Tuesday, August 22, 2006

hmmm?!

you know, its very good that blogs are now the 'in' thing!cause now i can pose questions and siri's that disturb my head and hope for a somewhat resonable answer from, eh,people
will someone please explain to me ;
whats it with this neo-soul spoken word business?!i mean i like most of the music that falls into that genre however dont you think there are a number of things about that whole culture that leans towards(to use a a pals phrase) being extremely pseudo!i repeat P.S.E.U.D.O!
and then a number of kenyans have decided to embrace this movement.....?????????? i repeat
??????
its like the only poetry that the youth now know will have to be liberally littered with references and phrases such us hips, goddesses, soul, spirit, as i walked on by, (sumthing )in my eye and...the list goes on!
aish!

2 comments:

akiey said...

Since 2000 music heads in the African American community (where soul music among many other gengres originated)have been enlightening folks that there is no Neo-in-Soul, i.e. there's nothing like Neo Soul, it's all just Soul music.

Spoken Word is the what laid the foundation to what we call Soul, R&B, Rap and even the popular Funk & Disco movements. It has its origins in the Plantation era where it was used as a literary device to pass on the family's/community's heritage to the next generation.

It's probably being misused by those who mistake it for a fad yet they forget its place & contribution to contemporary music.

I guess young Kenyans are in the same awed spirit as the many French speaking Caribbean artists & many immigrant youth in Amsterdam & it's vicinity. It's become a movement with newer faces but with the same old vibe...more like a sleeping giant that just woke up to reclaim its place in society.

Btw, my most fav contemporary spoken word artists are Saul Williams, RhapsodE, Desdamona & the Caribbean Leedyah Barlagne. Do check them out.

Anonymous said...

Neo-Soul was a term made by writers and analysts in the mid 90's to describe the soul music that was coming out that had a throwback 70's feel.

The spoken word thing has been around for the longest going back to early southern black american Blues and Gospel, when a preacher would sermonize over music or someone would just ramble while playing his guitar at the bar. It also goes further back like Akiey said to the slavery era.

This whole love poetry over smooth soul or jazz music is cliche. As always though, there's some good that comes with the bad.