AS on Music Theory Print

Ashiqs of Azerbaijan

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

In today’s encyclopedic dictionaries the word Ashiq, which means “one who is in love”, is derived from the Arabic and Persian. Some encyclopedias define Ashiq as a folk singer-poet of Caucasus and neighboring nations. In addition to songs of his own, in repertory, Ashiq includes epic tales and folk songs.

Early origins#

The earliest traces of Turkic-speaking ashiqs in general can be found in the 14th century book named Book of Dede Korkut, which contains the most famous epic stories of the Oghuz Turks. From the 16th century onward, Azerbaijani-speaking ashiqs appeared and they have been the bearers and guardians of the languages they spoke, and the music performed in weddings, parties and folk festivals. During the 20th century, ashiq performances on concert stages, the radio and television became common.

Asian American hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fresh Kid Ice and 2 Live Crew#

In 1984, three members of the U.S. Air Force, while stationed at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California, formed the rap group 2 Live Crew known to have popularized Miami Bass, a subgenre of hip hop music. This included the DJ David “Mr. Mixx” Hobbs, and two rappers Yuri “Amazing Vee” Vielot, and Christopher Fresh Kid Ice Wong Won (1964–2017). Wong Won would become known as the first Asian rapper, his ethnicity is Afrochinese, his family is mostly from Hong Kong and both of his grandmothers were African. In many of his raps, he gave himself the nickname Chinaman. After releasing a successful independent single, the group caught the attention of a Florida-based music promoter and DJ named Luther Campbell invited the group to work with him there. Vielot would quit the group shortly after. They then released the lyrically sexually charged single called “Throw The D” in January 1986 gave a permanent blueprint to how future Miami bass songs were written and produced. At the time Fresh Kid Ice was the only MC in the group and featured on the track. The fact that he was alone made him the first Miami Bass Rapper. It is rumored that he coined the term Miami Bass as well. Shortly after, Campbell would join the group as the hype man and Brother Marquis took over Amazing Vee’s place. The 2 Live Crew’s debut album The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are (1986), and their second Move Somethin (1988) both went Gold and were comedic albums with sexually explicit lyrics. Fresh Kid Ice and his group mate became American rap superstars of that area. The group became notorious, influential, and legendary in 1989 with their third album As Nasty As They Wanna Be, along with its hit single “Me So Horny”, proved more controversial still, leading to legal troubles getting obscenity charges for both 2 Live Crew and retailers selling the album (all charges were eventually overturned on appeal in the 1990s). The controversy lead to the album going double platinum.Fresh Kid Ice, would make two more best selling albums with 2 Live Crew before disbanding in 1991. In 1992, he made his first solo album The Chinaman. The Chinaman is the first American hip hop album to embrace an Asian heritage. It inverts Asian stereotypes into prideful declarations of self-identity. On the Billboard 200, it peaked at No. 38 and stayed two weeks on the Heatseekers Albums, and was No. 56 for ten weeks on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Various reunions of the 2 Live Crew would occur. All the albums produced from that point would chart, but all them would have one or two members of the original line up missing, however Fresh Kid Ice was the only one always present until the last official 2 Live Crew album The Real One in 1998. In the early 2000s Fresh Kid Ice released three albums: Still Nasty (2000), Stop Playin (2003), and Freaky Chinese (2004). Due to the graphic sexual nature of his lyrics, his music video could only be played on BET Uncut. Freaky Chinese is noted to be the first album where Flo Rida performed, whom he discovered and hired on to be his hypeman. In the mid 2000s Fresh Kid Ice and Brother Marquis decided to relaunch 2 Live Crew. They toured and released singles. Fresh Kid ice left 2 Live Crew in 2016, and died in 2017 due to health issues.

Asian hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Philippines#

The Philippines is known to have had the first hip-hop music scene in Asia since the early 1980s, largely due to the country’s historical connections with the United States The intimate relationship between hip-hop culture and the large Filipino American community along the United States West Coast naturally resulted in the exportation of rap music back to the Philippines. Numerous cassette tapes, videos, books and magazines concerning hip hop issues and popular rap artists would be sent out by Filipinos to family members back in the islands. The towns and barrios surrounding the numerous American military bases that were scattered throughout that country such as Clark Air Base in Angeles City and Subic Bay Naval Base in Olongapo were among the earliest to be exposed to the culture; as contact with African-American, Filipino American and Latino servicemen resulted in some of the earliest exposure the locals had to the new musical genre. In 1980, singer and stand-up comedian Dyords Javier would record “Na Onseng Delight”, and Vincent Dafalong “Ispraken Delight”. They are known to be the first rap records from Asia. Hip hop films such as Wild Style (1982), Breakin (1984) and Krush Groove (1985) were also major influences; and as early as 1982 local break-dancing crews were starting to emerge. Local parks and malls in and around the Metro Manila area became mainstays and training grounds for future recording artists.

