Black Skin, White Mask

How many of you all remember the pre-2003 Black Eyed Peas (or BEP for short)? For those of you who can reach that far back into your psyche, they were not that different from what you see and hear of them today. They were originally signed to Ruthless Records in 1992 by the father of gangsta rap, Eazy-E (can you believe it?). Their music back then was still like nothing people had previously heard, their videos reflected this ingenuity, and they were the strange avant-garde of alternative rap. Oh yeah, all their members were domestic racial minorities and their first two albums (released in 1998 and 2000) sold less than 200,000 copies combined despite receiving major label push. Their most recent album, Monkey Business, was released in June of this year and sold 295,000 copies in its first week of release. What has accounted for this drastic change? Commercially, why were the Black Eyed Peas able to achieve in seven days what they hadn’t been able to achieve in seven years? I see the answer as being one small, “lovely lady lump”-having White girl from the burbs of California who came to the group in 2003 and provided another example of the age-old practice of putting a White face on Black art’s most lucrative field: music. (more in expanded post)

Presently, the Black Eyed Peas are characterized as a Pop group. Simple and plain. A visit to Launch.Com will reveal that they are not categorized as a rap group or even alternative rap group, but pop. Pop as a genre of music is an interesting thing. Some people take it narrowly to mean music light on bass (relatively), heavy on chorus, and sing-songy non-serious lyrics about love. Others take it broadly to mean POPular music of any variety that is widely appreciated (read: bought). I see the Black Eyed Peas as being closer to the broad definition than to the narrow one, though they are moving more and more to the narrow definition with each passing single. In the past two years as their popularity has exponentially grown their musical image has ventured further and further from their pre-Fergie era. Relatedly, I remember being a senior in high school and hearing “Where Is The Love?” and thinking, “Black Eyed Peas and Justin Timberlake?!? That’s like Led Zeppelin and Frank Sinatra!” I felt that the Black Eyed Peas had sold out and gone “pop”, but I had no idea of the extent to which they would do so and become corporate pawns and musical sidekicks in the group THEY started.

Another way to chart the pop progression of the Black Eyed Peas is to take a look at the styles of their four albums as assessed by AllMusic.Com. According to this website, the Black Eyed Peas’ album styles of music went from “Alternative Rap” to “Pop-Rap” to “Party Rap“. Although the line between the 2nd and 3rd sub-genres may be fuzzy to some, “pop rap” is defined as being widely accepted rap and “party rap” is rap specifically aimed at being played at parties, in my humble opinion. A current look at the most recent single from BEP shows that they are DEFINITELY putting out party rap music. “My Humps” is currently the #3 song in the U.S. and may reach #1 due to its still increasing popularity. But wait? Is party/pop rap new to the Black Eyed Peas? Before 2003 were they not putting out records aimed at getting people to tell DJs to “turn that sh*t up, play it again” or “make a brother feel like I’m in the disco”? Yup. They were (listen to “Joints and Jams” or “Request Line“). Hmmm…what gives?

Prior to 2003 the Black Eyed Peas employed Kim Hill as their backup singer. She is the female vocalist heard in the aforementioned “Joints and Jams”. She is Black. You’ve probably never heard of her. In 2003 Hill was replaced by Fergie–a small, energetic bundle of U.S. status quo affirmation that proved to have the ability to take BEP to the next level. Whichever exec at A&M was behind getting Fergie into the group should be the label President. Really. Despite pouring what was surely millions of dollars into two widely-released albums by the Black Eyed Pease in 1998 and 2000 they bore very little commercial fruit. However, after adding a White female to the group in contrast to the Native American, Filipino-American, and Jamaican-American in the group sales exploded. Whereas Hill was rarely featured prominently in videos and never featured on album covers, Fergie was. Also of note on the first two BEP album covers is the prominence of the big, melanin-filled faces of males on the dark backdrop in contrast to the more holistic view and lighter backdrop of their most recent album cover. One says “BLACK MUSIC…SCARY!” while the other says “You have nothing to fear. This is now integrated music.”

