DJ Jim Q's Playlist: NATIVE

The theme this month, Native, was selected by the fine folks from the beautiful island city of Honolulu. This theme got me thinking a lot about regional music and the way art used to spread through more analog and measured means. So much has changed in the post-internet world. You could argue that there has been a homogenization of culture. This neutralization is something that I often bemoan in discussions with folks from previous generations, ahem, cough, cough, old people. Music most notably is an art form that is affected by this trajectory towards ubiquity and dilution.

Through real and external limitations, regional music used to thrive in isolation which often encouraged quite bizarre mutations and nuanced variations that were specific to any given place. The examples are endless, Greenwich Village folk, New Orleans jazz, Chicago house music, Miami bass, DC hardcore, Go-Go, Florida’s death metal, Nashville country, just to name a few. All of these potent musical movements incubated in regional music scenes that grew within concentrated communities without the dilution or pollution of outside influence. The internet has flooded these small creative pools. For better or for worse almost everything is accessible all the time to almost everyone. It seems stylistic trends, even in their infancy, live and die in the span of weeks without time to really develop or cultivate full potential. Established artists and culture vultures alike snatch up organic emerging artistic styles to stay current rather than to innovate. And the result is that art is often more fad and fashion than vanguard. Seasonal and disposable, few things read as truly authentic these days, not to mention unique. Speed to adopt seems to be the measure of relevance and the currency of attention.

What does this do to the native creative cultures within different regions? I believe it tends to prevent valuable incubation and independent growth. Ideas may start out with some originality but can quickly become contaminated by external interest and influence. Like harvesting fruit before it’s ripe, most creative fruits as they develop are not ready for reaping. Picking them prematurely will only prevent them from properly blooming.

I’ll acknowledge these posts can sometimes lean towards the nostalgic or sentimental when looking back to previous eras of music, it’s a symptom of my age I suppose. I would ask my younger readers, are there thriving native music scenes that are wholly independent and active? On second thought, maybe don’t expose them here for fear that they may get appropriated.

Listen up my native music lovers, this month’s track list is populated with songs of community and origin. The theme is Native. As is endemic of these playlists, a careful selection of songs were selected to amplify the theme. Digable Planets tell us where they come from, Ultravox serenades the city of Vienna, 2Pac shares his California Love and Woody reminds us this land was made for you and me.

Thanks for listening and if you have native musical recommendations, post them in the comments below. I will see you next month with a new playlist. Until then, if you enjoy these lists, give me a shout on Twitter, and be sure to follow and like on Spotify.