NESS REA 1
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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION
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ARTISTS Dosha Devastation Zebra Katz Mykki Blanco Le1f Cakes da Killa Junglepussy BigMomma
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VISUAL CHARACTERISTICS performance lyrics: Le1f music videos type treatment colour schemes record covers
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INFLUENCES & CONTEXT hip hop ballroom & vogue realness music visual connections: ballroom & hiphop interview: Vjuan Allure reflection bibliography & references
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REFLECTION INTRODUCTION
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In this research I’ve explored alternative hiphop artists, LGBT culture and the Ballroom scene in New York. These artists are redefining the genre with their original styles: a variety of beats, lyrics, sexualities and aesthetics whose styles can be compared yet remain unique. Hence why I’ve take the title ‘Realness’ referring to authenticity of the individuals, whilst referencing the word used in both hiphop and ballroom culture. Lines can be drawn between these developments in hiphop culture with Ballroom culture, and Voguing–the dance style accompanying it–which similarly is continuing to evolve. The artists play on things from their gender identity, taking samples from video games and cartoon references, referring to and dissing other artists, or living out their fantasies in character and performance. I’ve started with these artists as a focal point, representing a paired-down version of Ballroom where some of their inspiration is drawn. Extracts of that aesthetic shows through in a more stylized, designed, clean cut look still retaining volume and rawness of the underground scene. Many of the artists featured are openly gay or transgender; something which is relatively new, with artists like Frank Ocean ‘coming out’ in 2012, in this commonly homophobic (and mysogynistic) genre - opening up doors to a wider acceptance of people despite chategorisation. But of course this is no focal point of their creativity - rather an aspect of themselves they share in their work, something they express which adds to their authenticity, or realness. 7
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HOUSE OF LADOSHA “House of Ladosha members Dosha Devastation and Cunty Crawford […] push lyrical, visual and gender boundaries. Their sound is dynamic, in-your-face rap: voguing one minute, smoking blunts the next.”
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ZEBRA KATZ
“Creating a strong, black, other, queer male is something that really needed to happen because you don’t see that that often, especially not in hip-hop. But it’s terrifying standing up as a queer man, but you have to use your sexuality as a tool, instead of having them use it against you.” 12
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MYKKI BLANCO
“ Mykki went out on the fucking street and confronted a bunch of homophobic teens by freestyle rapping them out of their silly slumber. That’s art. ” Kathleen Hanna
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“What’s happening is we have a crop of people who are truly doing something dynamic and new and that’s why they’re getting so much attention— but it’s not a fad or trend,” she said. “They would be working whether the attention was here or not.” Mykki Blanco 7
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LE1F
“If so many girls and women can like songs that suggest they should be sex slaves to any dude with a luxury car, and so many harmless white kids listen to gangster rap, then straight people can probably like my music just the same.�
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FOR ME RAP IS LIKE A COMBINATION OF POETRY AND THEATRE
CAKES DA KILLA
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JUNGLEPUSSY “ If I’m gonna do music, I can only give people what I have in abundance. I can’t do some fake shit. I’m gonna only be able to give them myself. That’s all I have. Everyday. That’s all I have in abundance. That’s all I can give them. I’m like, all right, let me be myself and see what happens. ”
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BIG MOMMA
“ Big Momma uses his music as an outlet to express thoughts, experiences, rage, and fantasies that he cannot, express openly around or with his immediate family. His choice weapons are metaphors, punchlines, and a delivery to die for.�
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VISUAL CHAR
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JUNGLEPUSSY 27
PERFORMANCE
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LYRICS LE1F - Ooh (Truffle Butter) Okay, I put holes in your soul I spit through your key hole Read a bitch whole Send him home in pieces More blood on the leaves than Yeezus You ain’t ‘bout that life, you don’t need this Aye, you, knuckle-head boy, don’t try I might just leave you with a Fetty Wap eye Wepa, you could be my next trap queen Fuck around and you might play for my team Don’t get washed ‘cuz I’m so fresh clean Red solo cup so heavy I lean I hit the club so heavy, eyes beam They can’t keep they little model hands off me Water type, I’m a star, Ringo Niggas wanna freak me ‘cuz they think I’m Mandingo Waiting for my gate to open like Heathrow You a seven out of ten, I don’t eat those Gully Gully Island 212 In my city I’mma do what I want do Really really rare like one of few Hut one, hut two, big dick, too, nigga Okay, it’s swerve in the club when they come through with my bottle Shorties is staring and waiting on me to pop it She said she wanna touch my body I said nuh-uh mami, I’m a champagne bati I’m sorry that I’m not sorry for being a little cocky Flick of the wrist is so floppy Icy, so live at the Roxy Mirror on the wall, what it do? Why I’m looking so very cute? Okay, thinking ‘bout rap I come up to your city like, bring it, stamp Passports full of the receipts I trap In every major city in your first world map Trapped in the closet? Ooh, never that, umm ‘Cuz no one puts baby in a corner, dad I’m at the strip club kiki’ing with staff I threw a grand on her While we both shook ass Uh-oh, oh no I’m flowing like linen Amongst hoes so acrylic I’m sickening, I could switch your man quick Easy whips Watch my hips do the cryptic tick
SPECULATION ON REFERENCES: other artists within hiphop: Kanye West (Yeezus), Azaelia Banks (212) fresh: new and or cheeky openly gay - honesty / authenticity ballroom / vogue dance (hips cryptic tick & wrist so floppy) provoking straight men - like ‘reading’ in ballroom: cleverly dissing opponent provoking hip hop (& its homophobic tendencies?)
