#130: Make Your Little Riot Happen
Make Your Little Riot Happen
I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. I highlight some of the best stuff I hear, read, and watch every week; publish news about the industry; and interview writers, scholars, and editors about their work. My goal is to share knowledge, celebrate great work, and expand the idea of what music journalism is—and where it happens. Questions, comments, concerns? You can reach me anytime at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. And if you’re not already subscribed to the newsletter, you can do so at musicjournalisminsider.com.
Today in the newsletter: Interviews with Jamaican scholar Larisa Kingston Mann; freelance journalist Vuyokazi Mtukela; and musicologist Emily Ruth Allen. Plus! Reading recommendations, DIY Portuguese music, and more! But first…
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Reading List
- Wayne Robins listens to Ukrainian radio
- Jasleen Dhindsa looks at the challenges faced by musicians with autoimmune conditions
- Marcus J. Moore on music as therapy
- Tamara Palmer profiles the S.F. Disco Preservation Society
- Richard Akingbehin celebrates the role of MCs in electronic music
- Lauren Kawana meets a group of women keeping Japanese taiko alive (h/t MusicREDEF)
- Andre Gee charts the reckless rise of rap internet detectives
- Ashawnta Jackson tells the story of the woman behind the first Black music magazine
- Kurt Wildermuth ponders an ethical question while writing an artist profile
- Jaeah Lee reveals how writing rap lyrics sent a 17-year-old to prison for life
Q&A: Larisa Kingston Mann
Larisa Kingston Mann is Assistant Professor of Media Studies & Production at Temple University and is also known as DJ Ripley, performing as part of the Subversion_PHL. Larisa’s new book is Rude Citizenship: Jamaican Popular Music, Copyright, and the Reverberations of Colonial Power. As Larisa puts it, “finding the right publisher took a minute—you might call it an interdisciplinary book, which faces the same kind of challenges as does a multi-genre or genre-less artist when trying to find a label!” In this excerpt from our interview, Larisa explains the book.
In the book, I use copyright law as a lens for exploring how communities negotiate their relationship with each other and the state. It is a ‘bottom-up’ approach to law, where I center ethnographic engagements with Jamaican popular music, especially Jamaican street dances. My research demonstrates how street dances in particular (and sound system culture to some extent) can be “exilic spaces” wherein people act out a kind of negotiated autonomy (cultural, economic and political) against colonial power. I examine how technology, law, and social history shape people’s abilities to achieve autonomy, and also intimacy and healing, in those spaces. And I show how copyright is not designed to be, and cannot liberate people from colonial power.
Tell me a bit about the process of securing the book deal.
Academic publishing is its own thing—full-time employed academics mostly don’t expect to make money off book sales, but a book’s publication on an academic press and its reception among scholars can help us get promotions and/or job security. So for this book I had to get an academic publisher.
The sort of hybrid character of the book (is it law? Ethnomusicology? Media Studies? Caribbean Studies?) was sometimes hard for publishers to parse. I got quite a few very nice rejections from presses that said “this is really interesting but we don’t know how to market it.” This also came up in the review process (once a manuscript is accepted it gets sent to reviewers)—people who read the manuscript may come from different fields or not be interdisciplinary, and sometimes they have specific expectations of how a manuscript is supposed to engage with their field of expertise, or how it’s supposed to present its information and its argument. But a lot of that is disciplinary expectations, not disagreements of fact or even interpretation.
Of course I want my book to reach as many people across disciplines, as well as non-scholars, but for me it really helped to find an editor who had faith in my ability to engage with different disciplines without trying to transform the book into a different kind of work.
Read the full interview with Larisa here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Larisa Kingston Mann:
I have two, based in my obligations to give back to communities I am in proximity to in various ways:
Coalition for Black Trans Economic Liberation: CBTEL is a grassroots organization based in Philadelphia, where I have lived for six years. I do my best to make my presence here a positive contribution and not one of pure displacement (though I know that’s not an individual dynamic), and this direct giving platform is one way to do it. Their Venmo is @CBTEL
My mentor in Jamaica has been battling cancer. Andrea Lewis needs all the support she can get.
