anyway,thanks for all the hard work you and horseleech have done with this,as I have every REish you guys have done and eagerly await the next batch.
propers to ya'll and whatever on all the sidelong glances from the pigeon kickers,
anyway,thanks for all the hard work you and horseleech have done with this,as I have every REish you guys have done and eagerly await the next batch.
propers to ya'll and whatever on all the sidelong glances from the pigeon kickers,
+1
b/w
The dudes that hate are just jealous that Frank is living the dream while they bust their humps at a humble 9-5.
What's this? Are you speaking in Swibonics now? Besides making beatz (sic), do you also rhyme and wear your baseball hat backwards?
Why not share some of your work. If you haven't done anything yet then have a go at it. Do something creative. It might offer you some distraction from this strange obsession you seem to be having with me. Not that I'm too concerned but this must be so unrewarding and frustrating for you.
You're like my neighbor's dog who keeps pissing at the hind wheel of my car. Not that this would be annoying in any way since I don't have any fancy rims or whitewall tires. To the contrary, I can't help but be amused at how this dog day after day comes strutting all this way over to our house just to piss at that same old wheel. It's a flawed analogy though because firstly: I really like dogs and secondly: Don Canello how he is called could just have a crush on our three female dogs so there might actually be a valid motivation for his behavior.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Jonny_Paycheck said:
man there is so much more fucked up shit to get worked up over w/r/t Africa I just don't understand the whole "RECORD COLONIALIST SCUM" shit. I mean, there are definitely unethical guys out there, I just don't think Frank is that guy. Mostly people just react to his (admittedly) abrasive personality.
Nobody has to go as far as calling him scum for him to start acting like scum. That's my whole point. He does something that from a public relations perspective is delicate and he brazenly treats it like a log jammed down a throat. That's of course Frank's perogative, and trust me that I'm much more a fan of his than anything else, but that "abrasiveness" taints the good work done IMO.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Frank said:
HarveyCanal said:
Rockadelic said:
Pardon my ignorance but can someone explain to this dolt how buying records is exploitive?
Unless I'm missing something people like Frank are paying people for an object that would otherwise go unused and unsold and eventually be lost forever.
I remember Danno stating something to the effect that he paid a dude in Cuba the equivilent of a years salary for a doctor for his pile of records.
Who is being exploited and exactly how?
You really need it explained to you?
If the people holding the records in foreign countries had the know-how and resources to sell their records for their full value, do you really think they would still allow dealers to come in and take their cut?
Again, I'm fine with it in cases that are relatively fair. But it's still exploitation = going to this country to find undiscovered treasures on the cheap so that I can sell them or use them to sell my brand of deejaying/music/etc.
Why not spell it out like this from the get go?
How many records were bought by wealthy, white US collectors at stores in impoverished areas of town where the owner, more often than not at the brink of bankruptcy unknowingly were selling $500 Soul 45s for $1 a piece? Those were the "golden days" before everybody had the internet and before popsike. And of course all of this was totally legit since it's ok to buy from your own disenfranchised compatriots on the other side of the tracks?
I spent 3 years living in West Africa, traveling the region and buying records. Admittedly, back then I paid much less than what I pay today. I had to. What do you think I should have paid for a record after I had spent $600 for a plane ticket from Conakry to Cotonou and a few hundred bucks more per week for local transportation, accommodation, guides, fixers, etc? Quite often you'd go days, sometimes a week without finding anything worth buying. Then when you do find something you should pay Popsike value? When I add up the money I had spent during this entire 3 year endeavor (which could have been a solid down payment on a very decent house) plus what my average income had been in the years prior to this then I'd probably come up with a number somewhere in the neighborhood of the combined value of all the records that I found during that time. To me this qualifies as fair. Anything else would have been a financial loss. Would I have been a bit less lucky with a few large and unexpected finds then I would definitely have lost a shitload a of money. Which actually I was prepared to do as the experience itself always was my main focus.
Since I've left Africa in 2008 I've mainly been getting records from two friends, one in Ghana, one in Nigeria and they both know what these records are worth. I routinely send them links to popsike and provide them with auction results. My friend in Ghana went to business school and my friend in Lagos has for decades sold to pretty much every person in this game and he knows most of them personally. I out-paid and out-dealed all of these other guys to a point where anybody trying to offer a better deal would be loosing money. This is honest competition. This is how a fair market works.
I'm fine with all of that. Thanks for the explanation.
not to generalize but in Africa it's not just about something collecting dust in a basement or garage, it's truly a race against time. The shit is getting destroyed, if not by humans then by the elements.
This cannot be overstated enough, and it's not just Africa. Tropical areas the world over are the least record-friendly environments out there. Africa, Central America, Colombia, Thailand, you name it. Besides just the crude environmental factors of rain, mold, rats, insects, etc etc, records get dumped whenever elders pass away, or whenever folks move and need to make room. While people like Frank are not knights in shining white armor saving the imperiled cultural heritage of societies who no longer care, it really does need to be pointed out that these records are simply not going to be around for much longer. Who knows what will get lost in the shuffle? In the USA, when folks pass away there are often swarms of record grippers at the estate sales / flea markets (and even the fucking dump, but that's another thread) looking to buy anything of vague interest or monetary value. That stuff then gets resold and recirculates through the local and global communities of record buyers. That's not to say records don't get dumped here in the states, it's just a completely different situation.