In the same vein as Eminem in relation to D-12 or Elvis Presley in relation to Chuck Berry, a White person has now been put at the forefront of what was previously a Black…situation, let’s say. This age-old gimmick has been around for a long time and is continuing with the Black Eyed Peas and their new leader (yeah, I said it), Fergie. A visit to Launch.Com again shows that when one searches for the Black Eyed Peas, their picture is not a group one but solely that of Fergie. Is she the entire group (or even one of the founding members)? No. Additionally, a Google “Images” search for Black Eyed Peas reveals Fergie as the very first picture. According to Launch (a subsidiary of Yahoo!, Inc.) and Google, Inc.–two of the largest information superhighway corporations in the world–Black Eyed Peas = Fergie. Additionally, the popularity of “My Humps” brings Fergie even more publicity separate from that of BEP since it is nearly a solo song. Sad. The mass appeal that Fergie has brought to the Black Eyed Peas is quite sad. They are creating (largely) the same type of music that they have been creating all of their career but their group now has a White face and leader. The music industry “powers that be” behind the marketing and exploitation of BEP as a “pop” group did so in the interest of increasing the bottom line. This is wrong. What was once a cutting edge group for non-status quo, non-commerical radio fiends has become just that. Fergie and Corporate America (the REAL name of this country) have teamed up to once again push genre-leading Black artists to the periphery, market their product with a White face, and make boatloads of money while doing so. Poor (literally) Kim Hill.

taking a cue from Kuumba

Golis just offered a gladdening reminder of how Cambridge Common is building a community—and an un-clannish one at that. In a similarly hopeful spirit, we might examine other student enterprises that help us envision, in practical and ideological terms, the kind of communities we want to take part in shaping. Case in point: The Kuumba Singers, Harvard’s famous and beloved Black Diaspora choir, founded in 1970 to provide a sense of unity and belonging for the very few Black students matriculating at the time. In a few significant ways, Kuumba represents the antithesis of some of the problems of individualism, elitism, and privilege we’ve been discussing with respect to final clubs and Harvard in general. Allow me to break it down into a four-part harmony of sorts. (more in expanded post)

1) Merit. As a choir, one of Kuumba’s primary aims is to sound good. Simple enough. And by in large, it overwhelmingly succeeds (Sheldon, the director, and other highly-trained musicians may sometimes disagree on a technical level, but judging by the number of audience members who leave performances with tear-stained, beaming faces, I think it’s clear that Kuumba holds it down). What’s amazing about Kuumba’s success is that while it has an explicit interest in evaluating the objective talents of its members and accepting or rejecting applicants based on their merit, it chooses not to do so. Kuumba does not hold auditions, so absolutely anyone, be they seasoned church soloist or screechy shower singer (we all know who we are), is free and welcome to join the choir as a Kuumbabe (the affectionate moniker for Kuumba members).

Clearly, this does not mean that Kuumba lacks any merit criteria. On a sub-group level, the Brothers and Sisters of Kuumba hold auditions, and of course the soloists have to try out to earn their parts. Like the structure of most student organizations, too, members are elected to serve in leadership positions, which is merit-based insofar as if you’ve never volunteered to carry equipment or done something else above and beyond just showing up for rehearsals and shows, all the charm and good looks in the world are not going to get you elected. But these mini-hierarchies are contextualized within a group whose permeable boundaries and welcoming attitude make the choir’s renown and prestige all the more impressive.

2) Inclusiveness. As Kuumba demonstrates, low or nonexistant barriers to entry do not necessarily jeopardize overall quality. And while this may be a function of the choir’s structural requirements of a few amazing soloists coupled with large harmonizing groups that can accomodate weaker singers, we can nevertheless interpret Kuumba’s decision to balance the need to attract vocal talent with a commitment to openness as a virtue unto itself. Furthermore, Kuumba’s inclusiveness extends beyond its no-auditions-necessary policy and has resulted in an inspirational diversity of membership that warrants recognition, especially given our recent discussions of the difficulty of creating a multicultural, welcoming Women’s Center. Kuumba is one of the most solidly multi-ethnic organizations I know whose purposes do not explicitly include promoting diversity or studying international relations. Kuumba continually makes concerted efforts to help members who do not identify as Black feel comfortable and appreciated in the choir. While upholding a commitment to honoring, learning from, and continuing the struggles of the Black Diaspora, Kuumba uses Black culture and creativity to build a community that transcends racial boundaries without degrading the authenticity of its roots.

