ISSUES #22: MAY 2016
“It would be dope if there was a Cultural Rights Society that worked kinda like ASCAP or BMI that licensed and collected royalties for cultural appropriation. Just like Copyright laws and publishing ownership protects recording artists from getting their original music sampled or interpolated, there should be some organization that licenses and monetizes cultural appropriation.” -V. Ray
WITHOUT
REPRESENTATION
APPROPRIATION
Don’t believe the hype. We are great. I don’t mean we’re cool, I mean that Black culture is epic. Many of us, especially in America, don’t know the magnitude of what African culture gave to other nations’ civilizations throughout history, what Black inventors created and weren’t credited for or what Black culture has contributed to American culture.
Recently there was some discussion online about Iggy Azalea commandeering the rap charts powered by an arsenal of ghost writers and getting props over Black artists. Azealia Banks’ highly publicized comments Hot 97 stirred much conversation about the rap beef but not much about her core message in her statement. Banks’ point was that Macklemore had received the Grammy award for Best Rap Album and Iggy Azalea was getting a lot of props for her album when Black artists of the same or better ilk were getting passed over in a genre that was created in the Black community.
An excerpt from her interview… "That Iggy Azalea sh** isn't better than any f***ing black girl that's rapping today, you know?" Banks said. "When they give those awards out -- because the Grammys are supposed to be
accolades of artistic excellence, you know what I mean? Iggy Azalea is not excellent. [...] When they give these Grammys out, all it says to white kids is: 'Oh yeah, you're great, you're amazing, you can do whatever you put your mind to.' And it says to black kids: 'You don't have sh**. You don't own sh**, not even the sh** you created for yourself,' and it makes me upset."
It’s no secret that Black music has been appropriated for years, rerecorded and/or watered down, and re-introduced in pop culture as an original work. All this with the original writers and artists not getting credited or paid in 90% of the cases. Many artists like Elvis Presley, The Maddox Brothers, The Kingsmen, The Rolling Stones, Zeb Turner, The Allman Brothers, Cream, the Yardbirds, the Kinks, the Bluesbreakers to name a few, were “influenced” by Black artists and borrowed/took from them openly with no consequence. Check out a few examples in the video to the left.
FYI, borrowing from Black culture has not only been the case in the music arena. Black culture is the basis for every other civilization since time was recorded. This is not MY opinion, this is a fact. Hell, some of this information I would never have even known were it not for my wanting to research topics to write about. It’s not taught, anywhere. Now, there is much debate on this fact but it is all trumped by scientific and archeological evidence. There is evidence that Roman explorers and scholars visited Africa and were exposed to much of the culture, religion, art, etc., long before their own cultures had evolved to the points where recorded history typically begins.
Advanced African civilization was established well before many cultures.. Asia, North and South America, and Europe to name a few.
Contrary to popular belief, African American history did not start with slavery in the New World. An overwhelming body of new evidence is emerging which proves that Africans had frequently sailed across the Atlantic to the Americas, (and Asia) thousands of years before Columbus and indeed before Christ. The great ancient civilizations of Egypt and West Africa traveled to the Americas, contributing immensely to early American civilization by importing the art of pyramid building, political systems and religious practices as well as mathematics, writing and a sophisticated calendar. The strongest evidence of African presence in America before Columbus comes from the pen of Columbus himself. In 1920, a renowned American historian and linguist, Leo Weiner of Harvard University, in his book, Africa and the discovery of America, explained how Columbus noted in his journal that Native Americans had confirmed that “black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.” One of the first documented instances of Africans sailing and settling in the Americas were black Egyptians led by King Ramses III, during the 19th dynasty in 1292 BC. In fact, in 445 BC, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs’ great seafaring and navigational
skills. Further concrete evidence, noted by Dr. Imhotep and largely ignored by Euro-centric archaeologists, includes “Egyptian artifacts found across North America from the Algonquin writings on the East Coast to the artifacts and Egyptian place names in the Grand Canyon.”
For Years Free Blacks Or Slaves Were Not Able To Patent Inventions –
The Patent Act of 1793 and 1836 barred enslaved Africans from obtaining patents because they were not considered U.S. citizens. Under these laws, slaved owners often appropriated the inventions of their slaves and patented them in their names. Any profits from the inventions were never seen by the slaves themselves. To add insult to injury, the slave owners sometimes went down in history as the creator of a device whose technology they may not have had any knowledge of.
In 1861, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, enacted a patent law that allowed enslaved Africans to receive patent protection for their inventions, according to Bloomberg.com. In 1870, the U.S. government passed a patent law giving all American men, including Blacks, the rights to their inventions.
Unfortunately, by then hundreds of Black inventors’ creations and the fame or fortune associated with them was long gone. Sound familiar? Similarly, most modern companies have employees sign documents waiving their rights to ownership of inventions developed during their employment. Companies acquire the inventions or discoveries as intellectual property that the employee(s) have no claim to.
CURSED US THEN REHEARSED US
Blacks in America have done much to advance the society and culture in and out outside of the Black community. The media and some propaganda machines would have the world believe that Black people and Black culture are the worst things ever to grace the globe. If you believe some media outlets, the Black community does not contribute to society. The current state of the Black community plays like a gigantic social experiment on the effects of prejudice, denied opportunity, illicit drug influx and denial of rights on a sector of the population. Sprinkle in some misinformation and keep unity and success juuuuuuust out of reach and see what happens. Oh, and be sure and deny it’s all happening.
In spite of it all we still rise to the top in many fields of work and study. Our innovations and trends (music, fashion, dance, sports, slang or ideas) are often adopted or incorporated or appropriated into U.S. or global culture right before our eyes while their source is ostracized or marginalized in the same breath (like the Acura "Drive Like A Boss" commercial http://youtu.be/SElXfQdc2ZE. I saw a photo of a Ferguson protestor holding a sign that said it best... "Too bad they don't love us like they love our culture". It would be dope if there was a Cultural Rights Society that worked kinda like ASCAP or BMI that licensed and collected royalties for cultural appropriation. Just like Copyright laws and publishing ownership protects recording artists from getting their original music sampled or interpolated, there should be some organization that licenses and monetizes cultural appropriation. Royalties anyone?
Embrace your greatness. Rise. Shine. Repeat.
