Remixing Relationality: ‘Other/ed’ Sonic Modernities of our Present by Mark V. Campbell A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sociology and Equity Studies Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto © Copyright by Mark V. Campbell 2010 Remixing Relationality: ‘Other/ed’ Sonic Modernities of our Present Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Mark V. Campbell Sociology and Equity Studies University of Toronto Abstract Far from simply playing music, the turntable has, in recent decades, been transformed into a musical instrument. Those that play these new instruments, called Turntablists, alter existing sounds to produce new sonic arrangements, exceeding the assumed use value of the turntable. The turntable’s transformation from record player to instrument captures one of the ways in which Afrosonic sound making activities refuse to conform to existing paradigms of music making in the western world. Throughout the African diaspora, it has been the musics from various regions and nations that continually capture the attention of the world’s music connoisseurs. This dissertation examines the ways in which careful consideration of the sonic innovations in Afrodiasporic cultures produce alternative paradigms through which we might analyze contemporary life. The following chapters interrogate turntablism, remix culture and hip hop music as subtexts that elaborate a foundational narrative of Afrodiasporic life. These subtexts are used as tools to examine the various ethnoscapes of Black Canadian life, official multiculturalism and notions of home within the African diaspora in Canada. The dominant narrative of the African diaspora explored in this work, housed within the sonic, elaborates a relational conception of freedom and modernity born out of the ii particularities of Afrodiasporic life in the west. In this sonic narrative, participation becomes the key index by which freedom is understood, embodied and enacted. Consequently, a notion of relationality, deeply indebted to the Afrodiasporic experience, is utilized throughout this dissertation to access a conception of the human that lay outside of western Europe’s enlightenment definition. iii Acknowledgements It is only fitting that I represent to the fullest for all those who were kind enough to show me my way forward, clear the path and then check on me while I made my way to wherever I am at now. To my team, I could not have asked for a better crew of brazen intellectuals. My project might have flopped without your continued commitment to my intellectual growth. RWW you did a good job, I hope to follow in your disruptive footsteps, one day. Katherine your confidence in my work has made it a pleasure to work with you and has helped me strengthen my work. More Wynter remixes to come. Alissa, you have taught me a great deal and this work has benefitted from your attentiveness and generosity. I’d also like to extend a special thanks to Professors Forman and Gaztambide‐Fernandez who provided extremely valuable feedback on this project. Professor Forman, thank you for working through the surgery and coming to Toronto in person, this made the defense extra special. Undoubtedly, my biggest thanks goes out to my wife, Gena, who had the unfortunate privilege of having to hear all my ideas (big, small and crazy) from speculation to final edits. I would also like to acknowledge my village that ensured my survival, Dawny, Miss. Eddie, Dad and Grandpapa. Thank you for keeping the standards high so that I could hold my head just as high. To the Chang Clan thanks for accepting me so warmly, ensuring I partied and for letting me ramble. iv Before I ever thought of graduate school, Professor Pablo Idahosa showed an immense confidence in me propelling me to achieve my potential in my undergraduate years. For this I am extremely thankful. I am also indebted to Professor Carl E. James who ensured I received the supports I needed to blossom. To Professor Leslie Sanders I am also indebted, not just for the Black Canadian Musics conference in 2003, but also for all your support from a distance. