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."