Themes of race, identity, and place provided a focal point to document the development of each “neighborhood” of music that we explored in the second half of this semester. Each of these musics demonstrates a multilayered cultural perspective of the people who make and consume it, emphasizing either the complexities of cultural history, cultural identity, or their interactions. The most distinctive feature of go-go is the groove. This generally takes the form of an almost-hypnotic swing, but whether swung or straight, the groove is emphasized and punctuated by many different percussion instruments, most importantly congas in addition to a drum kit. The vocals in go-go generally involve a “lead talker” who raps or freestyles over the groove,…show more content… However, each of the groups that influenced its eventual form experienced the same sort of societal exclusion, forming an identity as outsiders to the mainstream. Reggaeton is not just a pastiche of people and music, but also a symbol of the unifying thread tying them all together. Understanding Tejano music requires less focus on the scale of the locality of the music and more on the social identity of the Texas Mexican people who create it. Tejano music characterizes those who immigrated to America from Mexico, and their struggle with balancing a Mexican identity and an American one. This can be first seen through the styles of Tejano music, in dance forms—including polkas, waltzes, foxtrots, and pasodoble—and songs, focused on love, loss, or narrative poetry (corridos). In its dance forms, Tejano music utilizes European and American forms, largely focusing on the polka, a Czech form. These dances are perhaps a relic of colonization, or otherwise a symbol of attempted identity assimilation into American culture by dancing the same dances as white
