Of course, there's the issue of saying, basically, "Dude, cool" to something that's a product of lives that are more wrecked than any ought to be in America.
Well, anyone who listens to any decent American music has had to deal with this already (at least if you trace back the roots to the blues and early jazz). But I can see how it'd be a new experience for you.
Willing to bet that Clarence Ashley didn't lead a charmed life.
Bio. Guess not much of anyone did during the Depression. There's some bad stuff in Ashley's life, but it doesn't strike me as absolutely awful from this recounting or from what else I know. But the audiences of the medicine shows were pretty clearly in bad shape.
Bascom Lamar Lunsford and Buell Kazee had reasonably comfortable upbringings IIRC, but Doc Boggs was very hardscrabble. Jimmie Rodgers perhaps wasn't dirt poor, but dying of TB at age 35 counts as un-charmed, I guess. Probably he Carter family counts as pretty poor too.
(The tracing back comment was really meant to account for more recent musicians who grew up comfortable--incl. Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Lou Reed, like that. Not that some of those lives didn't get slightly wrecked in other fashions.)
He was just an example of a guy ogged likes who probably had it reasonably bad. I'm sure ogged himself would be able to produce better evidence. I think he's claimed to like Dock Boggs before.
Oh, the implication that Ogged doesn't like any decent American music was just me being a little bitch again. Don't know what's got into me this morning.
anyone who listens to any decent American music has had to deal with this already
This is right; I just thought I wouldn't drag all that in in the post, especially because it can veer off into how the whites stole from the blacks. The movie just seemed like a good, clear case. And by "deal with" do you mean "solve" or "confront?" Because I still don't know of an attitude or orientation that can make the problem go away.
I meant "confront." In a way this is the problem of evil all over--the world without evil just seems as though it's incredibly boring. But is that any excuse?
But in this case--isn't "Dude, cool" how the dancers want us to react? Maybe not us. (I haven't seen the movie yet.)
"dude, cool" is what the trailer elicited from me. I've been wanting to see this movie.
I think "Dude, cool" is the right reaction. I don't think the right way to view krump is as product of poverty any more than the right way to view Miles Davis's music is as a product of the black middle class. There is some truth to it, but it underestimates the talent and intense levels of practice involved.
It also underestimates the sheer krumpitude required for one to adequately krump. I've been searching for a way to boost my own krumpitude, but the saunas and niacin are not doing the job.