MUSIC VIDEOS Ranging in styles from dark, surreal, dystopian and gothic to playful, bright, clean cut stylised imagery. With use of processed film, subtle lighting, block colours, patterns, cutting frames, and mirroring. This balance of darkness and brightness both in appearance and content reoccur in their visual language.
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TYPE TREATMENTS There is a mixture in the use of type; from clean and dark to bright and playful in parallel to their other visuals. From bold sans serif fonts, usually in high contrast with their background, to a mixture of illustrative, playful fonts referencing cartoons, illustration and graffiti, as well as computer generated aesthetics: 3D, textured, collaged or pixelated. 34
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COLOUR SCHEMES
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RECORD COVERS A vibrant mixture of visuals from dark, gothic imagery to playful and illustrative. Use of animation, collage, centred portraits, monotone or bright colours, layering text and image giving a generally loud aesthetic. 39
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CONTEXT IN CUR INFLUENCES FRO
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URRENT HIPHOP, ROM BALLROOM
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HIP HOP Underground urban movement began in 1990s in Bronx NY with MCing, breakbeats and house parties. DJ Clive “kool Herc” Campbell highly influential in the pioneering of hiphop. Beginning of house parties hosted by him. Expanded: moved to outer, bigger locations. Often MCing over disco tracks. 80s guys like Grandmaster Flash MCed about social issues, later developed into gangster rap during the nineties; emphasis shifted to drugs, violence and mysoginy. Music industry realised the possibilities of capitalising the success of gangsta rap so it became mainstream & successful.
GENUINE In hiphop culture it’s considered essential to “keep it real” - be authentic to lived experiences of people from ‘the ghetto, their origins and showing pride in this. Potentiality of it being regarded as a social genre but increase in sampling from huge spectrum of cultutres and different genres “represent the neighbourhood”. Later became catered to consumerism so much over years
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Early hip hop - Grandmaster Flash (below) Run DMC; beginning of Gangsta rap
that it lost its original essence, lost community based feel with emphasis on materialism and contemporary rappers lick Rick Ross, Lil Wayne & JayZ but arguments also that business figure like JayZ & KanyeWest in the industry stand for aspirational influences young blacks. Questlove (The Roots), among many, criticizes modern hiphop as missing the point of its origings with flaunting of riches etcetera, rathaer than rapping about ‘real’ things.
ALTERNATIVE, EVOLVING HIPHOP “ the genre is the furthest left-of-center it’s been in a long time” There are many artists who stand out in various aspects in the traditional sense of hiphop culture. Some of which run parallel to, or inspire the LGBT artist in discussion.
Dai Burger
Dair Burger, is a headliner at Passion Lounge - a night of exciting new rappers in New York, characterised by flamboyance, an eclectic mix of trap music, outrageous fashion, sexual ambiguity and illegal raves. She’s closley associated with Junglepussy another female with fresh work and in the context of evolving hiphop. Odd Future, a young collective of alternative hiphop artists from LA lead by rapper Tyler, the Creator has 60 members, eleven of which make music. They have also been labelled as indie rap and express themselves with raw lyrics and a strong, playful visual language in their work and merchandise.
Tyler the Creator / Odd Future
Lil’ Kim is frequently mentioned as a key figure in original and raw hiphop, inspiring many of the artists mentioned. She gained success as a female rapper with her explicit lyrics and edgy content under the guidance of hip-hop icon Biggie Smalls.
Lil’ Kim
These are just a few examples to demonstrate the variety of styles and approach, but still have ‘realness’. 47
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BALLROOM CULTURE “The balls are a celebration of black and Latino urban gay life... participants work to redefine and critique gender and sezual identitty through an extravagant fashion masquerade. My images try to show a more personal and intimate beauty, pride, dignity, courage and grace that have been challenged by mainstream society.” that have been challenged by mainstream society.” – Gerard H. Gaskin
Images from Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene, Gerard H. Gaskin, 2013 50
Ballroom culture is an underground movement of predominantly African American and Latino LGBT community which began in the 60s in Harlem and flourished in the 80s in New York. A place of refuge and celebration for many people who had difficulty fitting the societal norm, there are many ‘houses’ which are like families within the community. The movement continues today, balls hosted regularly with performances, catwalk, and several categories of competition. Voguing is the primary dance form associated with the subculture and closely related is the music style, which is continuing to develop with producers reworking old disco and ballroom tunes and MCs rapping live at the balls.