3) Morality. As a non-religious person raised faintly Jewish, until joining Kuumba I thought my days of singing about Jesus had ended along with elementary school Christmas concerts. Kuumba is undeniably infused with a very strong Christian spirit—not only in the lyrics of its songs, but in the tradition of ending each rehearsal by joining hands in a circle as members offer praise for joyous occurrences in their lives and request prayers for challenges. But in Kuumba, Christianity is a felt presence, not a prerequisite for inclusion. No one is trying to indoctrinate or convert you. True, the members who identify with Christian faith may have a different connection to the songs than non-believing members like me. But what everyone in Kuumba is there to celebrate is not a religion, and not even a people, but a living, ongoing history of struggle, survival, and triumph—a history in which Christianity has been a significant source, though not the only source, of spiritual strength—and a history Kuumba continues to shape. Unlike Harvard, Kuumba does ask its members to make moral choices about how to best serve their communities—an ethic so important to Kuumba that it’s even embodied in the choir’s name. From the Kuumba website: “In Swahili, ‘kuumba’ roughly means creativity, though the literal meaning is more subtle: it is the creativity of leaving a space better than you found it.” Kuumba’s version of moral individualism stresses unique contributions to a greater community, not uniqueness or personal success for its own sake.

4) Humility. On an individual personality level, perhaps, not all Kuumbabes are terribly modest (I know a couple, in fact, who definitely aren’t). But for some reason, Kuumba seems to bring out this side in people. And since humility is a quality that I for one could stand to see more of around here, it’s worth asking how Kuumba cultivates them to the extent it does. Maybe it’s because singing makes most people feel pretty vulnerable (and if you are the one who screws up the note or lyric for the soprano section, you’re obliged to raise your hand mea culpa style). Maybe it’s because the choir as a whole values hard work and practice just as much as—if not more than—innate virtuosic talent (a rare outlook in a culture that tends to view genius, artistic or otherwise, as an inborn gift to be capitalized upon rather than a hard-won strength that needs nurturing and development to reach its potential). Even the soloists of Kuumba are surprisingly modest about their talents; rather than defining or overshadowing the songs, solos aim to enhance them. I think Toni Morrison captures this phenomenon beautifully when she says:

“There must have been a time when an artist could be genuinely representative of a tribe and in it; when an artist could have a tribal or racial sensibility and an individual expression of it. There were spaces and places in which a single person could enter and behave as an individual within the context of the community. A small remnant of that you can see sometimes in Black churches where people shout.”

And finally, in my experience, one of the most rewarding elements of Kuumba is this: there is something incredibly humbling and simultaneously empowering about being a small voice that contributes to such a rich, enormous sound. A friend of mine who plays in the Kuumba band put it another way. When I asked him whether he ever gets stage fright, he replied that he used to, until he realized that “It’s not about me; it’s about the music.” Not exactly a sentiment one might expect to hear from oft-ambitious, hyper-individualistic Harvard students.

Despite holding the uncontested title of Biggest Kuumba Groupie, I recognize that Kuumba isn’t perfect. Like any group, it has its own issues with negotiating gender, race, class, etc. Some of these issues can be very sensitive and difficult to work out. For instance, the kente cloth stoles singers wear during performances feature different design patterns for men and women, so it’s possible that a gender-queer Kuumbabe might experience some discomfort during wardrobe selection. Problems of cultural imperialism may also arise, as some non-Black-identifying people might appropriate Kuumba as a form of social capital, while Black students may join as a misguided means of ‘proving’ their own race consciousness. But while Kuumba may not find simple solutions to these endemic social problems (and it would be unreasonable to expect it to), it has managed to get a whole lot of things right. In aiming to understand and reinterpret the roles of individualism and elitism in Harvard organizations, with ample appreciation for the vicissitudes inherent in forming and maintaining student communities, we can enjoy a respite from criticizing the status quo to engage in the equally important exercise of appreciating examples of alternative possibilities.