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Another Great Excuse Ruined
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Podcasts!
- Rebecca Cypess talked about Musical Salons in the Enlightenment on New Books in Music
- Mat Dryhurst made the case for crypto in music on Money 4 Nothing
- Aotearoa Hip Hop: The Music, The People, The History has been nominated for the inaugural NZ On Air Outstanding Music Journalism Award
- Paul Cantor talked about his recent Mac Miller bio on The Culture Journalist
- Metal writer Ian Chainey sat down with C Squared
Q&A: Vuyokazi Mtukela
Vuyokazi Mtukela is a freelance journalist who does a lot of related work on the side, including social media, events organising, and project management. This month, she’ll be joining JournoResources part-time. “It’s a great organisation looking to make the journalism industry more accessible,” she says. Vuyokazi has worked as an editorial assistant at HUCK, as well as participating in initiatives like the BIPOC Critics Lab. In this excerpt from our interview, Vuyokazi explains the role of mentorship in her creative life.
Aside from being really granular about the content I consume, there have been teachers who really lifted me up. Sometimes I think we mistake mentorship as having to have one particular look but it’s really about the people along your journey that “speak life into you.” Coming from a Pentecostal religious background, that phrase means something. Without the likes of Andrew Ward and Kay Brough (my former English teachers), honestly? I think my spirit of interrogation wouldn’t have been what is today. Thinking about what that means especially in the context of Black girlhood and the ways that Richard Williams, for instance, was so adamant about protecting that fire in his daughters, I don’t take the urgency of that lightly when I speak to other young Black aspiring writers.
As I mentioned, since leaving college, I’ve been a part of initiatives such as Jose Solis’ BIPOC Critics Lab in partnership with the Kennedy Center, Creative Mentor Network’s ‘Break The Wall 21, and Women in Journalism’s Junior Mentorship Scheme—the latter two are UK-based programmes aimed at breaking down the barriers of access within the creative industries. All of which I applied to realising the importance of having those relationships if I was to ever sustain a career of my own. I’ve been so fortunate to have the ear of people finding creative solutions in their own respective lanes who’ve really pushed me along in my own journey this past year.
I’d like to credit Callum Tyler (who, again, I was assigned to as part of CMN’s ‘Break The Wall ‘21’ initiative)—a brilliant senior creative copywriter, former radio person and Scot whose really been a grounding presence as I’ve been finding my way. Despite us working in different parts of the creative sector, we’ve been able to find a comfortable middle-ground where I’ve learnt a lot about the process of pitching, what it means to fulfil briefs from start to finish and we’ve been able to work through some of my anxieties about codeswitching, masking and workplace politics. Also, I just think it’s been really wonderful to talk frankly about some of the unique concerns that come with being Northern creatives; those pockets of safety and recognition are really important.
Read the full interview with Vuyokazi here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Vuyokazi Mtukela:
No Police in Schools Manchester is a community campaign led by Kids of Colour and the Northern Police Monitoring Project, united by our shared concerns over the increasing presence of police in schools in Greater Manchester and beyond. “We are parents, teachers, young people, youth workers, community members, academics, and activists, and we believe that there should be No Police in Schools.”
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Trivia Time
Who was the first woman to appear on the cover of The Wire? (Hint: The magazine began in the early 1980s and was heavily jazz-focused in its early years.)
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by Ana Leorne.
“Make your little riot happen and do it yourself” was the main motto of Bee Keeper, a Lisbon-based DIY label run by Elsa Pires and Luis Futre in the mid-’90s. It might have started as a “joke,” but in a landscape dominated by majors that left virtually no room (or money) for the alternative scene, Bee Keeper managed to cause a decent-sized stir in the underground of the Portuguese capital.
Fifteen years later, Bruno Simões decided to preserve the story of Bee Keeper and some of its bands for posterity through a series of short documentaries that detail the labor of love and dedication of Pires and Futre. Bite-sized and informative, the short films are a marvelous little time capsule of the indie ’90s in Portugal with the bands themselves at the center of the narrative. The inaugural episode is about Portuguese riot grrrl band Everground, an all-female quartet fronted by Suspiria Franklyn (later of Les Baton Rouge, Kiute Loss, and Suspicious), whose self-titled EP and Acid Candy cassette were among Bee Keeper’s first releases.