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VOGUING
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READING READIN WALK WALK
MOTHER MOTHER
HOUSE HOUSE VOGUE VOGU
REALNESS REALNESS
A documentary directed by Jenny Livingston exploring aspects of race, class and gender in America during the early to late eighties with personable interviews with the African-American, Latino, gay and transgender members of the New York ballroom culture. A look on a specific subculture within its hayday, but also referring to the broader notion of how we live - striving for a lifestyle presented to us through media; a greener grass. Use of these words as acts and cateogries within the ballroom culture, taken from striaght white culture and given new meaning in different context. ‘Reading’ for example being the act of criticising an opponent’s appearance, or ‘mother’ being the title of the head of a house who takes care of its members, akin to family.
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“Ballroom is about transmitting raw energy above production values – it’s about having a constantly new, fresh, and fierce soundtrack to a battle where you have to be more agile, more stylish, more on point, and more seductive than your opponent(s).”
Dashaun Wesley; internationally renowned vogue dancer, teacher, performer, competitor
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Clara Cullen ‘Interactive Voguing Experience’
Vice ‘Proletarian French Voguers’, 2014
Madonna ‘Vogue’, 1990
From it’s origins in 1960s Harlem, Vogue has continued to develop underground in the Ballroom scene. It’s been brought to mainstream several times, attention in 1988 with Malcolm Mclaren’s video (featuring infamous dancers like Wili Ninja, and other scenes from ‘Paris is Burning’) and Madonna’s hit ‘Vogue’, as well as being a category in current international dance competitions and documented internationally - from the ‘How Do I Look’ 2006 documentary to an interactive Vogue battle video by Clara Cullen. Nevertheless, many dedicated members of the ballroom scene say the underground culture will continue strong as it has already for decades with or without mainstream attention.
Malcolm Mclaren ‘Deep in Vogue’, 1988 55
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Inspiration and apropriation in current pop culture: music videos of LE1F, FKA Twigs and Icona Pop
BALLROOM & VOGUE NOW
KIKI BALLROOM Started out as gatherings within African American gay community at health centres where they’d get together to socialise and practice for performances in mainstream ballroom events. Vogue Knights is a popular regular ballroom event held currently in New York
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Generally, realness serves two primary functions for members of the ballroom community. First, it is a guide by which members formulate their performances and self-presentation to compete in runway categories at the ball events. Furthermore, these performances are judged primarilyby a panel of prominent members of the community. At the same time, these performances of their bodies are used to create the illusion of gender and sexual conformity in the outside world. LANGUAGE With many aspects of the performance criteria in ballroom culture, the terms “cunt,” “pussy,” and “dick” reflect how body parts–genitalia, breasts, and buttocks–are sutured to femininity and masculinity and there- fore instantiate one’s gender and sometimes sexual subjectivity. I don’t know of a sex siren category that includes butches, so the phrase “you give me dick down boy” refers to masculinity that is attached to and performed by a male-bodied man with a flesh-and- blood penis. Regarding performance, the terms “cunt” and “pussy” refer to ultimate femininity. Although in dominant culture, cunt and pussy are deployed in a derogatory sense and may seem inherently misogynistic, I would offer a different, more complicated perspective. As pointed out above, both terms are criteria for gender performance in ballroom culture, as opposed to insults or demeaning expletives hurled at women and femme queens. When these terms are used, the speaker does not typically say “you are a cunt.” Instead, the speaker says, “give me pussy” or “you look cunt,” meaning give me femininity in your performance and self-presentation. These terms are about the desire to achieve femininity, not to demean it. 60
REALNESS
REALNESS IN BALLROOM
REALNESS IN HIPHOP Hip-hop’s fascination with authenticity is unique to the genre and is the function of its roots as the cultural expression of socially and economically marginalized African-Americans. A narrow subculture, hip-hop’s rise to prominence, as evidenced by the rise of international hiphop stars, the high percentage of hip-hop CD sales, and the cooption of all things “hip-hop” by large companies to target new consumer demographics, has jeopardized the genre’s “realness” with the threat of assimilation.
‘BEING TRUE TO ONESELF’ There are many varying definitions of authenticity (within the context of hip hop), for example Yale student and MC Peter Furia states that “...representing honestly one’s own experience and identity is the most powerful source of authenticity.” which I would say is something true to artists like Le1f, Big Momma, Cakes da Killa whose lyrics are honest statements of personal experience. “Basically, I make music that represents me. Who I am. I’m not gonna calculate my music to entertain the masses. I gotta keep it real for me.” – Method Man In terms of music production, the practice of sampling tracks from various genres could pose a question for authenticity in hip hop. However this method of music production is said to have originated within hiphop, thus making it true to its roots, and again authentic. The paper concluded that the notion of authenticity is of course very subjective but hiphop should be about ‘keeping it real’ in terms of oneself rather than pandering to the notion of “the streets” and its roots; rather honesty to ourselves, within our time and where it is leading to.