On a somewhat lighter note, if you now find yourself hankering for some Kuumba soul, visit this marvelous Civil Rights Movement website by the History Channel, which features some of their recorded songs. When you get to the homepage, look under Primary Sources and click on Music (Songs & Lyrics). “Hold On” is one of my favorites—guaranteed to give you chills. Enjoy!

a note from the Editor: one month in, community and Cambridge Common

When Cambridge Common was relaunched a little over a month ago, our email campaign billed the site as a space for alternative opinion; I wrote that we should “end the monopoly,” referring to a structural problem created by the Crimson’s domination of campus media and “truth.” We were looking to be an alternative opinion source, a space for addressing on a more regular basis some of the big questions, a space for throwing spitballs at the Crimson, a space for opinions from the left in a different format. A lot of that has happened and in the process our readership has grown and become regular- over 300 visitors a day Monday through Thursday, around 1,500 visitors a week.

Something more important has happened at the same time: a community is beginning to form. Chimaobi and I have been joined by Deb and Katie, as well as readers like Guess Why, Yi-Ping, Sarika, Dave, C.G., Rob, Paloma and many anonymous contributors. Reader contributions have made the comments section the most valuable space on this site, pushing the four of us on the front page to flesh out our ideas and respond to criticism and allowing readers to contribute thoughts of their own. Discussions like those that resulted from Chimaobi’s post about his experience in the black community at Harvard and in Boston, “Northern Discomfort,” Deb’s post about Asian American issues at Harvard, “Why Asian American Issues are Issues,” and my posts about Final Clubs, all show that something more organic and interactive is existing here than could ever exist in more traditional media. (more in expanded post)

This is tremendously important to me. It acknowledges an imperfection in thought and a complexity of analysis and opinion that is almost never present in other forms of media. A Crimson staff ed, for example, is often the result of give and take and discussion similar to that which occurs in our threads. By the time it is in the paper for consumption, however, it is supposed to represent some sort of perfect piece of analysis, an opinion with an immaculate conception and often without the acknowledgments of the possible inconsistencies, the dissenting factors, and the ideological frameworks. The messy nature of opinion, of different frames of analysis, different sets of facts and the occasional (or often) inadequacies of the logic or writing itself, are all hidden behind the black and white text, away from public scrutiny. As Katie has pointed out, Cambridge Common allows for us to have a different conception of truth and opinion that is much more fluid and contingent, much messier and more complex.

And this is important not simply because truth is usually that messy and complex, but also because I think it’s important to acknowledge that just because I run (or write for) a website or newspaper doesn’t suddenly make me smarter than everyone else. This is especially true at a place like Harvard, where it is likely that while I may have more knowledge of one sliver of experience or academia, I am fundamentally ignorant in many many other areas in which those around me are quite brilliant. We write here, then, more out of a political desire to begin conversations and a passion for our opinions, but with full acknowledgment that we are fallible and that it is important to constantly subject ourselves to scrutiny by those who may (and often do) know more. While opinion writing does involve a leap of arrogance, the comments section is there to humble us for our own sake and for the sake of our readers. If the process works, than the result of any given conversation thread is simultaneously more thoughtful, more productive, and more engaging than simple front page opinion journalism.

All of this is a long way of me saying that, while new media and “blogs” can be easily and properly ridiculed in many ways for being trite vanity projects or ideological echo chambers (and I’m sure we have our moments of both), it is the contributions of the readers, the creation of a community as is beginning to occur, that prevents us from going that route. So thank you for coming and thank you for reading. If you have been contributing, whether with support or critique, explanation or anecdote, thank you. If you have not been, feel free to do so.