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"hollow bones" David Blandy In front of the recording camera, David Blandy has a soul classic played on a simple record player, and is moving his lips synchronously. Despite the emotional music, he stays completely untouched by this playback. Syl Johnson’s “Is It Because I’m Black” from 1969 was the music of the Afro-American communities especially in New York, Chicago and New Orleans in the 1960s/70s. Johnson’s piece is an accusation of discrimination, marginalization and racism, and has to be regarded within the context of the Afro-American civil rights movements in the United States. Blandy, being a WASP (a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), and an artist, does not have much in common with this context, at least he does not take the position of the discriminated. When Johnson is singing and Blandy is miming, Johnson’s “my” cannot be Blandy’s “my”: “The dark brown shades of my skin only adds to the colour of my tears.” But whose “my” is it, then? Who owns the music, who listens to it, in particular since soul music is an integral part of most pop socializations, and since people love to join in the songs? The simple gesture of separating body and voice – in another work, Blandy joins in an inaudible hip-hop song – opens up an array of often discussed problems. Not least, they refer to expectations of authenticity. According to them, only someone who is “black” can sing in a “black” manner. Furthermore, “blackness” became a political slogan because of racist identification, which in turn led the white middle class to romantic projections onto the militant minority subject. Blandy’s work and his desire to appropriate this music does have overtones thereof. However, because of the detachment of body and voice, one also starts to listen closely to the words again. Thus, by identifying and at the same time not identifying with the “my”, Blandy returns the music to Johnson to a certain degree. Artist, born 1976, lives and works in London. |
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