[with excerpts from “Tha Realness”: In Search of Hip-Hop Authenticity & Gender/Racial Realness: Theorizing the Gender System in Ballroom Culture]
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MUSIC DJs, PRODUCERS, MCs in the vogue/ballroom scene MIKE Q New Jersey based MikeQ is one of the key figures of NYC’s long-running ballroom/vogue house scene. The artistic dance known as ‘voguing’ has been popular in the underground clubs of the East Coast of America since the 1960s, and two decades after the seminal movie Paris Is Burning it remains one of the most colourful subcultures in the US, and a very passionate part of NY club life. In recent years a new generation of music producers has been joining the dots between ballroom traditions and the bassheavy hi-tech house sound of now – including the likes of Vjuan Allure, Angel X and MikeQ, just to name a few. Mike gained a love for the ballroom scene and its music in 2003 – when he was 17 – after visiting a local New Jersey party spot, and on hearing Masters At Work’s The Ha Dance he became eager to search out more music and develop his own
take on it. Now one of the most in-demand DJs on the scene, Mike is spreading the ballroom gospel in North America and across the pond, while teaming up with Night Slugs’ US sister label Fade To Mind. He also heads up his own Qween Beat collective, puts out countless mixtapes, and releases a steady stream of ballroom tracks, re-edits, and remixes, very often built upon that tiny “Ha” loop.
“Masters at Work’s ‘The Ha Dance’ is the song for any vogue battle. Because of the beat, the chops, it’s like a rhythmic test of your vogue ability. Every time I hear it makes me want to get up and move about.” Zebra Katz 62
BALLROOM PRODUCERS Until now, most tunes have been reworks of Masters at Work’s 1991 tune ‘The Ha Dance‘ a song that’s been hacked to pieces and turned inside out by thousands of versions and bootleg remixes. Ballroom is most in love with the song’s metallic, demanding, industrial-sounding crash, often used every fourth beat to punctuate [vogue] dancers dramatically dipping to the floor. Second in importance is the “ha” itself, a sample from the movie Trading Places that MAW morphed into a sound byte so saucy and dismissive it should come with a flick of the wrist. There is now a “Ha” for nearly every occasion and popular culture reference: A “Ha” sampling Rihanna and Britney, Scooby Doo and Super Mario Brothers… even a “Resident Evil Ha”.
QWEEN BEATS: collective of 14 producers of current ballroom music scene 63
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Much of Ballroom and Voguing music is available for free download. Just like the energetic dance, the music is ver fast pace and similarly beats are produced, shared and remixed at a high rate. Divoli S’vere, on of the new generation’s big names in ballroom, sometimes makes two tracks in one day often at140bpm - his favourite speed.
“to me it goes hand in hand, everything” Vjuan Allure on visuals and music
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VISUAL CONNECTIONS IN STYLE AND C OUR USAGE IN NEW HIPHOP BALLROO & VOGUE : POSTERS, ARTWORK, ALBU COVERS, LOGOS, PUBLICITY IMAGES
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D COLROOM LBUM ES
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INTERVIEW: VJUAN ALLURE Vjuan Allure, named by House of Allure in the late nineties starting attending balls in New York at age eleven. In the early naughties he set the scene for what isnow the current ballroom music genre. I skype with him in Washington DC as he returns from a day of work, where he’s been partly working on a new track with his portable studio... I’ve been interested in ballroom, vogue and new hiphop artists and the connections between them, taking the angle of ‘realness’ and I was wondering if you could share some of your insight with me on this... I think realness is something that is in both ballroom and hiphop although they mean different things to each… could you tell me something about that? Realness as far as hiphop, they’re trying to say y’know how true to life everything is as far as, y’know, when they perform something, they rap about it, they’re actually living it, doing it - which is their measure of realness not so much fantasy but what they’re telling you is the real story. In ballroom, realness means – because well hah at least 98.7% of the people in ballroom are gay – realness means that I can see you on the street and not know that you are gay, or not know that you weren’t a female. That is your realness, when you can fool a gay person’s eye, you don’t exhibit any characteristics or your whole, you just look like a straight person. That’s realness in gay community. And is that seen as a good thing, that the realness is to be accepted? Well nah it’s neither good or bad cause so many people now are out and it doesn’t matter. It is a category in the ballroom. For a long time people wouldn’t associate with the gay kids and when they became artists they figured out hey there’s a whole bunch of kids in the regular entertainment world anyway, so again y’know it’s still people’s own perception and how they want to do it, but again in the ballroom - it’s a category, that’s basically what it is. What does the word ‘realness’, or authenticity perhaps mean to you? Well that would be it – authenticity – is your realness and I’m like, you do 72
something, whatever you do, you don’t have to put on an aura, a facade, to do it. Y’know when I make music this is what I make, love it or leave it take it blah blah blah… And I think that’s what I was liking with these artists, some of the hiphop artists, is cause they’re different from I dunno, for example 50 cent...I feel like they’re more expressive somehow or… Well I look at it, with the gay hiphop artists - cause that’s what they are they’re not necessarily ballroom but a lot of people put them together with ballroom but that’s not the case - they have their own thing in what they do, and sometimes their beats may gel with the bass scene which also incorporates bass, hiphop and all of that so it fits in the same night. So a lot of people tend to group them together but that isn’t the case. But if you look at, you reference 50 cent about being real ‘from the hood’, again 97.9% of the ballroom kids are from the hood too, cause they’re there y’know. Bushwick, holdin’ up guns this and that, but they’re from there, y’know, they live in those streets. If you’re still seeing them today, and they’re adults [claps] congratulations cause they made it through. Here there’s different worlds in one spot. Y’know NY is like entertainment, underground, then there’s the drug haven, and we haven’t even gotten into the gay and straight thing… so there’s so many things in NY it’s crazy.
