Dude watching you try to dance around the topic of race made me more uncomfortable than any racist sample ever could. Should have recorded some foley from all those eggshells you just walked on. I get why it was necessary, but lmao damn....
I'll hijack this comment to recommend checking out @faryafaraji . Really great channel if y'all want to know music (and history/theory of it) in different cultures etc.
Dogma noun a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true, such as the principle that fascists can't possibly be right. As a person with ASD, I find it unfathomable how neurotypicals can be closed to any proposition. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Aristotle
Great video... About the South Asian 'scat', and sorry if someone else addressed this already - and there are many who would know more about this than I, but in long gone generations, the path to learning something like tabla involved learning to vocalize the instrument's sounds with one's mouth, and then learning to 'sing' drumming patterns. This was done possibly for years before the student was allowed to even touch an instrument. I also really love listening to it, there is a great tabla duet between a famous father and son where they break into that. Cheers.
It’s one thing that it’s sacred, that’s more than enough on its own. It’s a whole other thing that it is vehemently denied to be music. Like music in itself is too far from sacred and dirties the call’s purpose. Even as it exists on its own it is not a song, and that’s wild.
Hi there Valentine, I am a Muslim and a huge fan of your music and sound design. When I first Heard The song with Adhan in it I didn't feel offended but instead I thought It could be a very human mistake. But also using these religious samples in music for us is prohibited and also some people say that music in general in our religion is prohibited. I hope you understand. Offence to anyone 💜
@@PreschoolFightClub Some cultures in general don't have worship songs, that's fine. The reason music is such a big part of religion in many regions is because both music and religion are engrained in human evolution. I'm sure Muslims don't exclude music from worship out of hatred for music, but rather the lack of music is meant as a form of respect. Some Muslims in other regions do perform music, just not for prayer.
0:41 I've used recordings of speeches that I vehemently disagree with as samples. I used a Ronald Reagan speech about how peace talks with Gorbachev would be easier if aliens invaded and we all had a common enemy, in a track called "The SIgns of Life" which was a prelude to an album where a kid finds out they're an alien. (It's a metaphor for me being trans and having to pick between living in a body I'm uncomfortable with or revealing my true form and becoming society's scapegoat for it.) I've also used a narration from an anti-communist propaganda film in a track called "Welcome To America" just because I thought it was kinda funny. The sarcasm isn't as obvious in that one but it's when I was in the Vaporwave scene and the whole genre is kind of satirizing how we feel nostalgia for a time of shallow consumerism.
I appreciate the way you address this. It’s often hard to determine where cultural appreciation ends and cultural appropriation begins. It’s also cool of you to try and change the samples you’ve used prior after learning about it. Respect.
It wasn't cultural appropriation. It was just haram, thus perturbing to Muslims. The suit - you know, with a tie and whatnot - is a traditional British garb, but the Chinese wear it, Japanese too, South Koreans, Americans, Brazilians, etc, etc.
I was taken aback by the title but I definitely knew it was something either funny or insightful or both and you did both. Love your attitude and generosity
The context for that chord progression is that it comes from a western tradition of racist satire of chinese people beginning in the early era of film all the way to modern day refrains, western filmmakers still use it or variations of it in screen media whenever chinese people arrive. The direct origin is a racist Aladdin stage show called The Grand Chinese Spectacle.
the only "safe" sample pack i know that has ethnic samples was "sounds of KSHMR" (idk it was truly safe or not, but it is always trending on splice, so i guess many ppl liked it)
The confusion from the title had me PANICKING lol, super interesting to see something slip through on splice, makes me wonder what else they might have missed :/ Cool video!
Is something like that something Splice should remove? I can't imagine it's inherently racist, just maybe a bit tasteless to put in a dubstep song. I could be way off base here, sorry if I am
I'm not sure if I've ever felt "left out" because a comedian didn't call my disablity out in specific. However, I am pretty receptive to humor about it because I'm an expert on my disability, or at least a lot more knowledgable and tuned in than most people are. I mean, just by virtue of living with it. There's a place for it, as long as it's done respectfully. As long as it doesn't spread harmful stereotypes or straight misinformation.
Honestly the concept of cultural appropriation is so bullcrap. That's like saying its wrong to be influenced by something you like because that's really what art is. Its the showcasing of many varied influences a person has and putting into something that can be observed or appreciated. That's like saying its cultural appropriation for non-British or non-Jamaican people to make dubstep because the genre originates from British/Jamaican genres of music. People just make up stupid stuff as an excuse to be angry at someone.
Konokkol is the indian classical (Carnatic) equivalent of call and response beat verbalising! Please use it as much as you want - From an Indian fan! Love your music and tutorials!
