Sampling Across Cultures

Graceland as a Musical, Microcosmic Artefact of South African Diaspora, Collaboration, and Disjuncture.

In 1986, Paul Simon alongside a slew of talented musicians from all over South Africa, released Graceland. The record in its existence and significance as part of a culture of musical discovery, highlights a social imaginary founded off of a communal value in collaboration. This shared , collaborative ideoscape also allowed the record to reckon with multiple disjunctures; in time, through music, and within a social sphere, at the hand of sampling. Sampling within Graceland is the mechanism for which cross-cultural exchange, an aspect of the globalisation of African-derived music, comes about. In culmination comes the argument that Graceland is a musical artefact of South African diaspora, collaboration and disjuncture.

Graceland and Appadurai; Understanding Globalisation

Appadurai looks at the world as being an “interactive system” (Appadurai 1990, p.1), that is aspects of globalisation refer to the movement and exchanges of ideas, people, and information between or across cultures. Essentially Appadurai forms a framework for understanding how disjuncture, a disconnection or repositioning of ideas, people, or information, impacts cultural practice and the creation of new imagined spaces. The world exists according to Appadurai on a foundation of displacement, collaboration, and interaction, which are concepts also highlighted in Graceland. Amongst the mechanisms for which Appadurai explores globalisation, he also posits the notion of “the imagination as a social practice” (Appadurai 1990, p.5). Simply the cultural activity that is built upon the interactions and disjunctures between the five scapes, ideoscape, technoscape, mediascape, finanscape and ethnoscape. If we apply this notion to the contextual beginnings and ideologies of Graceland, we uncover the value Simon attributes to the cultural activity of cross-cultural musical exchange; discovering the musical other, and exploring it headfirst.

Cross-Cultural Musical Exchange as an Adopted Social Imaginary; The Catalyst of Graceland

“I was given a cassette. It was called Accordion Jive Hits Vol II, by the Boyoyo Boys. I used to play this tape all the time, and after about three weeks of it I said you know this is my favourite music. I’m not interested in listening to anything else. I found out it came from South Africa.” (Paul Simon in Under African Skies 2012)

By the early 1980s, this interest in cross-cultural exchange from a compositional viewpoint was not a new tool for Simon, however Graceland made explicitly clear to a global stage his developed imagined space for surface-level, culturally distant music to interact. This “unleashing of the imagination links the play of pastiche” (Appadurai 1990, p. 5), to the cultural value of musical collaboration from both a social and aesthetic position. Musically, this translates to the sampling of ideas, influenced by a range of South African folk traditions. Sampling in this sense refers not exclusively to the electronic reproduction or manipulation as is most commonly inferred, rather includes the subversion of ideas and motifs in new musical contexts by analogue means; that is physically performing and rerecording these ideas. This was the initial intention behind ‘Gumboots’.

In 1985 Paul Simon traveled to Johannesburg to attend a studio session with the original composers of his favourite track on the Accordion Jive Hits mixtape, ‘Gumboota’ by the Boyoyo Boys. Whilst the first recorded track in the Graceland chronology, the renamed ‘Gumboots’ also catalysed the cross-cultural exchanges which blueprint a temporal reckoning with accessing South African folk music traditions and re-contextualising them within new fusions of collaborative pop music.

Marabi and Kwela Influence

Marabi is a keyboard-based style that originated in the early 20th century in mining centres of South Africa. Contextually, the influx of mines in South Africa tied into the disjuncture within displaced urban communities, that is the creation of ghettos and slums founded by “homesick migrants forced to leave their rural homes… to work long hours underground in gold and mineral mines” (BBC Four 2019). Ethnomusicologist Veit Erlmann posits that the development of folk music traditions in South Africa came from music’s affordance to reconstruct the universes of de-centred people (Erlmann 1991, p.158). Marabi has roots in Western voicings and harmony, repeating simple three chord motifs which promoted communal singing and dancing. Whilst there are no keyboards in Simon and the Boyoyo Boy’s rerecording of ‘Gumboots’, the harmonic structure is simple and there is a playfulness to the leading guitar riff commonly associated with melodic keyboard roles. This playfulness is sustained throughout the song, simultaneously referencing musical influences in Kwela music. Much like Marabi, Kwela also comes from the lower class of South Africa, as a direct musical subversion of the finanscapes which bound certain communities; it attempts to soothe or contrast these lived hardships with playful, joyous dance music. The penny-whistle is a common instrument of Kwela, and provides "a fast, continuous rhythm, which presses ahead” (Greer 2006, p.13). On ‘Gumboots’ the saxophone duets reference the penny-whistle and childlike exuberance, which at a quick tempo, certainly presses the song ahead. The song is performed in 2/4, and accented offbeats for a syncopated, dance feel.

