Examining the Significance and Controversies of Paul Simon's Graceland (33 1/3)

 Paul Simon's Graceland (33 1/3 Africa) by Kalvin Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh 

Paul Simon's Graceland cover

Author Kalvin Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of one of the latest entries into the 33 1/3 series. As the series has expanded to focus on music from different regions of the world, this entry is from the Africa series and focuses on Paul Simon’s Graceland. Although the album is by a famed American musician, Paul Simon, Graceland remains an iconic and celebratory album for featuring many African and specifically South African musicians who were not well known to many American audiences due to the restrictions imposed on South Africa’s apartheid government and the not-yet invented genre of “world music”. In fact, as author Kalvin Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh examines the album, Graceland was largely responsible for helping to popularize this genre that incorporated music from other countries, which often featured traditional instruments, cultural melodies and rhythms, and lyrics frequently song in languages other than English. Although Graceland is often celebrated as a landmark album, Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh explores some of the questionable practices that Simon engaged in to take full writing credits and denying royalties to many of the musicians who collaborated on the album and were integral to shaping the sound. As a result, Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh provides a critical analysis of the creation and content of the album, providing readers (and listeners) with a well-rounded view of the plaudits and problems with this iconic 80s album.

While I’m not a huge Paul Simon fan, I do remember this album and having a copy of the cassette that I obtained from the Columbia House Record Club (a penny for 12 tapes). The album wasn’t one of my favorites from that collection, but I loved “You Can Call Me Al” and many of the songs were unlike other music that I was familiar with. Just as Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh explains, this album was much different from Simon’s other music and much of the music that was popular during the 1980s. However, Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh provides some examples of Simon’s own forays into genre music, with a reggae themed album in the early 1970s that enlisted Jimmy Cliff’s band and resulted in a hit song “Mother and Child Reunion”. I enjoyed learning that Simon struggled with adapting to the rhythms of reggae and seemed challenged by the Jamaican musicians he worked with. While it shows that Simon was exploratory and experimental, it also possibly demonstrates his potential to appropriate music from other cultures to sell records, a charge that Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh revisits in the later chapters of the book after Graceland’s release.

In addition, I didn’t know that Paul Simon was married to Carrie Fisher, and that Graceland was the album that followed his divorce from the actress. As Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh mentions, the divorce left Simon rather dejected and depressed, and it was through a friend sending him some zydeco and accordion music that piqued Simon’s interest in the music of South Africa. While Simon sought to learn more about the music of South Africa, it’s important to remember that artists were largely not allowed to perform there due to its apartheid system of government. In fact, many businesses also boycotted South Africa, so Simon had to figure out how to work with these musicians. In any event, he was able to establish a diverse group of musicians not just from South Africa, but from other African nations who were able to contribute to the sound of the album.

Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh then goes to explore the album’s tracks and analyze the lyrical and musical content. I appreciated this analysis as Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh takes the time to not just examine the lyrical content (despite not having copyright access to the lyrics), but also the rhythms, melodies, and other musical components of the tracks to provide an in depth and detailed analysis of the music. Furthermore, Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh also analyzes the cover art work, which is a 15^th century image of Saint George, from Ethiopia. Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh explores the significance of this choice to represent an Ethiopian artist on the cover, but also a Christian saint who is largely represented and symbolic for many different cultures and countries, providing a kind of global appeal to many different audiences.

While Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh explores the cultural significance of the album, he also notes the controversy in the album as its recording process violated the boycott of working in South Africa, although Simon claimed he was supporting and working with the artists and not the government. What was more troubling, though, was that Simon selectively shared songwriting credits on some of the tracks, but kept sole writing credits for most of the songs on the album. This caused some friction with some of the musicians who claimed that their music and compositions largely crafted the sound and lyrical content of the songs, as Simon would often pen lyrics after the music was finished. In particular, Los Lobos, who didn’t perform on the album, claimed that they worked in the studio to generate ideas, but were ultimately not included in the final recording; however, part of their music was used in one of the songs, which resulted in some hard feelings for the band. It’s hard to imagine that Los Lobos, who were not well known at the time, would challenge a major artist like Paul Simon, but Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh’s reporting shows how Simon used the large record company system to his benefit to create this album. It left me somewhat cynical about this album; while I recognize its importance in widening the scope and sound of world artists, helping to usher in and bring attention to artists from different cultures and countries, it does seem like Simon took advantage of the system that rewards famous artists and didn’t necessarily compensate the artists he collaborated with appropriately. While Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh notes that many of the artists were able to tour with Simon and eventually establish recording contracts and tours of their own, it still seems like they were largely left out of the benefits from a culturally significant album like Graceland.

I enjoyed reading this entry into the 33 1/3 series, and Schmidt-Rimpler Dinh’s analysis of all facets of the album- from composition to rhythm and lyrics and its controversies- helped me appreciate and re-evaluate the album. Recommended!  

Powerful and Relevant Essay Collection: Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

 Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas cover

Author, scholar, activist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Many thanks to The New Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s last book before he passed. Although I was saddened to learn about the passing of Kenya’s most prominent thinkers, writers, and advocates, I was excited to find this collection of writings and essays available for review. I greatly appreciate The New Press allowing me to review the book in exchange for my honest opinion. I first encountered Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s work in my undergraduate studies, reading A Grain of Wheat in an amazing World Literature course. A Grain of Wheat stood out as one of the most powerful and transformative books that I read. At the time, I hadn’t been completely familiar with Kenya’s fight for independence, but Ngũgĩ’s characters brought this struggle and its challenges to light in a meaningful and poetic way. Furthermore, my professor, Dr. Awuyah, made the readings so compelling and engaging, and A Grain of Wheat remains one of the most memorable from that course even years later.

