disclaimers ("side effects may include nausea, insomnia, liver disease...death...) nurture this unaccountability or fear of confrontation....
so people are digging their own graves.
both, in effect, never give one the chance to dig themselves out of the hole.