美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Uproot,' A DJ Traces Modern Music's Tangled Family Tree

In 'Uproot,' A DJ Traces Modern Music's Tangled Family Tree

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Jace Clayton travels the world looking for new sounds in home studios in Morocco, at teen parties in Mexico. Performing as DJ /rupture, he incorporates them into his work.

(SOUNDBITE OF DJ /RUPTURE SONG, "CARDOPUSHER")

CORNISH: Throughout his travels, he's found that digital technology has profoundly changed how music is produced in the farthest reaches of the globe. That's the subject of his book "Uproot: Travels In 21st-Century Music And Digital Culture."

And there's no way to talk about 21st century music without of course talking about Auto-Tune. I asked Clayton how the software went from a secret audio engineering tool to fix bad notes to a global pop production staple.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BELIEVE")

CHER: (Singing) I need time to move on. I need to love to feel strong.

CORNISH: And yeah, we started in 1998 with Cher.

JACE CLAYTON: You know, it's - it created a new sound. The way it works is it goes in there and actually alters, you know, the waveforms of your voice. So it's this very intimate and strange modulation with technology, and it excites the ears in a way that few other things do.

CORNISH: And it becomes essentially a cosmetic tool - right? - as people know, almost a joke in the U.S. But you found it adopted in another scene, and that is a Berber community in Morocco. And this is a community that is actually known for being somewhat isolated culturally. So, like, how did they get Auto-Tune, right?

(LAUGHTER)

CORNISH: And what was their music tradition before?

CLAYTON: Yeah, so the closest I found to an origin story is that a popular French film in 2000, 2001 had a scene in which an Arabic woman is in a cafe. And then they play a song, and that song has Auto-Tune.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing in Arabic).

CLAYTON: And that people were watching this movie, and then that was like, wow, that sort of set the fire there, you know? That set them onto Auto-Tune. And then one of the reasons why I'm so interested in Auto-Tune is because it wasn't physical. It was first distributed as software. And so what that means for producers in far-flung locations is that you can buy it online. You could find a cracked copy, which was very likely the case there. But so it's no longer the situation where distribution is an issue.

CORNISH: It seems as though women singers - it's applied to their voice more often than not.

CLAYTON: Yes.

CORNISH: And here is an example from a performer Hafida.

(SOUNDBITE OF HAFIDA SONG, "YOUCHKAD ZINE")

CLAYTON: So again, traditional kind of string instruments, percussion. This is wedding music like it would have sounded in the '80s, in the '90s. And then once she starts singing, you're going to really hear it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOUCHKAD ZINE")

HAFIDA: (Singing in foreign language).

CLAYTON: There we go.

CORNISH: Whoa.

CLAYTON: Human voice. And yet it's taken to the very edge.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOUCHKAD ZINE")

UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in foreign language).

CLAYTON: Call and response - this is her background chorus, less Auto-Tuned. And now she comes in again.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOUCHKAD ZINE")

HAFIDA: (Singing in foreign language).

CORNISH: So how did seeing how it's used in these other communities make you feel differently about it?

CLAYTON: It really opened me up to the way in which even the sort of Western, widespread global technology - it's never totalizing.

CORNISH: Totalizing meaning what?

CLAYTON: Oh, it's not just one size fits all. It's not just like pouring ketchup on everything on the dinner plate, you know? It's like, people are listening to Auto-Tune differently in different countries and different regions within the countries and in the way it means differently to them.

(SOUNDBITE OF HAFIDA SONG, "YOUCHKAD ZINE")

CORNISH: Now, in the book, you write about another kind of musical journey, and this was in northern Mexico, the town of Monterrey, where you encountered a music called tribal...

CLAYTON: Yes.

CORNISH: ...Essentially. First, what is this? Like, where did this come from?

CLAYTON: It is - I mean, it's young Mexican kids using, you know, electronic music software and laptops to make this music. But it draws on their very specific location in North Mexico. So on the one hand, they're listening to their parents', their, like, older siblings' sort of rodeo music, different types of Mexican country music and ballads. And that is present structurally as an influence. But then, you know, somehow psychedelic Israeli techno got really big in the rave scene in North Mexico. Not...

CORNISH: ...What? Say that whole sentence again.

CLAYTON: I know, right? (Laughter).

CORNISH: Psychedelic Israeli techno...

CLAYTON: Yes.

CORNISH: ...Made the leap to Monterrey.

CLAYTON: Exactly. And they call it psycho there. That's how it translates. But that is what these kids would go to and, like, hear, you know, when they're out at the nightclubs. And so there's that, and then they're going on YouTube, and all those influences are being shaken up and thrown out in this music called tribal guarachero.

CORNISH: Here's one example from Erick Rincon.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MEXICO TIERRA AZTECA")

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Tierra Azteca.

CLAYTON: And right there the woman said, you know, tierra Azteca, like, Aztec lands. So that's another aspect. They're also thinking back to a sort of indigenous past of Mexico and kind of reimagining that. So there's this whole sort of Aztec imaginary with jungle sounds and sampling of pre-Hispanic instrumentation that's also present in this music.

CORNISH: Kind of imagining this history and calling response to it.

CLAYTON: Yes, exactly. And so I was like, this is what happens when, you know, the ideas of sort of musical lineage - you know, this begat that begat that - are no longer that relevant in this type of very young loop-based music.

CORNISH: In the past - and people talked about this, artists who lifted from communities that they encountered, right? Or artists - people will say, well, this person actually stole this sound from X, Y and Z. But you even ask, like, essentially, how do you share a music scene without ripping out its heart?

CLAYTON: That's a key question precisely because it's so easy for someone, you know, a thousand miles away from Monterrey to do a quick search and say, oh, I can make that. And you sort of mimic the music structurally, but with no knowledge of all the various conditions that gave rise to it.

CORNISH: Were there any examples from the book that did cross that line?

CLAYTON: (Laughter) Yeah, it's one of the - I mean, I'm mostly talking about moments of creation, but I do have a few moments where I dip into, like, let's look at the music industry. For example, there's a chapter on what I call world music 2.0, but I discuss how this whole term of world music was an industry phrase. You know, it came out of a meeting with record label executives in 1987 in London. They were saying "Graceland" was a huge hit, Paul Simon's "Graceland." There's a niche, but how can we market it? You know, should we call it hot? Should we call it tropical? And in the end, they went for world music.

CORNISH: What? That's how that happened?

CLAYTON: That's how it happened, yeah. The notes are online. It's totally fascinating to see.

CORNISH: So "Graceland" - you know, you have this American artist who is working with artists from South Africa and, like, bringing this sound, a very well-known sound. What was it called before it was called world music?

CLAYTON: Yeah. Yeah, that was just it. They're like, customers want it. We don't know how to categorize it. You know, this is a fusion album. What is this?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GRACELAND")

PAUL SIMON: (Singing) I'm going to Graceland, Graceland in Memphis, Tenn. I'm going to Graceland.

CORNISH: So how do you come to think of the term world music today?

CLAYTON: When I think of world music, it's people all over the world now have these inexpensive digital tools, and they're using those to express themselves musically and sort of connect with the world and fold in all these influences in a way that was never before possible.

CORNISH: Well, Jace Clayton, DJ /rupture, thank you so much for speaking with us.

CLAYTON: Thank you, Audie. It's been a pleasure.

CORNISH: Jace Clayton. His debut book is called "Uproot: Travels In 21st-Century Music And Digital Culture."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "INTENTALO")

3BALLMTY: (Singing in Spanish).