I got stories for days from my trips to Central and South America about asking people if they had records only for them to say they dumped them last month or year or whatever, and I guarantee Frank and others do too.
That's of course Frank's perogative, and trust me that I'm much more a fan of his than anything else, but that "abrasiveness" taints the good work done IMO.
"I'm paying fair prices and playing by the rules of the free market" is a dodge, straight up. It totally avoids the concerns brought up in the blog post, which are about cultural exploitation rather than economic exploitation.
Economically speaking, it's pretty much a non-issue (non-issues are really easy to defend, btw). Like someone else said in this thread, an individual digger who hauls a bunch of records out of Africa is not a multinational corporation which hauls billions in resources out of Africa.
It's the cultural issues that are actually interesting, and they're interesting because they're murky as fuck.
"I'm paying fair prices and playing by the rules of the free market" is a dodge, straight up. It totally avoids the concerns brought up in the blog post, which are about cultural exploitation rather than economic exploitation.
Economically speaking, it's pretty much a non-issue (non-issues are really easy to defend, btw). Like someone else said in this thread, an individual digger who hauls a bunch of records out of Africa is not a multinational corporation which hauls billions in resources out of Africa.
It's the cultural issues that are actually interesting, and they're interesting because they're murky as fuck.
"(non-issues are really easy to defend, btw)"
Please help me see the sense in this statement
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I have absolutely no reason and most and for all not the slightest bit of motivation to defend myself in front of anybody. I do what I want and what I enjoy doing. Anybody has a problem with that, I recommend the following: Go to the most remote place you can possibly reach, far away from any city, town, village or road. Hike into a vast desert or climb up to the top of the highest mountain you can find. Wait for a completely windless night. Be perfectly still and listen very closely. What you will hear is the sound of me not giving a shit.
At the same time I have no problem to answer any questions. However don't confuse my readiness to explain what I do for an attempt to defend what I do. There is nobody outside a very small circle of close friends whose opinion has any kind of relevance to me.
Exploitation: "the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work."
I buy records and I do with them what they were made for: Records were meant to be played. Played for private enjoyment but also played by djs in clubs and on the radio. There was profit to be made by selling these records, otherwise nobody would have pressed them and there was popularity and employment to be gained by the artists. In many cases these records were pressed in quite impressive quantities. Albert Jones from the Freedom Family told me how he was given 1.000 free copies of their album by EMI for him an the band to sell at their gigs. At the time the Freedom Family resided in Kano and they sold out of these 1.000 records within 6 weeks which combined with the thought that no record company would give away more than 10% of the pressing volume as promo copies gives you an idea of how many records must have been sold in those days. Today this is a very rare record. It's rare because most people threw their records away.
Just last week I asked my friend in Lagos about the owner of a certain Nigerian record label. His response: "yes, i know him but i stop going to him when he destroyed thousands of records which he at first sold all the picture covers and later gave out the records to the waste management of Anambra state to destroy."
What I buy, collect, play out and reissue is old pop music. It was created as a result of foreign influences mixing with older, local styles. These records are the result of cross-cultural exchange and local musical evolution. None of these records would have been made without evil white people bringing studio- and pressing equipment into Africa. Not even speaking of electronic and brass instruments. What ethno-musical purists might call cultural imperialism probably started with people bringing foreign records into West Africa. Foreign records containing soul, funk, jazz and rock music that again would have never been created without traditional African music as their root. In Sierra Leone for example American country music was hugely popular and most people fail to recognize that even country music has some African influence. Did you know that the banjo originates from Africa?
The whole argument that reissuing African funk or rock records would mis-represent African culture is stupid. Go on ebay and see how most and by far the cheapest African records you will find easily available are not afrobeat, funk or rock but Soukous, Highlife, Juju which by the way all three also are pop music and use Western instruments and a variety of international influences. More traditional styles and field recordings are also readily available, plentiful and cheap. Ask anybody dealing with used African records and they'll tell you that most of these records are not exactly the hottest commodity. Are niche DJs like me to blame for playing out African funk records to an audience of a couple of hundred people at a time, thereby hindering them from developing a healthy interest in soukous, rumba or palmwine music? So go ahead and throw a rumba party. Or if you think any particular musical style is under-represented on the reissue market then go and re-issue those records.
Comments
propers to ya'll and whatever on all the sidelong glances from the pigeon kickers,
+1
b/w
The dudes that hate are just jealous that Frank is living the dream while they bust their humps at a humble 9-5.
ain't worried bout none
What's this? Are you speaking in Swibonics now? Besides making beatz (sic), do you also rhyme and wear your baseball hat backwards?
Why not share some of your work. If you haven't done anything yet then have a go at it. Do something creative. It might offer you some distraction from this strange obsession you seem to be having with me. Not that I'm too concerned but this must be so unrewarding and frustrating for you.