Fascinating place though, I’d love to go sometime. Yeahh.. 73
Cause you were in the ballroom scene from quite early right, weren’t you voguing in balls and stuff… 11, yeah, i’ve been in clubs since eleven. Went to my first ball I still do a lot of it. I do it from the DJ booth, but there’s very few times that I show up when I’m not playing so I can’t go down with everybody. Yeah. did you used to perform when you were a teen or something?
Oh yeah, i battled in all the clubs and I battled the hiphop dancers, house, then I moved to ballroom - yeah, I battled all the time. So how would you say you express your authenticity?
By not, er, don’t water down what I do. everybody who’s got their interest in my music got it because they went and got the rawness in my music, how it was in the form that it was - it was made for the club, it was made very loud so y’know there was some distortion they didn’t say y’know you need to calm it down. You can’t calm it down because this is what it is, you have to have that energy and.. you er, when a lot of people try to make it, they wanna make it perfect for a record company, it doesn’t come out the same. You have to understand the sound is supposed to be like this. Just like when trance came out, and it was very numbing in the club, and they tried to fix it but you can’t - that’s what trance is supposed to do. This is what ballroom does. Yeah so you think, when you’re producing for labels, and making stuff sound clean, that it’s watering down?
Well i actually had, er, there were only a few labels that asked for the distortion to be peeled back, but er none of them actually asked me to turn it down. I haven’t actually had anyone tell me to calm it down. Cause I’ve had companies that say ok it’s great, give it to us. Sometimes they ask people to make things different, but nah you can’t do that - it won’t be that authentic ballroom sound that we’re used to hearing. We don’t do the hybrids, y’know, it’s just not the same. You’re associated with labels like Mad Decent and Night Slugs, right?
Well yeah I’m not signed to any particular label but I’m part of many… Ok so how do you position yourself within that, cause you’re not on one label that does one thing - do they ask different stuff of you or…? Well that’s the thing, er, when I actually get to do the label and do work 74
with them I actually listen to what they do - I listen to their style and what’s going on and yeah I don’t want to just do what I do, take ballroom and go here, here, here… so if you listen to my projects on different labels you’ll hear different things. The music that comes out, it’s different, it fits their label but it’s done my way. I was listening to your stuff, it’s really raw, energetic, I think I would definitely dance to that if I was at a party. I wouldn’t be able to do the moves though…. Ah you’ll get it Haha maybe… but it’s so fast. With the dancing, cause you’re a DJ now, producing, how do you think the fact that you dance(d) gives you an advantage in producing? To me it does cause like I said even now when I first started to dance I battled everybody. Vogue femme, new way, old way - I battled everybody - that’s the way it is in the club, and you just do it and it’s like - I’ve made music for every genre, every category in the ballroom scene cause I’ve seen it, I’ve watched, I’ve paid attention to it - so I have an edge on tracks and that’s what makes my tracks sound differently cause I’m thinking about what would they do when they’re walking, what would a runway model do when they’re posing, a new way kid when he’s really stretching and bending his arms - what’s he gonna do? - and I make my tracks accordingly. Similar to your music, your website is pretty energetic, pretty wild… Haha yeah i’m gonna actually have it revamped and make it even wilder. I love flash, I love just everything going on - pretty much like my music, so when you see it I want you to be like ‘wow!’, I don’t want you to be like ‘ok, click’. Hahah yeah, so who’s in charge of that stuff… Well I maintain it but there’s my team in Italy of course, there’s also another person here who did my logo. And I’m actually gonna get him to... use his explosive mind, connect it with mine, and see what we come up with. But I do keep a tight reign on what it looks like, what my pictures look like, the content and all that stuff, so… It has to look good! Haha yeah… I’ve been looking at a lot visuals, but of course I was interested in the context of them and whole culture of it; the music and dance etc. and the relation between these and other genres. Cause I started out 75
looking at these hiphop artists but now I’ve got more interested in ballroom and vogue, that was the link - cause I know it’s not specifically connected, it’s not specifically a subculture but I was interested in the fact that some of these artists talk about ballroom being an influence for their music. Like Zebra Katz said “the ha dance” - the one you first remixed, creating the new ballroom music scene with, right? [yeah] - is one of his top influential tunes. I heard there’s like beats in hiphop that are influenced by ballroom etc. I dunno how true that is… genres are really blurry now Well being in this area now, I can tell you, Washington D.C. and Baltimore, ok? Washington DC had a lot of progressive house - it was different from New York house. It was wilder and more energetic when I came here; it made you dance much harder, and in the mix of that night they started to play Baltimore club - are you familiar with that? Baltimore club can be played in a hiphop club or a house club. So, DC is here, Baltimore is here, and they interacted and they used them in each club in house and in hiphop. So they started to rap on Baltimore club when they slip another beat in that’s house, they just kept rapping so it became intertwined. Which swings over to Jersey club, and then base… and you’ll see how the beats intertwine. When they got ahold of our music and invited us to play then we found out we had a whole other audience. That’s when everything really opened up. And how much do you think it influences you - other genres? They really don’t. What it did do, cause when I’m creating i don’t listen to a lot of people. There’s