Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place.

TLDR

Immigrant communities worldwide forge identity through music that blends their experiences with mainstream cultural forms. The book examines how ethnic differences in popular music allow marginalized musicians to gain mainstream rewards while asserting divergence, proposing a utopian model of inter‑cultural cooperation yet also spotlighting and reinforcing ethnic divisions. The book surveys diverse inter‑ethnic musical fusions across cities worldwide, from Puerto Rican bugalu in New York to reggae and zouk in London and beyond. It finds that inter‑ethnic musical fusions, while sometimes seen as postmodern juxtapositions, actually redeploy traditional music for new purposes, influencing social change or reactionary movements, and overall reflecting ethnic anxiety amid rapid global mobility.

Abstract

In cities around the globe, immigrant populations are finding their identity by making music which combines their own experiences with the forms of mainstream culture they have come to inhabit. This book surveys a wide range of these musical fusions: Puerto Rican bugalu in New York; Algerian rai in Paris; Chicano punk in Los Angeles; indigenous rock in Australia; chanson Quebecois in Montreal; swamp pop in Houston and New Orleans; reggae, bhanra and juju in London; and zouk, rap and jazz in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Throughout, the text highlights the issues that unite inter-ethnic music fusions across geographic boundaries. It demonstrates that what might be interpreted as a postmodern process of meaningless juxtapositions of musical forms ripped from their original contexts may actually be a redeployment of tradional music to serve untraditional purposes. The book explores the ways in which ethnic difference in popular music enables musicians from aggrieved populations to enjoy the rewards of mainstream culture while boldly stating their divergence from it, and how it offers a utopian model of inter-cultural co-operation, at the same time making a spectacle out of ethnicity and reinforcing ethnic divisions. Some inter-ethnic music has become part of significant movements for social change. In other instances it has played a reactionary role. But in all the case studies in this book, inter-cultural fusion music displays the contours of ethnic anxiety in an age characterized by the rapid movement of people, capital and images across national borders.