I was also attracted to the title of this book as it focused on decolonization and language, two ideas that are incredibly appealing and interesting to me. The first part of the book, Decolonizing Language, focuses on that subject, providing examples and ideas of the power of the language and how colonization, and in particular language rules and imperialism seek to eradicate culture, beliefs and indigenous knowledge. Ngũgĩ provides examples throughout history of how countries sought to dominate and control through imposing a dominant language while limiting indigenous languages. It’s an important idea that is often neglected or forgotten, especially as more and more languages die every year. I was both surprised and excited to find that he used the example of Ireland as one of the first colonial linguistic experiments in Europe, and yet, he acknowledged that great Irish writers like Yeats and Joyce are often included in English literature Canons despite the attempted eradication of Gaelic, their native language. The idea of language and power is also represented in both writers’ work, as it is in other Irish authors like Brian Friel, whose play Translations, dealt with the kinds of issues Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o brings up about language, memory, culture, and the power of naming. While there are many important ideas and themes that emerged from Ngũgĩ’s essays, I found two to be highly important. First, “Language conquest, unlike the military form, wherein the victor must subdue the whole population directly, is cheaper and more effective: the conqueror only has to invest in capturing the minds of the elite, who will then spread submission to the rest of the population.” While Ngũgĩ is referring to nation and culture, I think this idea is relevant and applicable to our current situation in the US, and in many ways further represents the kind of cultural and generational shifts that are occurring through different means of communication as we shift into accessing more information through social media and other digital formats. In many ways, it feels like there is a kind of linguistic battle occurring where forces are arguing about the nature of facts, representation, accessibility, and knowledge. I appreciated Ngũgĩ’s call to continually keep language and culture alive through reading, writing, and orality. The other idea that seemed highly important was pulled form historical examples in British colonies, especially in India, where English became “the language of education in order to form a class of ‘interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and intellect.’” While Ngũgĩ’s examples represent the colonial use of education to create an educated class that still remained separate from the ruling class, with some privileges, yet never completely integrated, it’s also reminiscent of much of the ideological battles that are occurring now in education, and how the dominant culture currently in power is seeking to reshape American’s access to education with spurious claims of ideological capture and indoctrination. It almost seems like there is an invention of pseudoscientific terms to create fearmongering in order to shift ideologies. We see how language and education are used in these kinds of ways to dominate and eliminate ideas that are deemed threatening or counter the ruling class. Nevertheless, Ngũgĩ notes that “The colony of the mind prevents meaningful, nationally empowering innovations in education,” which seems to be the goal. Rather than innovate and encourage free and critical thinking, we are moving more towards this kind of colonial mentality where recitation and memorization are more important than independent thought and ideas. Actually, Ngũgĩ differentiates between education, which he notes as more like conditioning and knowledge, which he defines as an addictive element to an individual.

Another great essay in the book focused on the role of the University in a Global Community, and again, I felt like there was so much to take away and apply from this essay. It’s also interesting to see the university from Ngũgĩ’s perspective, as someone who helped shape disciplinary studies in African and American universities, calling for the shift away from “English” departments to “Literature” departments that sought to be more inclusive and diverse. As he notes “the university has a great role to play. Just as the university hosts different disciplines, which, while pursuing their particularity, should be in dialogue with one another, the university should be the modern patron of an intellectual discourse among languages and cultures. No university should be proud of monoculturalism or monolingualism. Building bridges between even apparently irreconcilable viewpoints is an important function of the university.” I loved this quote and this entire essay that focuses on the ways in which universities provided additive knowledge to students in order to further enhance their perspectives and viewpoints. Although Ngũgĩ’s experience, fighting for the inclusion of African, Asian, and other writers not often represented in the canon, is different, his words are a reminder of how powerful the role of the university remains in American life, and the ways that current policies are intending to shift towards this kind of monoculturalism and, as Chimanda Ngozi Adichie warns, the dangers of a single story. If anything, Ngũgĩ’s words and essay are an important reminder of how powerful and transformative the university can be both on an individual and a societal level.

The second half of the book, from chapters 7 through 20, focus on “Voices of Prophecy,” and discuss many of Ngũgĩ’s contemporaries and colleagues. I’m not sure whether the chapter on Achebe was meant to be funny, but Ngũgĩ discusses how after Things Fall Apart, every African writer became Achebe, where even he and his son were both mistaken for Achebe. It’s a funny story, but also somewhat troubling in that a scholar of African literature didn’t even know what Achebe’s age or appearance were like. Other essays detail his relationship to other well-known African writers, and their struggles writing in English or switching to their native languages. Ngũgĩ’s experiences as a political prisoner in Kenya are also a reminder of how powerful and subversive literature can be, and how the artist can also be a source of resistance and rebellion against politically powerful individuals. There is a lot to consider in these chapters as well, and I enjoyed learning more about Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s career and collaborations with other writers, especially as he sought to diversify Literary studies and make them more inclusive.

This was an excellent collection, one that I will revisit and would consider using for the classroom. There are many great essays in here, and I as someone who studied African literature in college, I found these texts particularly relevant and meaningful. Furthermore, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s experience challenging the colonial mindset—seeking to decolonize not just nations, but also mentalities, is an important reminder about the role of language and knowledge in this kind of colonizer mindset. I was surprised and excited at how relevant and powerful these essays are in the current landscape. Highly recommended!