Orange And Toothpaste

Gramsci and black music

In one of the Letters from Prison , about the risk - feared by some "poor evangelist convinced" - that Buddhism in Europe becomes a form of idolatry, Gramsci makes a logical pirouette and with some irony comments:

" From this point of view, if there is a danger, is more to the music and dance imported to Europe by blacks. This music has really gained a whole layer of the educated population of Europe has indeed created a true fanaticism. Now it's impossible to imagine that the continuous repetition of physical gestures that blacks are dancing around their fetishes, that having always in his ears the syncopated rhythm of jazz-bands, remain without results ideological a) it is a hugely popular phenomenon , which affects millions of people, especially young people, b) they are very energetic impressions and violent, that leave deep scars and lasting c) it comes to musical phenomena, that is, events that express the most univeral language that exists today, in the language that communicates more quickly images and impressions for a total not only foreign to our civilization, but certainly less complex than Asian, primitive and elementary, that is easily assimilated and generalized by music and dance throughout the psychic world. (...)" (Letter to Tania, 27 February 1928)

In these few lines - which are obviously in context at a time when the word "nigger" did not raise objections politically correct - Gramsci has almost prophetic intuition (we are in 1928) in highlighting the physical and psychological aspect of fascination possessed by the "black music", which was then the jazz of Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong (but then that would be became a soul, rock'n'roll, rock, punk, hip hop until today.) And to highlight the power that this music showed in winning the hearts and minds of the younger European generations.

to detail is not explicit, but speaking of power "ideology" of black music, Gramsci seems to already sense - a few years before Pasolini - how this will affect charm Industry 's entertainment - event among many of the power of consumerism - which use the vitality of popular music and turn it into a commodity.
Which is ambivalent issue for the appearance of the rock - born as a musical form of ribellone, imbued with great creativity - and soon (now?) Transformed into a consumer product, for the most comforting and reassuring .