The theme of the keynote was "Ritmo and Blues: Hidden Histories Shaking Up 'American' Pop," and respondents included Los Lobos' Louie Perez and Robert "El Vez" Lopez. Having seven speakers instead of one arguably helped the proceedings run more smoothly-hard for the malice-minded to concentrate on one target-and such differences as emerged-over the contextual meaning of the Spanish "sabor" as "flavor" or "ingredient," say-played themselves out in a surprisingly pleasant, dignified and collaborative spirit.
A second presentation, "Shake, Rattle: Music, Conflict and Change" assembled music writers, music academics and/or actual musicians. While the presentations sometimes fell short of the emotional whirlwinds raised in the breast by those words, a passable level of hell got raised within the EMP's bubbling contours. Steve Waksman's deconstruct-to-reconstruct essaying of Blue Oyster Cult's heavy, boo tromping triumphant "This Ain't The Summer Of Love" drew devil horns from the audience.
Mina Yang seemed academically subdued during her presentation on a virulently racist "Tsunami Song" parody of "We Are The World" until pressing the play button, when her voice caught-"And for those who have not heard this lovely song--" on a burr, eyes flaring and she played just enough to show us the playground of intolerance from the shock jock world before letting it drip dead.
The African-American and Asian-American relationship remain a big mess in this country, so big that even those involved seem fearful to speak of it. The radio station responsible for the bile made "a million-dollar donation," but to whom? Yang didn't specify. And maybe, her lack of specification whispered, it couldn't undo the damage done.
Alex Rawls, from New Orleans' "Offbeat" magazine, talked about Hurricane Katrina songs. Or to be more precise, bad Hurricane Katrina songs. Songs so horrible he couldn't review them when deadly earnest folks in deadly earnest profusion started sending them in. "It stands there," he said, of a typical such offering, "like a cat at the screen door with a dead mouse in its jaws, as if to say, 'I caught this for you'...when he asked me when I was going to review it I said I hadn't gotten it yet, and he sent me another one."
The music writer David Ritz, collaborator with Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye got a special forum to himself. Growing up in an intellectual household, he said, he felt surrounded by literature and criticism that enriched him. But Billie Holiday's music, he sighed with a swoon, "nurtured me." In the thick of the conference's righteous, necessary and enriching intellectuality, he stood out as an equally necessary touch point for the soul.
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