Pivoting to Video
- Terry Nguyen looks at the video essay boom
- Tammy Kernodle delivers a talk about Langston Hughes’ collaborations with Black women musicians
- Polyphonic published a video essay about Bo Burnham, Arcade Fire, and the Infinite Dread of the Internet
- Mic The Snare reacts to Kanye West’s stem player
- Alan Ainsworth discusses his book Sight Readings: Photographers and American Jazz, 1900-1960
Bits, Bobs
- Canadian music critic Peter Goddard and Offbeat editor John Swenson have passed away
- Brooke Champagne has won the annual March Faxness essay tournament
- Sometime music journalist Josh Langhoff is now a sometime organist for the Chicago Cubs
- Chaotic Nightclub Photos is exactly what it says it is
- Alicia Lanson reports on the opera gloves trend
The White Folding Table Industrial Complex
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Q&A: Emily Ruth Allen
Emily Ruth Allen holds a doctorate from Florida State University and completed her Master of Music degree in Historical Musicology at FSU in April 2016. Prior to that, Emily received a Bachelor of Music degree with a concentration in Music with Elected Studies in Specific Outside Fields (mathematics) from the University of South Alabama. Emily’s master’s thesis is about a Florida-based klezmer ensemble called the Holocaust Survivor Band, while her dissertation focused on 19th- and 20th-century Carnival brass bands in Mobile, Alabama. She is currently preparing a book manuscript about parade musics in Mobile’s Mardi Gras history, and also serves as a podcast host on the New Books Network. In this excerpt from our interview, Emily discusses her work on the NBN.
I enjoy being a NBN host because of its flexibility, as we get to choose which books to cover. It’s also a great opportunity to meet new people and a fun way to stay up-to-date on literature in different research areas. The NBN has a public education mission, so I try to make my interviews as accessible as possible, as you never know who’s listening. I even learn things by listening to channels of other academic disciplines! I think it’s a great resource for the classroom as well if there’s a text that you’re planning to draw upon for your courses.
But, funny enough, I started on a non-music NBN channel, the New Books in Celebration Studies special series. My colleague Isabel Machado referred me to New Books Network editor Marshall Poe so that she and I could co-found that special series together. So, I’m a bit of a chameleon in terms of what I like to read and conduct interviews on, but the main two channels my interviews end up on are New Books in Music and Celebration Studies.
Read the full interview with Emily here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Emily Ruth Allen:
Donate to Feed the Second Line—it supports New Orleans cultural performers in the face of natural disasters. It’s been a great resource over the past few years.
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Academic Stuff
- New issues: Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association and The World of Music
- Amanda Henderson has a primer on hyperpop aimed at music scholars
- Registration for the 8th International Conference on Music & Minimalism is now open
- Call for Papers: IASPM Journal is preparing a special edition on aging, time, and popular music (Abstracts due May 31)
- Jennifer Wilson profiled Duke University Press editor Ken Wissoker in The New Yorker
- Call for Audio: Seismograf is looking for “audio papers” that seek to understand sonic expressions of grief (Submissions due October 15)
The Closing Credits
Thanks for reading! In case you’ve missed them, I’ve published a number of special features in the newsletter, including articles about music journalism history, what music journalism will be like in 2221, and much more. You can check out all of that here.
I also do a recurring column in the newsletter called Notes On Process. The premise is simple: I share a Google Doc with a music journalist where we go into depth on one of their pieces. It hopefully provides an insight into how music writers do their work. You can check out all editions of Notes On Process here.
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Trivia Time Answer
Carla Bley was the first woman to appear on The Wire, gracing the cover in its second issue.
A Final Note
Thanks for reading! I make playlists from time to time. Check them out if you’re interested! And, full disclosure, my day job is at uDiscover Music, a branded content online magazine owned by Universal Music. This newsletter is not affiliated or sponsored in any way by Universal, and any links that relate to the work of my department will be clearly marked.
Feel free to reach out to me via email at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. On Twitter, it’s @JournalismMusic. Until next time…