Fluidity in Graceland Via a Shared Ideoscape

It is a shared ideoscape which blends Graceland together. The album flow isn’t thematic according to Simon; “as in a play, the mood should keep changing” (Paul Simon in Holden 1986), rather its ideological and constantly refrains cross-cultural synthesis. This is evidenced by the fact that each track samples at least one ‘other’ idea; Simon contributes his own songwriting and production skills to the record, albeit the majority of his work was building ideas around more authentic musical contributions. That is to say that Simon didn’t write African-styled riffs, he sampled pre-existing ones, or made room for his collaborators to improvise and create. The Graceland record in its entirety, wasn’t formulated on pre-existing prose or chord structures on Simon’s part, instead were founded off of studio jams and then reworked into original structures and narratives (Under African Skies 2012).

For example, ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ was written based off of an accordion riff created by Forere Motloheloa. Motloheloa who recorded the track with Simon, is from Lesotho, a landlocked country in South Africa, and is renowned for his playing; “it is beautiful, the way he plays a piano accordion. It’s the voicing, and how he’s adapting it to suit the traditional Basuto melodies” (Lebona in Under African Skies 2012). These Basuto melodies that Motloheloa integrates with ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ come from traditional Sotho music, called Famo.

Characteristics of Famo

Originating in the early 1920s in South Africa, Famo music is characterised by ululating singing accompanied by an accordion, drums and sometimes bass. Coming from the drinking dens of migrant miners, Famo integrates western harmonic structures through the use of triadic harmonies, with South African rhythms and textural structures (Levine 2005, p.136). These textural structures reference staggered musical entries, often categorised by a free, rhythmically ambiguous introduction, which is then followed by drums and bass which determine “the beat and [establish] a four-bar sequence of chords over which the entire piece” (Hamm 1995, p.141) unfolds. This is heard clearly within ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ which begins with a loosely improvised accordion idea that only reaches rhythmic solidarity with the inclusion of the kick drum 4 bars in. Again written in 2/4 the rhythmic relationships within the song are driven also by the licks played by Baghiti Khumalo on the fretless bass. One of the bass features of Famo (also shared with Mbaqanga), is that alongside their rhythmic roles within songs, they are also subverted translations of vocal lines (Meintjes 1990, p.44), similar to John Coltrane’s prayer in A Love Supreme. This can be heard in the chorus line of ‘The Boy in the Bubble’;

These are the days of miracle and wonder

This is the long distance call

The way the camera follows us in slo-mo

The way we look to us all

Although not identical, the rhythmic similarities between the vocal and bass lines provide ample evidence of how the two textures interact and connect (Greer 2006, p.29). Simon noted years later that he “realised that the guitar part was playing a different symmetry than [he had] assumed, and the bass was doing something that was more important” (Simon 2018, p.262); this is significant because Simon wrote and recorded lyrics overtop a studio session, and when his lyrical components were meshed with the guitar movements performed by Ray Phiri, the track fell apart. It was only when the prose was realigned with Khumalo that the song came into fruition and a narrative structure was formed (Simon 1986).

With regards to sampling in a more traditional, or electronic sense, ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ utilises overdubbing to give the track a wider feel. For example to deepen the sound of Motloheloa's original accordion riff, a synthesiser was added to boost the low end. Similarly, a snare sample was used atop the original drums and percussion performed by Vusi Khumalo and Jacob Childress, who make up the Famo band, Tau Ea Matsekha, alongside Forere Motloheloa. Vocal scatting and bell ornamentations can also be heard underneath the mix, as well as lead vocal bounced reverb on the line;

Think of the boy in the bubble

and the baby with the baboon heart

What this creates in full is a soundscape brimful of audible examples of the value in collaboration and exploration of culturally opposing musics that were both the result of and come together through the affordances of globalisation and movement. Musically as a result, the meshing of multiple South African musics with Western influences is typical of a wider genre of collaborative sound, Mbaqanga, which further traces aesthetic artefacts of diaspora.