a very select group of people that I listen to cause I don’t wanna be influenced and I don’t wanna recreate something else that’s already there so I separate myself from it. I just buy music as far as a DJ. But it did open up my mind to different sounds and what to do with beats when I’m mixing, when i’m producing stuff. I already had no boundaries in producing, but this gave me a whole new realm of direction to go in. So I create new sounds for ballroom and new sounds for the world. Yeah, so it’s really coming from inside of you… Yeah and a lot of my music comes from inside jokes, pranks, something that we’ve been laughing about, anything. My music can come from anywhere. It’s funny because I can recall a lot of times what exactly sparked that song. It’s fun for me. I love to make this, I love to see people dancing. That’s always been my passion, I always wanna see people dancing. So as long as that’s happening I’m having fun. Cause you also play in clubs beside ballrooms right, what kind of places? 76
I’ve been playing ballroom and regular clubs and they didn’t even know it was ballroom. Italy, when I first started to play over there one of the first records i played “cunty” – they didn’t know what the word mean but there was a similar Italian word so they kept saying “cunty” and I’m laughing cause you have no idea what you’re saying. It’s the beat people are looking for. No matter what music you’re listening to - if the beat is hot everybody will dance to it. So when I went over there even though they didn’t know what they were saying, the beat made them dance, so. I guess it’s like hiphop, y’know sometimes I find myself singing’ along to Kendrick Lamar - degrading to women but y’know the beat’s good… Well y’know I pay attention to that cause at first, and still, I was a hiphop head, I knew all hiphop and everything, I still do, I know who’s doing what even though I don’t really play hiphop I still collect it and of course I’m listening and I’m not so much with the derogatory lyrics or everybody thinking they’re a stripper or whatever… I want hiphop, I want the lyrics, I want the flow and I want the beat. So who are you listening to at the moment as far as hiphop? Erm, I don’t have any hiphop on the decks at the moment but my favourite person as long as hiphop is concerned, because of his style, because of how energetic he is, and his beats are so diverse, is Busta Rhymes. I love to hear him, he puts on a show. Cause you understand when you hear him it’s like ‘ahhh’. That’s what I’m looking for in hiphop, I want the ‘ahh’ i want the same thing. I also wanted to ask you about something completely different, about your albums, cause you sell hard cover albums or a lot of it’s online? There are albums that are out and there’s plenty of albums that I have… ok, most of the ones that you see on my website have waaaay too many samples and they’re made for the ballroom, ok, so those pretty much won’t come out because they’re sample ridden with y’know crashes and beats that i’ve chopped up or whatever. And 90% of those are my voice. So they’re meant for the ballroom, but the ones that come out on the labels like Night Slugs, now they’re available everywhere. Still the same thing but they’re cleared. haha And the high pitched voice like on your website and stuff, that’s also you? yeah haha it’s me, with a glass of wine and I’m recording and slip the voice up and get really into it. 77
Haha having fun Exactly Cause I was wondering about the album artwork - is that what you can see on the singles on your website? With the singles it’s just a picture cause there’s so many of ‘em. When I first started to sell them as singles er, I never made a cover for each song - I made a cover for the entire album so, what you see on the singles is just a piece of artwork but when you see the whole CD that is the actual cover art for the CD. OK, so you could you tell me about your visual preference or how you chose images to go with your music…? Well to me an image has to be striking, has to be something about the image that just pleases the eye - it could be anything really. For a while I was definitely stuck on women - a striking woman, that when you see it you have to look like, you’re happy with it, but you’re like wow I really need to look at this picture. It comes from when I started to club in New York because by the time Wednesday came around in New York you had a stack of flyers so you’re looking at flyers, the thing that’s gonna catch your eye is the colour. So all the things that were multicoloured go over here and then one colour go over here and I don’t pay attention to them. So then you’ve got all these and then it’s the pictures, the pictures, this one sucks, this one sucks, so it’s always getting to what catches your eye. And also with that the title and the titles of my songs have to catch me. That’s how I make a song, from the title; I need a title. I just don’t make a beat and be like er, here. I have to think about it and it has to be something, a bold statement and then I start. So you’re saying visuals are also important to you, not just the music… To me it goes hand in hand, everything, it’s like y’know it’s flash with substance. Cause once you catch them with the eye, either you deliver or you fizzle, so not only am I going to give you that but it’s going to hit you in a certain place and you’re gonna be like ‘wow!’ and then here comes the next one and the next one… next thing you know it’s 25 minutes later, you’re drenched in sweat and I’m like ‘gotcha!’ So, ballroom; “flash with substance” you could say Oh yes, oh yes. Ballroom is one of the hardest audiences to please and you have to give them that cause they don’t want the regular y’know. Once I started to do this we used to do ballroom with music that was already out 78
