Critical Reading Review 8

Werthman, Christine. “Alan Lomax, Beyoncé, and Sampling Sounds from the Jim Crow South,” Genius, Genius.com, 28 April 2016, Web, April 16 2016. https://genius.com/a/alan-lomax-beyonce-and-sampling-sounds-from-the-jim-crow-south

 Summary
This article discussed Beyoncé's use of samples in her song "FREEDOM," specifically those from Alan Lomax. Starting in the 1930's, Lomax started recording "slice of life scenes from black America" during the Jim Crow era. The first sample is a reverend preaching while a choir rehearse in the background and the second one is of a prisoner from the Mississippi State Penitentiary singing "Stewball." Lomax has been criticized for exploiting minorities and misportraying the sonic landscape of black America through what he chose to record. He would mostly only record gospel, spirituals and the blues and ignored anything he saw as influenced by white music, which sounds a bit like how ethnomusicologists treated Bali's music. They tried to preserve the original sound and tried to ignore the changes the western world had already initiated (see the article on Teletubbies in Bali).

 Discussion Question:
If you had already heard the song "FREEDOM" prior to learning about the origins of Beyoncé's samples, did learning about Alan Lomax's contribution to the song influence your perception of it?

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