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The second mix in Playero’s Playero 38 “Underground” gives is a great place to start if you want to dissect the sonic formulation of Underground.
For one, the Hip-Hop sensibilities are instantly audible. Any Souls of Mischief fans might be surprised when listening to “Ragga Mix to Mix,” as the intro sounds eerily similar to “‘93 ‘Til Infinity”. Further on, the mix includes an interpolation of popular rap songs such as Marva Whitneys “Unwind Yourself” (1967) popularized by MTV (42). Things become a little more interesting when 1min 32s in the decidedly Hip-Hop beats gives way to a booming Dem Bow over which you can hear bars about “la raza”, or ‘the race’ (safe to say they’re not referencing whiteness). One can also hear “esta la musica negra,” or ‘this is the black music’ throughout.
Much like in live Hip-Hop performances of the time, throughout the mix you hear MCs handing off the mic whilst the DJ changes the surface texture of the track without compromising the vibe.
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J0N
Yo! In “Sounding Race” Kajikawa talks about the way in which DJs played around with the records on the turn-tables which allowed them to change the “rhythmic texture” (31). He says that this ability to cut and rearrange existing music and create something new worked to in a way “Africanize” the music; aligning it w/ other music of the African diaspora. Do you think that the same sort of thing was going on with these Underground mixtapes?
In an interesting, counterintuitive way, Underground’s explicit blackness allowed for Caribbean immigrants in NYC to rediscover and reconcile their own blackness where it would have been difficult to do so back home. Engaging with racialized “othered” music in NYC allowed fans space for racial introspection; space that was harder to come by in the Caribbean due to cultures of colorism and “racial and cultural denial” (47).
by J0N; ; Report