and they kept that, and then I came along and got mad cause I couldn’t play outside this clique and just started making these remixes that were crazy and they loved it. So now they’re spoiled and they want more and more hype. You started it but it’s exciting for you to continue Oh yeah it’s great. By the time you get off the decks, we’re sweating, you’re sweating, everybody had a great time - we’re just done haha. Sounds great, think I’ve gotta go to one someday. You need to. I’ll be back over there, you have to go! Yeah cause there’s a growing scene over here too right? Oh yeah, like house of Lassindra, Misrahi, yeah Paris is smokin’ right now. They have more houses with people coming into them. Getting the attention of the States a lot because a lot of the time when you deal with balls it’s more on the competition level as far as dance competitions, and then somebody takes one or two things and make a runway or vogue ball, which forgets the rest of the ball - you’re forgetting the realness, female figure face, sex siren, you’re forgetting everything else about the ball. Paris is doing actual balls, they’re doing the complete balls. But other places too, Russia’s doing them, Finland’s doing them, Italy’s doing them, they’re everywhere. They’ve grown I’d say within the last five, six years. And it’s because of the international dance competition scene. I played for house dance international in NY and that was the NY portion of some of the dance competitions, and there was a lot from overseas, and big group from Japan that wound up at one of the Vogue nights, esqualitas, where myself and MikeQ play and they came in when I was playing in the ball and they came in and saw what was going on, and that was the kick off, Japan really got into the ballroom scene. So many people are doing it now, it’s as if the whole world is buzzing about it. The great things was the internet, Skype and Facebook and groups and international houses and connections, blah blah blah, it’s crazy. A lot of it started because they were doing these dance competitions and vogue was never in the competitions. Once they recognised whacking (disco era music, old soul train, lot of women doing it) then it was natural that vogue would come in, and then when vogue came in it was so ‘pow!’ that it just blew up and it becomes like the highlight of the night. And they’re doing that over there and they’re like what about this music? That’s when they tap me on the shoulder and I went over there and it’s a done deal. In the international dance competitions, they accepted whacking, and 79
then they looked at voguing and that’s when they included both of them. There’s a whole bunch of genres that are cluttered together… well they’re not together but they intertwine. When you see like a Mad Decent party or a Full Service party in NY or Future Brown. They intertwine this music and that’s how we’re all connected y’know. I like that it’s happening, I don’t want people to concentrate so much on having or being in the ballroom scene other than dancing and learning to vogue because they’ll hold it up like yeah I’m part of this ballroom scene but you don’t know why you’re doing it. I do it because I love the music, because I love the dance. Are you doing it now because people will interview you or you’re in a magazine and then when they get tired of you, then what happens? Are you gonna be part of the ballroom scene or not? That’s the other issue with it, y’know it’s gonna be people who jump on the bandwagon with everything but y’know we’re here, we’re authentic, this is what we do whether you cover it or not. Y’know we were making it before you came around and we’ll be making it after you leave. Yeah, it’s gonna keep going strong… Oh yeah. They’re asking what do you think about the mainstream attention? And I’m like well it was there before y’know, of course with Madonna but, for her, it was one thing, it was a record. It was a great record for her, because first of all she didn’t have to do it, and she thought enough about it to do it and she took two authentic people from the scene with her - which she did not have to do - and y’know she could’ve just imitated it and continued it and bring it to the world. But no, it was a record for her. Ballroom is what we did and this is what we do. That’s my perspective of it cause like I said I was there the night when she chose Jose and Louis Extravaganza in the Sound Factory, as her dancers. I saw her watching and she liked the song. People are like ah Madonna saying she created Vogue, nah she never said she created Vogue, she did a record - people just think that cause she was the one that introduced vogue to the mainstream. But it’s been going on for years and as long as we can continue to do it the right way, I’m good.
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REFLECTION
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“PEOPLE IN THE CLUB ARE GONNA DANCE REGARDLESS OF THEIR STYLE” CROSSOVERS BETWEEN VOGUE & HIPHOP
“Straight up, it all came up in the clubs and the streets,” says Jonathan Lee, who learned to dance from Robin Dunn, Crazy Legs and Mr. Wiggles, and now teaches hip hop dance at the Alvin Ailey Extension School. “Especially with voguing culture and the gay community, but people would dance in the club the way they wanted to dance. That’s where everyone could and can meet. People in the club are gonna dance regardless of their style. Even now, people who are lockers will lock to the music and voguers will vogue to the music – it just comes down to the DJ. At the club you can find everyone.” The LGBT community of New York is celebrated through underground movements like ballroom and the up-and-coming hiphop artists, both of which cannot be combined into, or distinguishe by, a subculture due to their sexuality or genre but from this research I would say do have cross-overs in visuals, styles, energy and authenticity - which is what I chose to focus on. Definitions of genres are becoming increasingly blurred because individuals are expressing themselves more freely, perhaps with the slow increase of acceptance in society. Individuals are expressing themselves in various ways which do not necessarily conform to the standard view of, in this case, rap and hiphop. For instance, visual aesthetics and lyrics that are more outspoken and different to those which usually accompany the sound and content of rap & hiphop. This results in a collage of styles; authenticity in expression of self and own experiences, inspiration and re-appropriating styles and methods from different contexts to create a new landscape of colourful visuals, deep sounds and volumes of energy.
