SOC317H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: A Tribe Called Quest, Tricia Rose, Zoot Suit
What’s on Your Playlist?
November 16, 2018
How music matters to sociologists
• music is arguably not a necessity
• music as an art
o artform humans arguably been making since time
o sociologists posit that art is defined by something that is not necessary
o “music is the “pure” art par excellence”
o rich with social meaning and symbolism; empty vessel that can contain many components
o vehicle for social, cultural and political messages
o people draw on it to form their identities as a result of its richness for symbolic meanings
o music is a tool to draw social boundaries – preferences and dislikes to define groups one belongs
to
• music as a commodity
• music has a hidden curriculum
o hidden element of ideology in music
• music as a tool of cultural resistance
o tradition of the protest songs – song that marries music with some message of social change or
protest against status quo
o North American context has targeted issues from slavery, women’s rights, environmentalism,
poverty to police violence
o Tricia Rose – oppressed people use language, dance and music to mock those in power, express
rage, and produce fantasies of subversion
o Woodie Guthrie – American folk music, anti-capitalist pro-labour message
o African American protest songs – context of racism, slavery, poverty gave rise to a unique genre
of music, jazz originated with African Americans; emerged in 1920s
▪ “strange fruit” – anti-lynching song
o hip hop emerged in 1970s, came in mainstream culture in 1980s – when people connected hip
hop to political context of African Americans
▪ contemporary example of protest song – A Tribe called quest “we’ve got it from here”
Music: the status of subcultures
• people look to subcultures such as hip hop for ideas about what they consider mainstream
• musical artists are examples of cultural intermediaries
• subculture – group with certain cultural features that enable it to be different from other groups and
larger society it emerges
o often exist to the reason to pointing to status quo and being against it
o key part of Hip hop’s existence was to point out the inconsistencies and ideal of the American
dream and reality facing young Black men and women in inner city United States
o cultural appropriation – the music and culture of disadvantage groups give a kind excitement to
mainstream powerful culture
▪ jazz as a subculture: the birth of “cool” – zoot suit and the word “cool”; white people
wanted to embody the attitude, culture, music of black jazz musicians
o subcultural capital comes from having knowledge of what is “in” and a way to display
authenticity especially in relation to mainstream culture
o being connected to subculture gives a kind of capital