You're like my neighbor's dog who keeps pissing at the hind wheel of my car. Not that this would be annoying in any way since I don't have any fancy rims or whitewall tires. To the contrary, I can't help but be amused at how this dog day after day comes strutting all this way over to our house just to piss at that same old wheel. It's a flawed analogy though because firstly: I really like dogs and secondly: Don Canello how he is called could just have a crush on our three female dogs so there might actually be a valid motivation for his behavior.
Nobody has to go as far as calling him scum for him to start acting like scum. That's my whole point. He does something that from a public relations perspective is delicate and he brazenly treats it like a log jammed down a throat. That's of course Frank's perogative, and trust me that I'm much more a fan of his than anything else, but that "abrasiveness" taints the good work done IMO.
I'm fine with all of that. Thanks for the explanation.
This cannot be overstated enough, and it's not just Africa. Tropical areas the world over are the least record-friendly environments out there. Africa, Central America, Colombia, Thailand, you name it. Besides just the crude environmental factors of rain, mold, rats, insects, etc etc, records get dumped whenever elders pass away, or whenever folks move and need to make room. While people like Frank are not knights in shining white armor saving the imperiled cultural heritage of societies who no longer care, it really does need to be pointed out that these records are simply not going to be around for much longer. Who knows what will get lost in the shuffle? In the USA, when folks pass away there are often swarms of record grippers at the estate sales / flea markets (and even the fucking dump, but that's another thread) looking to buy anything of vague interest or monetary value. That stuff then gets resold and recirculates through the local and global communities of record buyers. That's not to say records don't get dumped here in the states, it's just a completely different situation.
I got stories for days from my trips to Central and South America about asking people if they had records only for them to say they dumped them last month or year or whatever, and I guarantee Frank and others do too.
Aren't most diggers abrasive? I know I am lol.
Economically speaking, it's pretty much a non-issue (non-issues are really easy to defend, btw). Like someone else said in this thread, an individual digger who hauls a bunch of records out of Africa is not a multinational corporation which hauls billions in resources out of Africa.
It's the cultural issues that are actually interesting, and they're interesting because they're murky as fuck.
One could argue that Frank is helping to preserve a dying culture.
"(non-issues are really easy to defend, btw)"
Please help me see the sense in this statement
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I have absolutely no reason and most and for all not the slightest bit of motivation to defend myself in front of anybody. I do what I want and what I enjoy doing. Anybody has a problem with that, I recommend the following: Go to the most remote place you can possibly reach, far away from any city, town, village or road. Hike into a vast desert or climb up to the top of the highest mountain you can find. Wait for a completely windless night. Be perfectly still and listen very closely. What you will hear is the sound of me not giving a shit.
At the same time I have no problem to answer any questions. However don't confuse my readiness to explain what I do for an attempt to defend what I do. There is nobody outside a very small circle of close friends whose opinion has any kind of relevance to me.
Exploitation: "the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work."
I buy records and I do with them what they were made for: Records were meant to be played. Played for private enjoyment but also played by djs in clubs and on the radio. There was profit to be made by selling these records, otherwise nobody would have pressed them and there was popularity and employment to be gained by the artists. In many cases these records were pressed in quite impressive quantities. Albert Jones from the Freedom Family told me how he was given 1.000 free copies of their album by EMI for him an the band to sell at their gigs. At the time the Freedom Family resided in Kano and they sold out of these 1.000 records within 6 weeks which combined with the thought that no record company would give away more than 10% of the pressing volume as promo copies gives you an idea of how many records must have been sold in those days. Today this is a very rare record. It's rare because most people threw their records away.
Just last week I asked my friend in Lagos about the owner of a certain Nigerian record label. His response: "yes, i know him but i stop going to him when he destroyed thousands of records which he at first sold all the picture covers and later gave out the records to the waste management of Anambra state to destroy."
What I buy, collect, play out and reissue is old pop music. It was created as a result of foreign influences mixing with older, local styles. These records are the result of cross-cultural exchange and local musical evolution. None of these records would have been made without evil white people bringing studio- and pressing equipment into Africa. Not even speaking of electronic and brass instruments. What ethno-musical purists might call cultural imperialism probably started with people bringing foreign records into West Africa. Foreign records containing soul, funk, jazz and rock music that again would have never been created without traditional African music as their root. In Sierra Leone for example American country music was hugely popular and most people fail to recognize that even country music has some African influence. Did you know that the banjo originates from Africa?
The whole argument that reissuing African funk or rock records would mis-represent African culture is stupid. Go on ebay and see how most and by far the cheapest African records you will find easily available are not afrobeat, funk or rock but Soukous, Highlife, Juju which by the way all three also are pop music and use Western instruments and a variety of international influences. More traditional styles and field recordings are also readily available, plentiful and cheap. Ask anybody dealing with used African records and they'll tell you that most of these records are not exactly the hottest commodity. Are niche DJs like me to blame for playing out African funk records to an audience of a couple of hundred people at a time, thereby hindering them from developing a healthy interest in soukous, rumba or palmwine music? So go ahead and throw a rumba party. Or if you think any particular musical style is under-represented on the reissue market then go and re-issue those records.