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entering the ethnography:
hybridity, the diva, authorship and london
The mediation and production of
house music qualifies it as a postmodern text. House music scenes and the
African American house diva’s voice in London illustrates the postmodern
negation of constructed borders and nations and informs the global reach and
popularity of house music. House music’s deployment of digital technology
challenges traditional music making practices, knowledges, and authorship.
However, the anti-universalist
tenants of postmodernism conflict with house music’s supposed cultural
doctrine of universal peace, love and happiness. The cultural politics of
London house scenes and exotic mysticism associated with African American
house divas cannot be void from social realities of current historical
moments such as exclusive and racist door policies of danceclubs.
Interestingly enough, this
returns me to my own questions of ethnography and methodology. I draw a
trajectory from African American house divas to myself that confirms my
argument of Londoners preferences for African American female voices. At the
conclusion of my interview with a prominent music producer in London, I was
asked if my voice could be used in a track he was creating. I was taken off
guard but very flattered. Hence, I obliged to his simple request. I thought
this was just a random incident but soon other Londoners wanted to hear my
voice just for the sheer pleasure of a distinct African American female
accent. Some folks even wanted me to recite stock African American ghetto
phrases for their pirate radio station identification tracks!
My voice was objectified because
I possessed the aura of an African American female sensuality and
haughtiness. I had suddenly become a full-fledged participant in my own
study! Nevertheless, there was no way to avoid my hybridity as
participant/observer as I salivated and fantasized taking London by storm
under the pseudonym of ‘Princess TamTam: The Diasporic
House Diva.’
Taken from
Dancing with
Dark Majesties: House Music and African American Women as House Divas
by Carmen Mitchell/Princess TamTam and The University of California, Los
Angeles. Copyright © 2000.
Princess
TamTam and academic presenters at the International Association for Women in Music Annual
Conference in London
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