I think UR a contra, Vampire Weekend.

While reading Susan Sontag’s “On Photography,” I listened to the new Vampire Weekend CD, Contra. At the second song on the album, “White Sky,” I perked up noticing that the instruments are exact copies of West African rhythms, melodies, and sounds. The majority of the album, in fact, is almost entirely appropriated from different types of African music. I realize that all of rock and roll and therefore the genre’s that have come out of rock and roll are the results of appropriate African music, but this album unabashedly plays African styles of music. Granted, Vampire Weekend is honest about African music being a huge influence on the band’s songs, I just can’t help but thing Susan Sontag is talking about the music streaming into my ears rather than images when she writes,

“The limit of photographic knowledge of the world is that, while it can goad conscience, it can, finally, never be ethical or political knowledge. The knowledge gained through still photographs will always be some kind of sentimentalism, whether cynical or humanist. It will be a knowledge of bargain prices—a semblance of knowledge, a semblance of wisdom; as the act of taking pictures is a semblance of appropriation, a semblance of rape. …By furnishing this already crowded world with a duplicate one of images, photography makes us feel that the world is more available than it really is.” (24).

While the quote doesn’t fit exactly in describing the CD, it does address my immediate response to it: It’s great that Vampire Weekend like this music, but at what point does their appropriation become a mockery of African music? Like Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies,” which may be referenced in the title of the VW song “White Sky,” I wonder who is missing out on the benefits of this musical mélange.

In contrast, a musician like M.I.A. brought African musicians into her music and included names on tracks. In some cases, she was more of the “back up” in songs. Those musicians have gained greater recognition as a result for being good musicians. Interestingly, there’s actually a snippet from an M.I.A. song on the track “Diplomat’s Son” from the Vampire Weekend CD. The song also features Caribbean and West African piano parts, singing parts, and bass drum rhythms.

It is definitely an interesting reminder to me that Africa is not only represented to American through images but also (possibly subconsciously) through music. What differentiates it though is that while Africa is labeled numerous negative identities through images, the more positive (though still relatively sparse) identities espoused through music are often appropriated and therefore not even recognized as being African.

Anyways, I would rather be listening to West African musicians play this music…except maybe the song “Horchata”—that one’s kind of catchy.

You can listen to some of the CD for yourself here.