Lady Gaga As A Mythologized 21C Hero

Then he rides back to Texas, saying that he has knocked over the hive but that others must take care of the bees

Knocking over hives is something Gaga has been doing since her beginning. From her bloody VMA performance to her rumored member to her openly bisexual lifestyle, she has mastered the art of shock. However, it is not the kind of shock Illuminati theorist would have you to believe it is, but rather it is a kind of shock that is delivered with the intention of rising above the boundaries that organize society to create a path that takes her listeners to a place where they can be themselves without fear.

As the corrido has shown us, while the majority of corrido ballads are sung by average everyday folks, it takes a person of superhuman-like qualities to skyrocket the corrido into fame and significance. Much like Chalino Sanchez, Gaga has been infused with superhuman characteristics. In her image, we can see a fiction unfolding that has been bolstered by her and her fans to instill her character with ambivalence and myth. A quality that gives her the ability to be whatever her fans need her to be at any given moment.

For a generation that finds itself situated and defined by a culture of fakeness, Gaga provides a way for them to be more than drones, a way for them to "take care of the bees." Instead of remaining trapped in the fake, Gaga shows her fans how to utilize the fake to address real problems that plague society.

As she states in Frank Talk With Lady Gaga by Ann Powers, "If you're on an island, stranded, and all you have is sticks and leaves and pineapples, you're gonna make a boat out of sticks and leaves and pineapples... I view glamour and celebrity life and these plastic assumptions as the pineapples. And I spend my career harvesting pineapples, and making pies and outfits and lipsticks that will free my fans from their stranded islands."

THEE Satisfaction: black WEIRDO Tour

Breaking the Sound Barrier

“I was doing straight rock, at another point I was doing Euro dance stuff. I realized I didn’t have to choose.”

~Jason Derülo
Whether it's on a census or a job application, we constantly find ourselves faced with the predicament of choosing our identity. The agony that can come with this decision is something Marcia Dawkins recently addressed on her blog. In her analysis, she refers to the race identification box as the "stressed out box," saying that in checking a box, an individual isn't merely doing their part as a responsible citizen, but they are choosing to associate themselves with a social category that is "never fully defined and accurate". This is due to the fact that the idea of race is loaded. It is built upon a set of social codes informed by history. Codes that essentially limit not only what a person can be and do, but also inform how that person can be seen. This predicament of choosing becomes particularly complicated when the individual is of mixed race. How can a person, let alone a young adult homogenize their existence? More importantly, how can an individual ever escape the parameters of the cage when they are constantly having to associate themselves with racially loaded terms that determine their existence?

Instead of simply accepting this logic, some artists like Jason Derülo are using the space of music to enact a different kind of politics that allows them to negotiate their identities on their own terms.

In his Jon Caramanica latest article A New Global Sound: Synth, Soul and Sample he discusses how the logic of race, particularly as it has influenced the construction of music genres has served as a roadblock to artists like Derülo who exude a global sound. He states that the music industry (much like the census) simply doesn't know how to place him. However, rather than succumbing to this logic, Derülo opts for a sound that freed from expectation and limitation. He does this by mixing music from different genres to compile his songs. In doing so Derülo is the embodiment of Andy Warhol's theory of fragmented fame. There is something for everyone in his sound and because of this, he has the ability to reach the world. For Derülo, this new sound is politics. It is artistic othering in the face of a system that pins bodies down by othering them socially. It is post-racial sound. As Dawkins states, "For this group the move to identify themselves in terms of their full complexity is a move past traditional social definitions of race... Put simply, "post" equals a future beyond race as a story of parts and wholes...a step forward in a new direction."

Mingus and Kanye Converge

Kanye Bares His Soul on Blog

Kanye's self-proclaimed God-like grandeur coupled with his mediated persona have never allowed me to get past his image. Whether he was talking about listening to his own cd while relaxing at one of his many parties or was featured in the media stealing the moment of an innocent young white songstress, Kanye's larger-than-life ego has enabled me to subjugate his artistry to the role of background. For these reasons (and a list of others), my encounter with his blog this week caught me off guard.

After Kanye interrupted Swift, the media began to speculate about whether or not this outburst could be linked to psychological instability resulting from his mother's death. However, there was something more complex at work, something I was not able to see since I never cared enough to turn a critical ear to Kanye.

This element of insanity brought me back to Charles Mingus. He too was a larger-than-life figure often portrayed through his excessive lifestyle rather than his humanity. However, upon reading his book we were allowed to enter Mingus's world of music. A world that allowed him to take his fragmented identity, an identity that was placed upon him, and desperately find a way to not only make sense of this identity, but try to write himself whole in a world that denied his existence. In this sense, Mingus was essentially writing his way out of this world through his music, but perhaps what is most interesting about Mingus and Kanye is how the construction of them in the popular imaginary obscures the element of transcendence and political progressiveness that underscores their work.

In the construction of their worlds it is critical to remember that both Mingus and Kanye, develop another language, space and time that is only palpable to those with a double consciousness. Those who know the pain of being entrapped in a physical body that deems you unworthy. Those who know what it is like to live as the underdog.

Like Mingus, it is this position as underdog that gives rise to the perpetual need to create in order to invent a world that "brings the unrealistic to reality" through the magic of music. As Kanye makes evident in his blog, the hardest thing is too agree, to succumb to the night demons who try to control your hands and feet when all you want is to survive.