Musical and Temporal Disjuncture; Isicathamiya, Mbaqanga, and Mediascapes

When Paul Simon travelled to South Africa to record, he spent just over a week in Johannesburg due to the tensions felt under the apartheid regime; “I was immediately struck by the extreme racial tension, and coming from a country that was racially tense, I was absolutely unprepared for what it felt like in the air. The law of the land was apartheid” (Paul Simon in Under African Skies 2012).

In this week the majority of the record was captured in jam sessions, ‘Diamonds on the Soles Of Her Shoes’ however was the first track on Graceland to be recorded in full on American soil. “After two takes, it was in. Because we were having so much fun already we’d developed a working relationship” (Ray Phiri in Classic Album: Graceland 1997); this relationship can be heard clearly on ‘Diamonds’ within the interactions between the main bass riff and the lead guitar — they are responding to each other melodically, and acrobatically with active and improvisatory lines. The track can be understood as an entire conversations between instruments. These conversations can be heard between other sounds too; for example the horn break after the first chorus, which is intercepted by acoustic guitar vamps, and answered at the end of the phrase by floor tom fills.

Perhaps the most striking conversation and evidence of a version of cultural sampling in this track, is the inclusion of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, an isicathamiya group from KwaZulu-Natal. The first section of ‘Diamonds’ begins with a Zulu refrain which loosely translates to “They are women, they can take care of themselves” (Simon 1986). This section is performed a cappella and falls in line with the compositional tropes of traditional isicathamiya choral music, that is homophonically tight phrasing, call and response structures, and divided into major harmonic roles (Erlmann 1987, p.5), with group leader Joseph Shabalala driving the phrases forward. Ladysmith Black Mambazo performs this section for the majority in Zulu, and converses with Simon’s English prose, before joining all together in English for the phrase;

Empty as a pocket with nothing to lose

Sing ta na na

Ta na na na

She got diamonds on the soles of her shoes

Once the instrumental introduction begins with a nod from the Soweto Rhythm Section, Ladysmith Black Mambazo doesn’t reappear until the coda. Until this point however, the track develops from its allusion to isicathamiya, and toward an expression of mbaqanga. In doing so creates a musical disjuncture; the track modulates from E major to F major, and from one South African folk music style to another.

Mbaqanga is categorised by its melting pot of aesthetic inference: it’s an artefact of diaspora and globalisation in its own right due to its fluidity and mixing of contextual musics. Also known as township jive, the origins of mbaqanga come from a rich history of collaboration, mixing American jazz, mbube and marabi together (Greer 2006, p.18). The style developed as a result of land pockets where segregated land laws weren’t at play, and offered a forum where racial integration could occur.

What is heard throughout ‘Diamonds’ that evidences mbaqanga influence is the rhythmic structures which are similar to those heard on ‘Gumboots’ (2/4 feel), as well as simple, repetitive harmonic structures, instrumental layering, and hierarchy of roles. The song is built around three chords, F which lasts two measures, which moves to a Bb and then resolves to a C whilst maintaining a simple vamp pattern. The instrumental layering is inextricably tied to the hierarchy of roles, which is developed in the textural conversations as aforementioned, but also in the relationships that the lead vocal line has with other instruments. In many western styles, especially folk rock, the vocal line drives the song both in narrative and in tone, leaving the rest of the (usually light) instrumentation as a ‘backing’. In mbaqanga however, these roles are evened out and generally highlight bass riffs alongside vocals — a common theme maintained in Graceland. Throughout the discussion between the bass and the lead guitar on ‘Diamonds’, the bass phrases continually mimic and imitate the initial a cappella motif offered by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, whilst in the coda Khumalo matches the rhythms of the concluding ta-na-na vocal refrain, before creating more interesting polyrhythmic textures. The disjuncture that is created here rests upon the existence of multiple styles, albeit this mixed aesthetic landscape in turn strengthens a cultural imaginary that reckons with the possibilities of musical collaboration.

