Appropriation of Creative Objects

Ziff, Bruce and Rao, Pratima V. (eds.) Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, New Jersey (1997).

To end off my base readings I have chosen Borrowed Power. Ziff and Rao have collected and arranged several essays based on the grand theme of cultural appropriation. The book is divided into units based on what facet of culture we experience appropriation. Part one deals with cultural appropriation of music, part two with appropriation in art, and so on. I will address part one.

The authors point out early on that the notion of culture is “as indeterminate as any found within the social sciences” and that it “cannot, therefore, be relied upon to set clear limits as to where the concept of cultural appropriation begins and ends.” (p. 2) Cultural appropriation is inherently problematic; we have no finite definition of culture. An analysis of appropriation therefore looks at a system of power struggles, hence the title of the book Borrowed Power. The authors set the object of appropriation as a product of a creative endeavor. Appropriation itself is open to interpretation as there is a variety of modes of appropriation. Thinking about stakeholders in an analysis points to “relationships among communities,” and further, “we can base the organizing elements in our relation-based analysis on ethnicity, race, nationality, class, gender, and so forth.” (p. 3) We must consider and locate the stakeholders in an appropriation issue within their local context(s). A simple breakdown of elements therefore include: notion of culture, the appropriated object (tangible or intangible), type of appropriation, stakeholders and their localized contexts.

It is important to note the authors give a counterpoint to cultural appropriation, namely cultural assimilation. (p. 7) When we are looking at a cultural transmission is it an act of appropriation or assimilation? Transmission is a neutral word, where appropriation and assimilation allude to a power complex. The distinction between the two emerges in cultural evolution over and over again. The history of music shows many examples: the somewhat more recent advent of sampling in electronic music points to an act of appropriation (here a new owner finding value in a cultural/musical object that a musician already created, ie. samples of vocals, instrument hits, etc.). Electronic music now has many subgenres. For example, do Jungle or TripHop highlight the assimilation of style more so than point to an appropriation of style? Here I would argue that musicians/composers always already build their craft upon the foundation of existing trends.

Ziff and Pratima state that beyond the politics, or will to power, of appropriation, there exist values important to consider. These values are evident in the negative feedback present in acts of cultural appropriation. First is a “concern for the integrity and identities of cultural groups.” Second is that “appropriation can either damage or transform a given cultural good or practice.” Thirdly: “cultural appropriation wrongly allows some to benefit to the material (i.e., financial) detriment of others.” Finally, “current law fails to reflect alternative conceptions of what should be treated as property or ownership in cultural goods.” (pp. 8,9) I wish to bear these in mind.

In African-American Music: Dynamics of Appropriation and Innovation, Perry Hall looks at the recent history (primarily late 1800s to current) of Black music in the United States. Here we see the tension between cultural appropriation (designating a will to power) and cultural assimilation (the natural trajectory of music). Hall describes a history of a repetitive process of appropriation, exploitation, and the relinquishment of musical meaning in favor of adopting Black music’s aesthetic styles. In the latter part of the process: “The appropriated forms become ineffective as expressions and affirmations of the unique cultural experiences from which they arise.” (p. 32) The chief appropriator/exploiter has been the white musician or businessman.

I find Hall making several valid points throughout, and constructing a concise history of Black music in America, however he seems to be caught in flux between the reconcilable effects of appropriation and an understanding of the assimilation process. This is exemplary of our whole topic: dividing lines are very blurred. To a country that is encased in music and styles derived from trends in music and its fashion, we owe much to the innovations of Black performers. We would be blind to even suggest that Black music hasn’t been continuously exploited and cashed in on over the past hundred years. My question is: how can we understand the process that Hall describes now? What is our situation? Who are the stakeholders when we look at a more recent genre of Black music, such as hip-hop, and how may we define the binary of appropriation-assimilation? I am interested to discover whether or not the values Ziff and Rao discuss hold true today within Hall’s Black/white divide. Black musicians appropriate musical objects from other Black musicians (an easy example are how hip-hop musicians have repeatedly used samples from James Brown songs). I would argue that in such instances we may trace a different trajectory for musical evolution.