[FA Worldmusic] politics and language; (redux in different context)

[Robert Singerman]

To the Julia Banzi remarks and questions, it is obvious that the  
context of music is generally political, (if not also cultural,  
sociological, economic, emotional ...) but to me, again, one of the  
main problems we have with so called world, or international music is  
who among us can actually understand the context and meaning of the  
songs, without understanding the lyrics, especially if they are in  
many different languages?

Many of the most important leaders of the world music community have  
expressed to me personally their fears that the lyrics of their  
"favorite" artists are banal, or worse, politically repulsive. My  
belief is that like one of these people discovered, when he learned  
Portuguese, (even with these same fears), that the songs of the  
artists he loved and some he hadn't even learned about yet, were  
actually exquisite and more profound, more poetic, than he could have  
imagined.

With certain new media tools being developed these days, translations  
and adaptations are coming, so that we will all be able to understand  
world and international pop music lyrics in any language.

If you are coming to CMJ, or are in NYC and want to come to a panel  
called "Say What, Music with Subtitles and International Music" with  
five leading companies in this field presenting some of these  
technologies to the music industry leaders, (Oct. 19th at 11.45 am at  
The Kimmel Center of New York University), please respond to me  
personally and I'll try to get you a panel pass, even if you are not  
registered at CMJ.

It is almost impossible as Dr. Banzi remarks, otherwise, to truly  
know exactly what is being presented consciously, although  
subconsciously, we probably have some good idea.