Toward the end of the song, Simon, the band, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo join together, making the first time an isicathamiya performance had been melded with instrumental foundations. There is this new and unique blending of styles which contextually had been separate. What this shows is how kinds of sampling brings together culturally independent soundscapes; in ‘Diamonds’ there are three — isicathamiya (choral roles), mbaqanga (instrumental roles), and western folk rock (lyrics, phrasing and harmonic structures). This however signifies a larger narrative of how certain aspects of globalisation foster temporal relationships. In ‘Diamonds’ we can hear this from the very start; moving from isicathamiya which has roots in an older style of choral singing, mbube, toward mbaqanga which is a newer style of South African music, to the meshing of South African traditions with those of western folk, there evolves an ideology of how sampling and exchanging ideas from different cultures also deals with time.

Another example of this temporal reckoning is to look at the impact of mediascapes on the social imaginaries of music consumption in New York in 1986. ‘Diamonds’ was performed on Saturday Night Live, and was the first taste the public got of Paul Simon’s seventh studio album. Arguably it was also the first taste many got of South African music, as a result of both the cultural boycott of South Africa during the apartheid regime, as well as the then sheltered exposure to ‘world music’. The mediascape here refers to the distribution of information (Appadurai 1990, p. 6), afforded by television. The temporal reckoning exists as a paradox tied to this specific mediascape; that is the American public being introduced to something that has such prominent ties to ‘older’ sounds, in a setting that was promoting the release of new work.

This setting was in turn shining a light on a place that was so ravaged by political violence, that in turn questioned Simon’s political motives behind the record. It could be argued that the album is unavoidably tangled with political influence, purely as a result of the context in which it came to be. However, rightly or wrongly, Simon made clear that it was in fact not a social critique, rather a personal endeavour of musical interest;

“Graceland was not conceived in political terms: ‘… I didn’t say I’d love to bridge cultures somewhere in the world, and mmm… where? Maybe South Africa. No, I just fell in love with the music and wanted to play” (Simon in Meintjes 1990, p.39).

The majority of lyrics on Graceland have nothing to do with political commentary, they are a sampling of New York storytelling and a synthesis of western influence. However, ‘Homeless’ offers a slightly different stance because of Simon’s reduced role in the piece. It is first and foremost, a showcase of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and isicathamiya.

From Township Jive to Isicathamiya

The melody of ‘Homeless’ was lifted from the sampling of traditional Zulu wedding songs. Not an uncommon point of reference for isicathamiya groups, traditional wedding melodies also known as boloha (Erlmann 1987. p.6), were often accompanied by amakhoti (chords) and focused on a conscious display of western harmony. This harmonic influence resulted in the use of four-part harmonies among mbube and isicathamiya groups, and in turn an artefact of diaspora; remnants of the salve trade and incorporation of Christian gospel harmonic structures and major triadic relationships (Erlmann 1987, p.9).

Simon wrote lyrics that fit into an already existing Ladysmith Black Mambazo Zulu wedding-inspired song, which became the bridge call and response;

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody sing hello, hello, hello

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody cry why, why, why?

The remainder of the song however was written by Shabalala, and speaks to conventional isicathamiya themes; tropes of hardship, poverty, and the lost homestead. “The melody came from a traditional Zulu wedding song, but the new lyrics now told of people living in caves on the side of a mountain, cold and hungry, their fists used as pillows” (Simon 1986). Whilst Shabalala makes no direct reference to apartheid, “the theme of homelessness makes reference to the forced movement of black South Africans to government homelands” (Greer 2006, p.47). This implied political link evidences further temporal reckonings within Graceland as a result of movement and collaboration. We have the exploration and celebration on Simon’s part, of what came before in reference to mbube style singing and composition, as well as lyrical allusions to present contexts, and predictions of an imagined social future based simultaneously on the impact of apartheid, as well as the reception of South African music worldwide.

The Blueprint of Graceland

Appadurai posits that “the past is usually another country” (Appadurai 1990, p.4), that is accounting for the contemporary contexts in which we find ourselves as being traceable and dependent on the movements of people and ideas which came before us. Graceland is a musical phenomena which articulates this concept supremely. What the record represents is an explicit musical imaginary, as both a result of, and participation in the globalisation of South African music. From the meshing of multiple South African folk traditions which themselves are products of “the musical residues of the early phases of European colonisation” (Erlmann 1987, p.5) and thus artefacts of past cross-cultural exchanges, to the interplay of unequivocally western influences through prose and vocal phrasing, Graceland offers a window to Appadurai’s claim that “the modern world is an interactive system” (Appadurai 1990, p.1).