Yo, VR, that Konnacal style of singing is actually rhythmic solfage for Indian Classical Music. It's literally to rhythm, what do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do is to notes.
carnatic music is so cool, it's pretty much very heavily rooted with hinduism and storytelling in general. these musicians from all those years ago figured out how to teach and play instruments such as the dhol, ghatam, or even the sita or their voices with vocal notations rather than things like written out notation like sheet music for example. The samples you had are essentially verbal notations on how to play a percussive instrument, a percussionist would listen to that and play the drums in the same timing as that (totally bastardising this explanation hahahah). Same with how vocalists will sing their melodies with the notation they use for scale. Similar to how the western world uses do, re, me, ... carnatic notation is sa, re, gha, ma, ... i also think their scales are different? but that needs some more reading on my behalf. watch the NPR Tiny Desk with Shakti, super cool and modern take on a very classical sound!
You started the story and i knew exactly where it was going. The same thing happened to Koji Kondo when hr made the music for Zelda Ocarina of Time. Later versions of the game removed the call to prayer sample
3:30 I don’t get most of what’s wrong with what most (or some I’m not sure of the amount) people define as cultural appropriation. Most of the time, it’s people wrongly defining it over a person from one culture trying to enjoy another. I get if one person is actively being racist and degrading, but we should strive to be able to combine our cultures and share what we know, and how we live. Cultural eradication is a bad thing, but that is not the same as humanity growing together. Hell, even racist jokes and o the mean spirited forms of comedy are usually fine if not aimed directly at some innocent person or being directly harmful, they should remain as obvious jokes. What you said about intention and context was well put. To me, gatekeeping ideas and locking things behind culture is in itself kind of racist. In the end, the only difference between people is the ideas they hold and appearance. In short, don’t spread racist misinformation, but also don’t take everything too seriously. Enjoy what the earth has to offer. We all live here together, why lock each other off from great experiences?
And if you are worried about racist samples, put them all together into one project to delegitimize them. They can’t be taken seriously if there’s not a hint of hate. Not everyone will get it, but that’s fine, things will always be misinterpreted.
I had a similar situation. I'm from Russia and I don't know English very well. I mostly use a translator. I wrote a nice track once and decided to add vocals there. I took the vocals from some sample pack. And it's good that I converted the voice from the sample to the text! Because when I found out what the author was singing about, I immediately went and deleted that sample. I had such a pretty cute track where that sample sounded very good melodically. But the text sang about drugs, obscene expressions and so on. That's why it's worth checking what sounds you use in your music!)
Fun fact about the Indian Taka Takita Takadimi stuff is it’s actually also used pretty often for rhythm counting practice in western music, especially when dealing with odd time signatures / tuplets :)
I love Virtual Riot a lot, but seriously, every day he is more perfect, even though he is someone outside of racist stereotypes. This boy is perfect, my rolemodel
skrillex meinte letztens im grammy interview, der beste tipp den er je bekommen hat war „exchange wisdom for energy“, also nach dem motto „mach was sich richtig anfühlt und nicht was korrekt ist“. findest du wirklich man sollte bei den samples so sehr drauf achten was der kontext ist? ich mein klar, irgendwie wundert es mich nicht bei den aktuellen politischen diskussionen, dass menschen sich sogar durch samples in dubstep songs getriggert fühlen, nur weiß ich nicht ob es der richtige kreative ansatz ist ne recherche zu starten oder einen nativen übersetzer zu finden, nur um eine stimmung einzufangen. letztendlich führt es doch dazu, dass man im zweifel eher auf solche samples verzichtet um kein risiko einzugehen und das finde ich schade.
wenn das Sample so wichtig fuer den Song ist dann finde ich sollte es das wert sein herauszufinden was in dem Sample gesagt/gesungen wird ^^ sonst gibts nachher noch Samplepacks wo absichtlich in indisch oder chinesisch richtig bloede Sachen gesagt werden nur damit dann die Leute die die Samples verwenden doof dastehen ;D
You may have known this or not, but a very similar situation happened with the Zelda Ocarina of Time soundtrack, where one of the sample CDs contained Muslim call to prayer and Kondo Koji did not realize what it was but used it in part of the fire temple soundtrack.
As an Indian, I can answer this. Why r they saying those words , cuz the sounds they make on Indian instrument "tabla" are replicate by their mouths, hence when they play fast , they make very groovy mouth sounds.