Asian Underground

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the 1980s, performances of folk music evolved into the bhangra music genre, which would later become more mainstream in the 1990s and 2000s. In the 1990s, Asian underground was considered hip and broke through to the mainstream, with artists such as Apache Indian and Cornershop frequently entering the UK charts, with the former’s “Boom Shack-A-Lak” (1993) appearing in many popular movies and the latter topping the charts with “Brimful of Asha” in 1998. The genre and other forms of South Asian music began to influence Europe’s pop mainstream as acts like Björk, Erasure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees all released singles or remixes featuring South Asian instrumentation. Talvin Singh, known for his innovative fusion of Indian classical music with drum and bass, subsequently won a Mercury Music Prize for his album OK in 1999. Asian underground music initially had only little influence on popular Indian music on the sub-continent, where it was usually branded under world music. While several Asian underground artists such as Apache Indian, Trickbaby and Bally Sagoo gained fame in India, it was only after Panjabi MC’s international hit “Mundian To Bach Ke” that British-Asian underground music could compete with domestic Indian artists like Shankar Mahadevan and Remo Fernandes, in addition to attracting worldwide audiences. It was followed by the globally successful Rishi Rich Project, consisting of producer Rishi Rich and artists Jay Sean, Mumzy Stranger, Juggy D and Veronica Mehta. They were one of the first groups to fuse Bhangra music with contemporary R&B and found tremendous success in India after their songs were featured in mainstream Bollywood soundtracks such as Boom, Kya Kool Hai Hum and Hum Tum. Since then, Asian underground music has exerted some influence on mainstream Indian pop music. Asian underground music has also influenced mainstream American hip hop, R&B and urban music in the 2000s, including artists such as Timbaland, Truth Hurts, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott and Britney Spears. According to DJ Green Lantern, “Indian beats have now become a fixture on the R&B scene”. Music produced by the Asian Dub Foundation has also been featured on the soundtracks for popular video games such as Need For Speed Underground. Several former Asian underground artists such as M.I.A. and Jay Sean have gone on to achieve mainstream success in the North American music industry, where they produced mainstream songs such as “Paper Planes” and “Down” that have charted highly on (and in the latter case, topped) the Billboard Hot 100.

Aṣíkò

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

It developed originally as a type of syncretic street drumming in port towns throughout Anglophone West Africa. By the 1920s it was also played by musicians inland in Yoruba towns like Abęokuta and Ibadan. Isaac O. Delano gives a detailed description of an aṣíkò ensemble in the 1930s: Another popular native dance is the “Ashiko”. It is not a Yoruba dance in its origin, but was imported from Sierra Leone or somewhere that way. The “Ashiko” dance is chiefly performed by Christian people, and has only one kind of music, rather quicker than the “Sakara” . . . and resembles a fox-trot. No stringed instruments are employed, only drums and a carpenter’s saw, used occasionally to make a kind of noise on its sharp edge, as an embellishment to “Ashiko” drum music. Sometimes a bottle is also used, a nail beating time on it, for the same purpose. The drummers, five in number, all beat similar drums, and produce a continuous volume of music. The dancing is done by pairs, two ladies and two gentlemen facing each other. The drummers sing as in the “Sakara” dance with chorus boys, but no one else sings with them (Delano 1937 1973:157)." Aṣíkò music has its origins in the music of Sierra Leonean repatriates, from the West Indian colonies, who themselves had been influenced by Afro-Brazilian samba music. The wooden frame drums used in aṣíkò music and the carpenter’s saw, were introduced by the Aguda, who introduced modern carpentry techniques to the Yoruba artisans. Often, elderly informants use the terms aṣíkò and sámbà interchangeably. Aṣíkò was popular in Accra, the capital of the Gold Coast Colony before World War I. Other influences are also possible from Dahomean, Liberian and West Indian immigrants. Lagos was a breeding ground for young Christian musicians playing aṣíkò music. They developed and rehearsed their own versions of holiday songs, for various festivals around Christmas, etc. Then when the day arrived they would take to the streets and compete. With the elders as judges, the best group would take home a cash prize. The aṣíkò drum, a square frame drum, complete with tuning pegs, was perfect for marching in a parade. It was hand held, lightweight and easy to play with one hand. The drums are made in different sizes and played using interlocking rhythms, which create a driving beat that’s difficult to resist as the band marches through the streets. Delano noted European musical influences, since there is no call and response tradition within this genre. The drummers themselves are the singers.

Assyrian folk-pop music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Assyrian folk music claims to be the descendant of the music of their ancient Upper Mesopotamian ancestors that has survived in the liturgical music of the Syriac Churches. Assyrian songs are generally sung in Iraqi Koine, a standard variety of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. However, older songs mostly had an Urmian dialect and tribal-folk music tend to contain Tyari dialects. Themes tend to focus on longing, melancholy, strife and love issues. Assyrian songs are usually lengthy, tending to be around 5 minutes long on average.