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Reading Response #2

October 12th, 2005 · 11 Comments
Jennifer




I believe Rice’s argument in chapter 6 is that culture, like “cool,” has changed over time.  The origins of cool can be traced back to African Culture, as discovered by Robert Farris Thompson with the word “itutu.”  “Itutu” is the Yoruban culture’s way of describing cool.  Rice points out how much white culture uses an idea from African Culture, and pretty much acts as though it were its own.  He included various examples of this, like Elvis singing songs written and recorded by African-American artists, making them cool to a white audience. Amiri Baraka adds that the white culture flourishes off the working of the African-Americans, who seldom make anything off their music. 

Rice wants us to consider those things which we find cool, and find out where they came from, not just assume that we know.  The Heidelberg Project is an interesting case, where people appropriated things that no one else wanted, it is a case of empowerment.  It is a positive example of appropriation, but Rice makes many of the negative examples known throughout the chapter.  The case of Elvis Presley is an example of oppression.  Since Elvis took the songs from African American artists, they had no chance of receiveing the royalties they deserved.

In chapter 7, Rice talks more about the issues of sampling and how some feel that sampling is in essence stealing. Rice focuses most of the attention on pop culture, with the focus at this point on hip-hop When Will Smith released his song “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It,” it was unknown to many that this song was an appropriation of a Sister Sledge song.  Public Enemy is also a big fan of appropriation in many of their songs, but they tend to send a much stronger political message in with their music.  Rice tends to focus more on the usage of appropriaiton in this chapter than in the last.

Plagiarism is deliberately using someone else’s work as your own and not crediting that person with the work.  Sampling is taking a small part of someone else’s work and changing it around to become something new and unique.

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