Russell regularly emphasized the presence of this collective network above his own input when it came to choosing artist names for his records, and he also developed a range of sounds that articulated and reinforced the decentralized complexity of the downtown scene. Although Russell worked beyond sound when he linked up with choreographers, photographers and theatre directors, his main focus was on the music he produced with a mutating group of musicians, many of whom were sympathetic to his cross-generic project. In addition, he also attempted to establish meeting points between downtown’s diverse music scenes, not in order to collapse their differences and generate a single sound, but instead to explore the points of connection that could provide new sonic combinations and social relationships. If such a broad-ranging engagement was implicitly rhizomatic ⎯ or structurally similar to a horizontal, non-hierarchical root network that has the potential to connect outwards at any point, and is accordingly heterogeneous, multiple, complex and resilient ⎯ Russell intensified the non-hierarchical, networked character of his practice by working within these genres simultaneously rather than moving from one to another according to a sequential, dialectical logic. In exposing diverse technical and musical trends that have received little attention from scholars, this paper hopes to provide a missing link to the way we analyze hip-hop music and culture.įollowing his arrival in New York in the summer of 1973, Arthur Russell performed and recorded orchestral music, folk, new wave, pop, disco and post-disco dance, as well as a distinctive form of voice-cello dub. Through analyses of several tracks by DJ Shadow, Madlib, and Flying Lotus, this paper will fill a major gap in hip-hop scholarship by exploring both the technical aspects of the music's construction as well as how these producers have responded and reacted to the changing characteristics of the MPC throughout its development. Furthermore, the expansion of the machine has coincided with the musical development of the hip-hop tradition, as producers have responded and reacted to changing technological trends with increasingly innovative trends in performance practice. Expanding upon the various techniques developed by pioneering hip-hop DJs-including beat-juggling, cutting, and mixing-the MPC introduced a much wider range of possibilities regarding not only the manipulation of individual samples, but their assemblage into a musical composition as well. I also examine how electronic dance music reflects and reinforces imperialist desires (the white male producer’s use of orgasmic loops regenerated from the vocals of black/Latina female divas and racialized queers in ‘sexy’ dance tracks), Romantic notions (the widespread assumption that electronic music producers are divinely-inspired auteurs the techno/house fan’s elitist admiration of musicians that remain true to their “art” by remaining in unprofitable underground markets and the music critic’s celebration of sampling and remixing as high art), and modernist concerns (the DJ’s obsession with mastery, the intensely-policed borders between high/low genres, the producer’s preoccupation with technological progress).įrom DJ Premier's beat productions in the early '90s to Kanye West's live performance at the 2010 Video Music Awards, the Akai MPC has long been considered standard sampling technology in any hip-hop production studio. ![]() My work explores how electronic dance music employs “postmodern” technologies in the service of Enlightenment discourses (such as its tendency to cast itself as the universal language of the Information Age or its Cartesian delineation of the music listening audience into those that ‘feed the head’ and those that serve the hedonist flesh). In addition to considering the positive aspects of digitally-crafted music, this project demystifies the utopian rhetoric emanating from dance music aficionados/promoters/producers. By tuning into the contentious dialogues between the makers, shapers, and buyers of computerized dance music, I hope to illustrate the multifarious cultural functions a mass-produced sonic commodity can have. To grasp the possibilities and problematics of digitally-created pop music, I will draw upon a multiplicity of discourses generated by electronic musicians, disc jockeys (DJs), remixers, producers, club/rave promoters, techno/house fans, club-goers, ravers, popular music historians, cultural critics, music industry insiders, dance press, multinational major labels, independent imprints, and regional retailers. ![]() This dissertation examines electronic dance music: its transnational production and dissemination, its techno-universalist rhetoric, its racial and sexual politics, its Eurocentric mythologies and liberal humanist ideologies.
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