Digest - The Morning News

Listening • Re-Appropriating Appropriation

In the past week, two major music blogs (Stereogum and Gorilla vs. Bear) have featured Malawi’s Esau Mwamwaya along with leaked tracks from his highly anticipated debut release produced by Radioclit, the British DJ/production duo with a naughty name. Mwamwaya was also featured on the cover of Fader magazine’s Africa-centric issue earlier this year, and he is increasingly getting attention in the U.S. due to collaborations with such headline-grabbing indie acts as M.I.A., Santogold, Bonde do Rolê, and Vampire Weekend. Now, Vampire Weekend has been maligned in a lot of press over the past year due to their Paul Simon-ish appropriation of Afro-pop, Columbia University grads (read cynically: privileged white kids) that they are. But what does that really say about their music itself? And, furthermore, does it mean that white, Europe-descended performers are forever relegated to finding inspiration from Bach or John Philip Sousa? Does anyone begrudge the Beatles for their infatuation with African-American bluesmen like Bo Diddley? Did it not bring greater attention to those deservingly inspirational artists?

Rhetorical questions aside, what Esau Mwamwaya has done by sampling Vampire Weekend’s “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” is the deliciously cannibalistic re-appropriation—or reclamation, even—of appropriation. The result, like M.I.A.’s more politically minded contributions, decentralizes Western influence as “normative” and shines the spotlight even more directly on global issues, specifically those relating to the rise of so-called “third-world” (an opprobrious misnomer if ever there was one) nations. Even if I don’t speak the language. —Erik Bryan, Sep. 9, 2008

» Listen to "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" at Esau Mwamwaya's MySpace

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Watching • Mexican Breakfast

About a year ago, a clip of Gwen Verdon, star of stage and screen, dancing Bob Fosse’s three-and-a-half-minute “Mexican Breakfast” routine to the tune of Unk’s “Walk It Out” appeared on YouTube. Today that clip has been viewed nearly one million times, and inspired a number of imitators. Now Ms. Verdon’s smooth kicking and hip-shaking has been synced to M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It,” and one of my favorites, “Supermodel (You Better Work)” by RuPaul. —Meave Gallagher, Aug. 12, 2008