I'm not criticizing this in any way, but it would have been even better had it covered the history of music beyond that of the western hemisphere. Other cultures have had enough written history and written music [0] for what could be some fascinating stories on music and distribution/remixing.
My current favorite music is the music of the western Sahara desert (mostly but not all Tuareg). Northern Mali and Niger have the hottest music scene in the world today, imho. And it's very much a function of cross-cultural remixing.
Tuareg culture is ancient, pre-Islamic, and it has a long and beautiful tradition of music and poetry, which falls along gender lines. Traditionally, women played most music, while men wrote poetry in the lovely Tamasheq language. But when guitars, radios, and recordings arrived in the 1960s/1970s, the instrument had no role in the traditions, and they could make something new. The poetry fused with the rhythms, while the new wave of guitarists dug into Dire Straits and Santana along with their own traditions. The results are astounding - deep, soulful, melodic, improvisational.
Check out Tinariwen and Bombino for the hottest bands in the scene (again imho). If you dig them, keep digging, there's a lot more where that came from. And due to civil war and other problems at home, a lot of the musicians tour relentlessly in the West. I see a half-dozen Tuareg concerts a year!
I read this book a while ago about the history of Jamaican Dancehall music. I highly recommend it. It goes into a ton of history both about music and politics in Jamaica from the 50's to present day and is an amazing read if such things interest you.
Jamaican music in general is the perfect example of music theft giving rise to a whole new style of music. Ska music was created by Jamaican musicians trying to imitate swing and jazz music from America. From there it developed into rocksteady and reggae. At the time Jamaica had no copyright laws so songs were freely sampled and remixed back even back then. Most modern dancehall music still has it's roots in old baselines and melodies written back then. Because of the poverty in Jamaica, a lot of songs were remade and updated over and over again with different singers or musicians.
Hip hop was influenced by Jamaican dancehall brought over by people immigrating to new York and other cities from Jamaica. In the 80's dancehall tunes started sampling from hip hop tracks and a bunch of bands like Sublime took reggae songs and redid them. Every single one of Sublimes songs is a reimagining of either some some reggae, punk rock or old rock song. The downside to this is a lot of talented artists ended up dying broke despite having a bunch of hit songs. Producers who could afford equipment ended up owning the rights to a lot of the music and the artists tended not to be paid properly. Some of them eventually managed to get royalties if they became famous enough that big record companies took interest but for the most part they all lost money they should have been paid.
Now today there's dancehall and reggae festivals all over the world. Some of the biggest ones happen in Europe and Asia. Even Japan has a reggaeband dancehall subculture.
Reggae in general is a pretty cool, I don't want to say genre because there's so many different genres within reggae music, branch of music I guess. So much of it was made in so many different styles, sometimes dozens of different versions of the same song were produced. There's really a ton of music to discover.
[+] [-] z2|7 years ago|reply
I'm not criticizing this in any way, but it would have been even better had it covered the history of music beyond that of the western hemisphere. Other cultures have had enough written history and written music [0] for what could be some fascinating stories on music and distribution/remixing.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_notation#In_various_co...
[+] [-] beat|7 years ago|reply
Tuareg culture is ancient, pre-Islamic, and it has a long and beautiful tradition of music and poetry, which falls along gender lines. Traditionally, women played most music, while men wrote poetry in the lovely Tamasheq language. But when guitars, radios, and recordings arrived in the 1960s/1970s, the instrument had no role in the traditions, and they could make something new. The poetry fused with the rhythms, while the new wave of guitarists dug into Dire Straits and Santana along with their own traditions. The results are astounding - deep, soulful, melodic, improvisational.
Check out Tinariwen and Bombino for the hottest bands in the scene (again imho). If you dig them, keep digging, there's a lot more where that came from. And due to civil war and other problems at home, a lot of the musicians tour relentlessly in the West. I see a half-dozen Tuareg concerts a year!
[+] [-] xbryanx|7 years ago|reply
https://familyofrock.net/
Different idea, but a cousin nonetheless.
[+] [-] sqlacid|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cocacola1|7 years ago|reply
http://thepublicdomain.org/thepublicdomain1.pdf
[+] [-] grawprog|7 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.ca/Dancehall-Rise-Jamaican-Culture/dp/095...
Jamaican music in general is the perfect example of music theft giving rise to a whole new style of music. Ska music was created by Jamaican musicians trying to imitate swing and jazz music from America. From there it developed into rocksteady and reggae. At the time Jamaica had no copyright laws so songs were freely sampled and remixed back even back then. Most modern dancehall music still has it's roots in old baselines and melodies written back then. Because of the poverty in Jamaica, a lot of songs were remade and updated over and over again with different singers or musicians.
Hip hop was influenced by Jamaican dancehall brought over by people immigrating to new York and other cities from Jamaica. In the 80's dancehall tunes started sampling from hip hop tracks and a bunch of bands like Sublime took reggae songs and redid them. Every single one of Sublimes songs is a reimagining of either some some reggae, punk rock or old rock song. The downside to this is a lot of talented artists ended up dying broke despite having a bunch of hit songs. Producers who could afford equipment ended up owning the rights to a lot of the music and the artists tended not to be paid properly. Some of them eventually managed to get royalties if they became famous enough that big record companies took interest but for the most part they all lost money they should have been paid.
Now today there's dancehall and reggae festivals all over the world. Some of the biggest ones happen in Europe and Asia. Even Japan has a reggaeband dancehall subculture.
Reggae in general is a pretty cool, I don't want to say genre because there's so many different genres within reggae music, branch of music I guess. So much of it was made in so many different styles, sometimes dozens of different versions of the same song were produced. There's really a ton of music to discover.
[+] [-] aportnoy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuxnet79|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parenthesis|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lick_(music)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krDxhnaKD7Q
[+] [-] neilharbinger|7 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
and Raiding the 20th Century
http://www.djfood.org/raiding-the-20th-century-is-10-years-o...
[+] [-] beat|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 21|7 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/hashtag/jerkgate
[+] [-] maximp|7 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/How-Music-Got-Free-Obsession/dp/01431...