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Andrea Davis for her encouragement and years of support, from my undergrad to my final years in graduate school. This project has also benefitted from a doctoral fellowship granted by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in 2007/08. The Sociology and Equity Studies department at OISE/UT deserves lots of love for demonstrating how equity operates on the daily, not just in theory. Without peers like Andrea Fatona, Lyndon Phillip and Jude Ulysse, I am unsure if I would have created the project that I did. I appreciate all of you. On the other side of my life, I gotta bigup The Triple ‘S’ soundcrew, especially DJ Jake D’ Snake for teaching me the law of seven and ensuring I had proper training on the wheels of steel. DJ DTS and DJ Grouch you have both been inspirations and have greatly contributed to my thinking around DJ culture. I am also grateful to the numerous volunteer DJs at CHRY 105.5fm that have taught me the value that lay outside of the market. To the many individuals that have been an integral part of my success in a variety of ways you all may not be aware of; Dr. Jenny Burman, Joy Andre, Dr. Aaron v Kamugisha, Rofromtheboro, Kristine Pearson, Nadia Bello, Kwame Lyn, Kulsoom Anwer, David (R.I.P), Dr. Charmaine Nelson, Dr. Barrington Walker, Leslie Rose Stewart, and Dr. Camille Hernandez‐Ramdwar. This work is a product of all those mentioned above and without all of you and your unique contributions to my life I am sure this work would not have been the same. Bless. vi Table of Contents Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1 Versioning Black Canada—Syncopating Temporalities in Black Canadas ….54 Chapter 2 Turning the Tables: “A Gift From the ‘New’ World to the Old World” ………..105 Chapter 3 Dubbing the Remix and its Uses……………………………………………………………….152 Chapter 4 Connect the T.dots—Remix Multiculturalism: After Caribbean‐Canadian, Social Possibilities for Living with Difference……181 Chapter 5 Reppin’ Home in the T.dot ………………………………………………………………………224 Conclusion Sonic Tech_knowledgies of Freedom, Or Beyond Biocentric Man. A Sylvia Wynter Remix. …………………………………………………………………………..283 References ……………………………………………………………………………………………..309 vii Discography …………………………………………………………………………………………...330 viii Remixing Relationality: ‘Other/ed’ Sonic Modernities of Our Present. Introduction Soundsystems are one of the black diaspora’s most enduring and frequently unacknowledged cultural institutions (Chude-Sokei, 1994:96). It’s in music that you get this sense that most African Americans owe nothing to the status of the human (Eshun, 1998:193). Music subverts the limits that are imposed on the Afro-Creole subject when reduced to “symbolic Negro” within a code of objectification, from the totality of his possibilities to a unit of labour within the capitalist paradigm (Wynter as cited in Maysles, 2002:92). The Struggle “Instead of sleeping in the national assembly, government ministers should have listened to our albums,”1 is one of the ways a member of France’s hip hop communities reacted to the rioting 1 Emcee Rim K from French Rap Group 113 as cited by (Schofield, 2005). 1 2 that rocked France in late 2005.2 For many youth of North African and Arab ancestry, hip hop music has been a soundtrack documenting the continued miseries of overpolicing, overt racism and the overall aggressive exclusion of the non-white and Muslim populations relegated to France’s suburbs. Rap groups in France have been in constant friction with politicians and the justice system, demonstrated either by a war of words or through police sentencing and the ban of rap lyrics (Gentlemen, 2003). Although it appears as though politicians, like current president Nicholas Sarkozy, were offended by certain rap lyrics, it is clear is that politicians and other influential individuals were either unable or unwilling to hear the message of the songs; they were unable or unwilling to read or decipher the texts produced by hip hop culture. Hearing the message of a hip hop song is not an obscure academic skill or the obsession of idol pubescent youth, rather it is a practice of active listening that is inherently participatory. More clearly, active listening is inherently participatory, and it is the employment of skills that allows one to decipher, imagine or refashion ideas transmitted through music. 2 During this period of social unrest more than two hundred and seventy towns across France experienced rioting, a direct response to the accidental deaths of Zyed Benna (of Tunisian ancestry) and Bounca Traoré (of Martiniquian ancestry). These two youth were playing football when they were approached by a law enforcement official who they feared would ask them for documentation to support their French citizenship. Consequently, they attempted to elude the official (along with Muhittin Altun who was electrocuted but not killed) by hiding in an electrical field. 3 After the accidental deaths of Zyed Benna and Bounca Traoré, many powerbrokers unread and consequently unheard the prophetic rhymes of France’s hip hoppers that eventually materialized when rioters burned more than 200 cities in France. Tracks like Group 113’s “In Front of the Police” or Joey Starr’s “They Don’t Understand” narrate the ways in which youth were growing increasingly frustrated by the state as they became cognizant of their exclusion (Schofield, 2005).