Watermelon Man
I was very intrigued by all of the versions of “Watermelon Man”. It is pretty cool to think about how an individual can manipulate a piece of music/a sound to use it in their art. If used well, sampling can enhance a song, adding historical and political meaning to it. As long as the music flows well and sounds interesting I believe sampling can be very effective. Especially after listening to multiple examples in this class. I can now pick up on sampling in the music I listen to today. A lot of artists pull from songs in the past and reuse it to fit their style, it definitely draws the attention of the listener. I would like to incorporate this into my final project in order to have a good sounding track.
I agree with the use of sampling, however, I do not agree with the minstrel shows. Sampling differs from the minstrel shows because it doesn’t necessarily “steal” someone else’s style, and it isn’t used to portray a culture as something they are not. Sampling pulls just pieces of a song and is added to another piece of work, or manipulated to have a slightly different sound. While minstrel shows attempted to mock/copy the sound of the blacks in the South. The way that white people would paint their face, dress, and attempt to mimic black southerners through strange mannerisms poorly reflected the culture of the south and was very insulting.