Alongside this artefact of diasporic musical collaboration, Graceland also presents as brimful of social, musical, and temporal disjuncture. The political backlash the record received came through disjunctive ideologies of the roles of musicians and their responsibility to cultural work, or in this case the abandoning of cultural work as an anti-apartheid stance; “It wasn’t the ideal form of cultural exchange. They weren’t free people. This situation was not about Paul Simon, it was about the liberation of the people of South Africa” (Dali Tambo in Under African Skies 2012).

The musical disjuncture comes through the use of sampling as a mechanism for both collaboration and cultural exchange, but also through the means by which Simon’s western influences and ideas were presented on the record. Apart perhaps from ‘Homeless’, Graceland doesn’t explicitly reference South African experience in its narrative. Instead it provided a soundscape in which Simon could either perform overtop, or perform within. This is as much a structural skill on Simon’s behalf as it is a subjective metaphor, and is heard in his phrasing and evolving variations throughout songs.

“That degree of listening, that was my education. That was what I learned. I learned to listen on a level that I had never experienced before” (Simon 1997).

This listening refers to a developed understanding of the intricacies of internal musical structures within the record, that is each verse instrumentation slightly varies on what had come before. For example the syllabic disparities between lines belonging to the same sections, which can be heard when comparing paired phrases from ‘Graceland’;

The Mississippi Delta (verse 1, 7 syllables)

There is a girl in New York City (verse 2, 9 syllables)

My traveling companion is nine years old (chorus 1, 10 syllables)

And my traveling companions are ghosts and empty sockets (chorus 2, 14 syllables)

The temporal disjunctures which Graceland come about as a byproduct of the social and musical contexts; that is understanding the album as a discovery, exploration, and celebration of what came before, as well as a blueprint of what was to follow. "To make a song is like writing a book. Remind the people of the olden things, and tell them about the future.” (Shabalala in Erlmann 1987, p.14); this is what Graceland did. It reminded some, but it taught most about ‘olden things’, and it provides this blueprint for what future production and collaborative behaviours could entail. It wasn’t the first of its kind, but it was massively impactful in describing a different way of ‘musicking’.

Conclusion

“In Graceland you can hear the whole phenomena of American music being rejoined with its African roots” (David Byrne in Under African Skies 2012)

Graceland was the home for an ideoscape founded off of these three disjunctures; social, musical, and political. Within this shared sphere of cross-cultural exchange through means of orthodox and unorthodox sampling, the album remains one of the most influential artefacts of musical collaboration.

Citations

Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Public Culture, 2/2 (1990): 1–24.

BBC Four. (2019, August 6). Africa: a Journey into Music. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL-5xGtSOck

Berlinger, D. (2012). Under African Skies. The Orchard Entertainment. [Video] Accessed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgW0kLJgbo0&t=4020s

Erlmann, V. (1991). African stars: Studies in black South African performance. University of Chicago Press.

Erlmann, V. (1987). “Singing Brings Joy To The Distressed”: The Social History of Zulu Migrant Workers’ Choral Competitions. The Making of Class. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39666757.pdf

Erlmann, V. (1992). “The Past is Far and the Future is Far”: Power and Performance among Zulu Migrant Workers. American Ethnologist, 19(4), 688–709. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1992.19.4.02a00040

Greer, J.D. (2006). Paul Simon’s Graceland and its Social and Political Statements on Apartheid in South Africa. [Thesis]. Accessed: https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2104/4854/Jonathan_Greer_Masters.pdf

Hamm, C. (1995). Home Cooking and American Soul in Black South African Popular Music.". Putting Popular Music in its Place.

Holden, S. (1986). Paul Simon Brings Home the Music of Black South Africa. New York Times. [Archive]. Accessed: https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/24/arts/paul-simon-brings-home-the-music-of-black-south-africa.html

Levine, L. (2005). The Drumcafe's traditional music of South Africa. Jacana Media.

Meintjes, L. (1990). Paul Simon's Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning. Ethnomusicology, 34(1), 37-73. doi:10.2307/852356

Simon, P., & Marre, J. (1997). Graceland. Eagle Rock Entertainment. [Video]. Accessed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncagXenfUKQ

Simon, P. (1986). [Liner Notes]. In Graceland [Album]. New York: Warner Bros.