Your Revolution Will Be Stolen And Franchised

 

a friend of mine played me the Karl Denver cover of Wimoweh back in the late summer of 2007.

‘listen to his voice! it’s fucking crazy!“, she told me. ‘he *yodels*!‘.

i had to admit. it was intense as hell, and hilarious, and infectious. there was something really fun about this song, with the fast jangly guitars and red-breakneck speed of the lead and the joyous drill like quality of Karl’s vocals, virtually pinning you back to your seat. i’d hear The Lion Sleeps Tonight before, but this was the first time i’d heard it like this. for driving around the wilds of mid-wales on a sunny late summer afternoon, it was perfect.

i needed it for a mix-CD i was making, i decided, and so i hit google, trying to find a download from somewhere.

as i searched i started to discover the real story behind this song. this melody, covered by a relative fuckton of bands (that is a real musical expression by the way, and can be applied to phrases, people and amounts, i.e. ‘that coda carries a fuckton of weight‘, or ’the polyphonic spree has a fuckton of  members‘, or ‘prince’s backcatalog? fuckton.‘), known probably virtually all over the western world, was origionally riffed on the spot by a group known as Solomon Linda’s Origional Evening Birds, and even though so much money has been made out of it, neither he nor his family received anything from it. well, okay, he made ten shillings, but considering his melody has grossed fifteen million US dollars over the years…….

to say they were ahead of their time is to make an understatement. even their look and style, pinstripe suits and bowler hats, wouldn’t look out of place today. finally, as recently as 2006, his surviving family claimed an undisclosed sum of royalites from the copyright holder of the song, but not before it had been shamelessly stolen, stripped of it’s original power, and even used in a fucking Disney movie.

the origional is called Mbubu, and the story can be found here, along with a link to a blog where you can hear the original. i urge you to go and listen to it and remember it everytime you hear the rip-offs.

 

i’ve been getting into african / african-american, POC, black (i’m not really sure how to categorise here, i’ve got to admit, but i’m hoping you see where i’m coming from and i’m hoping i don’t sound like a jerk. if i do, shout at me, please) music a little bit recently. i’ve listened to some Gil-Scott Heron and The Last Poets, and found them heavy-going, uncomfortable, but intoxificating. i’ve been in love with Saul Williams for a while. i was chatting to a guy the other night who was pouring out his love of funk and soul and the roots of black music, ‘they came along and they did it all. and then rock’n'roll, prog, pop, disco, you name it, it all came from these sources. and nobody admitted it was stolen‘.

and i’m going to be deadly honest here, because i realise that as a nice liberal middle-classish white woman it probably sounds like i’m doing the same thing i’m writing about here, but adore this music and this poetry and this art, within context and out of context, for it’s passion, anger, defiance and pride. every time i listen to saul williams, for example, i’m inspired to learn from his passion and intelligence and apply it to my life. and even though i can’t examine some of this art without feeling a little uneasy and voyeristic, i need to admit that this is why i find it intoxificating and i need to namecheck the sources of where i’m receiving some inspiration from. because if i don’t i’m as bad as Disney.

and in light of the above, i’m angry that people don’t fucking learn. people still steal from minority cultures. from people who, even though intelligent, passionate and proud, are easy to dismiss due to bullshit cultural classifications. this is history people, it has happened, repeatedly, and it is still happening, and until us nice fluffy white liberal love-everybody feminists wake-up and realise that we’re as guilty as everybody else, irrespective of our gender, it’s going to keep on happening. you want a revolution? you really want a better world? for women as well as everybody else? well, stop stealing, just for once admit you’re part of the problem, then shut the fuck up and listen.

 

lisa, over at questioning transphobia, has recently posted about a scandal involving a debate about sex-work. i don’t have the time or the energy to go into this in detail, so please read the post, but the implication is that sex-positive people make a certain class of (dare i say it?) liberal fluffy white middle-class radical feminists uncomfortable. something similar has happened in Scotland recently too, with a planned debate on sex-work at LadyFest Edinburgh being pulled due to the events organisers, Zero Tolerance, not liking the idea that, for some women, sex-work is an option. the debate is still happening, thankfully, but not as a part of Ladyfest. instead, Ladyfest are having an anti-porn seminar talk, which sounds like there is no room for alternative opinions or experiences, even though plenty of women work safely and happily in the porn industry.

i can’t rail against a campaign like Zero Tolerance, because the intention is perfect, but surely not allowing open discussion to occur is incredibly damaging in itself. porn and sex-work is not going to be eradicated, no matter what people would like to think. i’m sorry to sound so absolute, but just bring yourself back down from your lofty politics and heady ideals and back to planet earth and *think* about it for a while. erotic art and expression has been around for ever and it’s never going to go away. in fact, in a lot of ways it’s really good fun. what we need are ways to allow this natural means of human expression that don’t involve objectification and violence, which i believe is more possible than eradicating it. so, surely, it makes more sense to allow women who do exist within this sphere to share their insights so that the sex-work and porn industry can be made safer, more empowering, less crass and more enjoyable for all.

 

i’m writing for The Skinny, a scottish based free listings magazine, again. this is pretty exciting, not to mention very satisfying. my last piece was an interview with the musician / singer / songwriter Namoli Brennet. you should go and listen to her music, and i’m going to let it speak for itself.

my next piece is going to be on the objectification of trans-women in the porn industry, and how we need some decent fucking erotica.

love xx

edit: it seems that i wasn’t fully aware of the exact situation regarding ladyfest edinburgh and the original proposed sex-work event. i can only apologise deeply for misrepresenting the situation, and my errors have been corrected by GM and marylou in the comments below. the only reason i haven’t amended the actual text in this post is because i’d like to keep my own errors visible as a reminder to myself that i, in future, should be careful of making opinions when i either am not in posession of or don’t fully understand all the facts avaliable!

thanks go to both of the posters for clarifying the situation xx.