In Chapter 6, Rice makes some interesting distinctions as to the origins of cool. While So many icons of cool are white(I.e. James Dean), many of the earliest icons of cool are African American. Dizzie Gillespie and Count Basie are two perfect examples of this. Those guys were cool. Even today, many people still have the images of cool that these jazzers evoked. Due to the modern trends of bringing in these ideas of cool into other parts of society, there have been many effects in the social, political, and economic realms of the nation. If you go back and trace the roots of the African people’s, you find that a certain tribe has a word in their language that is synonymous with our word cool. As Baraka realized, that the ideals of cool, the detatched and uninvolved nature, continued throughout African American culture. Also the attraction to flashy, bright, and exciting things over dull and boring things continued throughout, and can be traced right up to modern society. There were three parts to society that we are asked to look at in order to truly understand the origins of cool. Culturally, it is totally nessecary to understand the roots of the literature and entertainment that people partake in. If they don’t they completely loose the meaning and value of it. Economically, it is a fact that people deserve payment for the things they create. If they are creating this thing for the purpose of making a living and then people come along and steal it, those people are stealing the creators living. Money is what makes the world go around, and if people aren’t getting paid to do something, they will stop doing it. That could cause the loss of some great art. The advantage to cool in the political realm is the power of the people. If one is cool, then they have the people backing them. They have support. Which is total power unto itself.
In chapter seven, appropriation becomes much more specific in nature. More specifically towards music. The primary discussion is music sampling. The major argument revolves around a group called The Sugar Hill Gang and their use of the song “Le Freak.” The focus of this chapter really focuses more on the economic effects of cool. It begs the question “if I think something is cool and want to use it, is it ok?” What are the overall effects? Well a primary obvious one is a loss of income for the creator. Many artists are starting to pick up on this. Through the popularity of music downloading, many artists are starting to create more and more free music. Music that is designed to be shared. There are two kinds of musicians out there. Those in it totally for money, and those in it for the art. Those into music for the art have just as much right to make a living from their music as anyone though.
I think that sampling of a work is to take a unit of a body of work and either critique it, or share it to share the art form for free. To plagarize is to take a body of work and use any piece(part or whole) for personal gain(I.e. Monetary gain).