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CONCLUSION
In this visual research I’ve looked at new hiphop artists, who are brining their own style and broadening the genre, as a focal point for looking at authenticity and vibrancy of character in the context of evolving Hip Hop and Ballroom culture. Though there are differences and of course other influences to their work than Ballroom. These artists taking a more commercialised direction, represent some visually refined elements of the colourful, complex, loud, raw characterisitcs of Ballroom culture which, despite occasional mainstream attention, continues to live on as a lively underground scene. Comparisons can be drawn in visuals and values between these cultures, but ultimately it is their unique qualities which makes them stand out from the bland landscape of hiphop audiences, through their selfexpression and ‘realness’.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY p.46 – HIPHOP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop Questlove, ‘When the People Cheer: How Hip-Hop Failed Black America’ http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/ questlove-on-how-hip-hop-failedblack-america.html p.47 – NEW, EVOVLING HIPHOP Dair Burger: http://bedfordandbowery.com/2013/07/bushwick-is-burning-underground-trap-raves-keepit-weird/ OddFuture: http://www.theguardian. com/music/2012/mar/15/odd-future-woke-up-one-morning Lil Kim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Lil’_Kim
Malcom McClaren, Deep in Vogue: https://vimeo.com/39322035 p.57 - VOGUE & BALLROOM NOW http://www.thefader. com/2014/11/13/kiki-ball-photo-essay http://www.papermag. com/2012/10/the_new_york_ballroom_scene_is.php p.60 – REALNESS Gender/Racial Realness: Theorizing the Gender System in Ballroom Culture by Marlon M. Bailey: http:// www.indiana.edu/~gender/people/ papers/bailey2011.pdf
p.50 –BALLROOM https://www.dukeupress.edu/Legendary/
P.62 – BALLROOM MUSIC: MIKE Q http://www.rbmaradio.com/shows/ mikeq-ballroom-special
p.52 – PARIS IS BURNING DOC. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=pWuzfIeTFAQ
p.63 –BALLROOM PRODUCERS http://daily.redbullmusicacademy. com/2012/02/vogue-ballroom-vivian-host
p.55 – VOGUE proletarian french voguers: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=WK0udmxZam0 Clara Cullen Ballroom Battle: https://www.nowness.com/story/ ballroom-battle Madonna, Vogue: https://www.youtube.com/ 84
watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI
HIP HOP’S QUEER PIONEERS http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/72220930.html?thread=12734603010#ixzz3UXUwskUs http://www.thedailybeast.com/ articles/2012/08/10/too-gay-forhip-hop-le1f-takes-on-traditionally-homophobic-genre.html
RREFERENCES p.11 – HOUSE OF LADOSHA http://bedfordandbowerycom/2013/07/bushwick-is-burningunderground-trap-raves-keep-itweird/ p.12 – ZEBRA KATZ http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/may/25/zebra-katz-interview-ima-read p.14 –MYKKI BLANCO crack magazine, p.18: http://issuu. com/crackmagazine/docs/issue_49 p.15 – http://www.thedailybeast. com/articles/2012/08/10/too-gayfor-hip-hop-le1f-takes-on-traditionally-homophobic-genre.html p.18 – LE1F http://www.thedailybeast.com/ articles/2012/08/10/too-gay-forhip-hop-le1f-takes-on-traditionallyhomophobic-genre.html p.19 – CAKES DA KILLA QUOTES https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=f1fYKC82swE p.22 – JUNGLEPUSSY http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2014/09/the_philosophy_of_junglepussy.php p.23 –BIG MOMMA http://www.whoisbigmomma.com/p/ the-artist.html
p.30 – LE1F lyrics http://genius.com/Le1f-ooh-trufflebutter-lyrics P.47 – EVOLVING HIPHOP http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/8793-we-invented-swag/ p.54 – DESHAWN http://daily.redbullmusicacademy. com/2012/02/vogue-ballroom-vivian-host p.61 –REALNESS IN HIPHOP excerpts from: “Tha Realness”: In Search of Hip-Hop Authenticity by Jonathan D. Williams. http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=1093&context=curej p.62 –BALLROOM MUSIC: ZEBRA KATZ http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine?callerCid=1318090100393&callerType=RBMA_Feature&tag=zebra+katz p.63 –BALLROOM PRODUCERS http://www.redbullmusicacademy. com/magazine/vogue-ballroom-vivian-host p.82 – ‘New York Is Burning: Vogue’s Move from Ballroom to Limelight’ http://www.redbullmusicacademy. com/magazine/new-york-is-burning
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