Mexican/Native American/Caucaisan Tri-Racial guy here. I am not as in tune with my Native American side as I would like to be, but I can honestly say that a LOT of Mexican people don't really subscribe to the idea of cultural appropriation or clutching our pearls when we hear something used out of its culturally significant context to us. Different racial and ethnic groups will of course feel different about this, but that's just my input
There are many people in the community who are obviously not going to understand certain things due to factors such as they are barely knowing Riot, those of us who have been with him, following him from the beginning, know that he does everything and we do it to get laughs for having certain types of interests within him. and outside of musical production that is the sense of humor but of course many do not mind thinking a little and getting common sense from them 🦉
06:25 - the term you might be looking out for is konokol / konnakol they actually speak the syllable of the rhythm so for each specific syllable there is a corresponding rhythmic beat to it, in southern parts of India, this sound is used to mimic the sound of mridangam couple of syllables added like dha, dhin, tirkit are syllables used to mimic the sound of tabla commonly used words would probably be like: ta : whole note, ta-ka : half note, ta-ki-ta : triplet, ta-ka-di-mi : quarter note, ta-ka-ti-ki-ta : quintuple note (clubbing 3-2), ta-ki-ta-ta-ki-ta : sextuplets (clubbing 3-3), ta-ki-ta-ta-ta-ka-di-mi : septuplets (clubbing 3-4) ta-ka-di-mi-ta-ka-jo-nu : eigth notes if anyone wishes to add in further to this, please comment below I have tried my best to put it this in as concise and simplified way that some people can get a gist of for understanding this in greater context, there are tons of other resources available online, one such page on youtube that immediately pops up in my mind, and can referred is probably from manjunath b.c.
You talked about some good stuff here. Times were tough at the height of everyone calling everything appropriation. I remember the Hello Kitty thing with Avril where I will never forget the message that said something like "It's a shit song but its not racist. Whats wrong with you Americans?". Makes it really hard to share and appreciate one anothers culture when some randos are trying to get offended for others. Recently I have heard people get offended that someone spoke Patwah with a Jamaican accent. Like imagine trying to learn a language but outsiders are scolding you for trying to sounding more like a native.
I was super looking forward to a bunch of samples of racist lyrics But seriously, glad you spent time on intent. That’s so often ignored these days yet it’s critical context
The Chinese instrument you mentioned, called the "Erhu" is a two stringed traditional Chinese instrument akin to a violin or similar. It's name comes from the literal meaning "Er" or the number 2, and "hu" meaning a fiddle, or vertical fiddle.
This reminds me of a song that used a sample from a Finnish folk pop band's song (PLS&TY's "Run Wild"). The song they sample was "Käppee" by Värttinä, which is basically a song that curses and complains about having a useless husband. The sample that "Run Wild" repeats a lot is from "Käppee"'s chorus and it's just Finnish for "goddammit, goddammit, goddammit". It's very funny to listen to as a Finnish speaker.
There used to be a ton of quad drum videos that played along with konnakol, particularly because Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps based a lot of their drum book on it back in 2018. "Thakadhime-Thakadjonoo" (4+4, one e & a two e & a) is used in that video example
as a Pole who has been to Germany several timez I thought that polish people were said to be racist and Germans were an example of a very open nation with no racism whatsoever
The Indian Konnakol is less of a scat & more of a vocal representation of Complex Rhythms (Taal) that emerge from our culture. So every rhythm can actually be noted and vocalized in form of a Konnakol and once you know how its notated, you can play it on any Indian Percussive Instrument. That felt like a conversation because they are Jamming and soloing over each other's notations. Like a call & response. This results in a friendly improv competition among artists called, "Jugalbandi"
idk why but the whole topic made me remember that one chase&status tune that got cancelled where they sampled a homophobic dancehall vocal and apparently didnt even know because they couldnt understand the lyrics in the first place 💀
4:47 i agree, if someone makes a joke about being on the soectrum( which i am) as long as its not trying to be hurtful to people on the spectrum in a way that isn't even tasteful, i really love them. we fucking love trains and YES i want to hear a joke about how much we talk about them. Love you Val
“B4 you make music with tribal chants….ect” - interject Val’s comedic higher self “MAKE SURE THEY ARE RACIST AND YOU LABEL THEM AS SUCH. Boom case closed next.”
if you're looking for some cool instruments from around the world, you can also consider the 古筝 (guzheng). really beautiful string instrument from China
agree with everything but reconsider your use of terms such as ethnic/world music. In order to encourage people to enage with culture's outside of their own conciously it's important to set an example of knowing where each sound style comes from and catagorise it as such. Culture loses a little bit of significance if it is classified as simply "world" music and feels otherised when refering to it as "ethnic".
Very cool video! As an Indian Hindu person I must admit I was a bit surprised when I heard the "Hare Rama" vocal at the end of Das Riddim but I knew you didn't mean that in a racist sense.
Genuine question. Why would saying "Hare Rama" be considered racist? Isn't that what Hare Krishna's say in their mantra "Hare Krishna Hare Rama", which they believe wards off bad spirits?
