American Rapper REACTS to Eivør's 'Trollabundin'
The freedom to make music however you like for #FreedomMusicFriday
Yesterday, we touched on the left’s truly evil doctrine of cultural appropriation. Since we’re on the subject, let’s talk about it for #FreedomMusicFriday.
Back during the height of covid tyranny, I reached out via email to a group of people with whom I am close. The lockdowns were wearing on everyone, so I thought I would touch base.
I sent a picture of a beautiful lake over the ocean (a rare phenomenon) in the Faroe Islands. I received some pleased responses. This is good, I thought—let’s keep reconnecting.
So I shared a video from Faroese singer Eivør Pálsdóttir.
(If you don’t know Eivør, you should. I am not sure how long she was popular before I discovered her while surfing music on YouTube, but I have loved her for years, and she has gotten quite big now. You might know her music from the opening credits of the Netflix program “The Last Kingdom.”)
The video is below, and you should watch the whole thing. It is beautiful. It makes you FEEL. Deeply. Watch it and then come back………
Unfortunately, the left’s poison runs deep in the veins of one of the recipients, and the reply I got back was, in essence, this:
Yeah, it’s pretty and all, but she has culturally appropriated that style of tribal mouth-music.
Eivor is white, you see, and according to the left, whites need to stay in their lane.
I didn’t say a word in response.
I could have been sarcastic:
Yeah, because no white tribes ever existed in history, and none of them had any form of mouth-music.
I could have researched Faroese musical traditions and tried to convince this person with facts. Or I could have pointed out the much larger truth: that sharing cultural traditions is a good thing, not a bad one.
But I have learned that when someone is that far gone, there’s little point. Yes, anyone can change, but I don’t see it as my job to spend the years it would take to rescue one single individual from those depths.
I stopped reaching out after that. I don’t need that in my life.
How sad to be that far gone—to have the intrusive voice of leftist dogma creep in and spoil something so lovely. All I wanted was to touch base and share a beautiful thing. Tragic.
Fortunately, not everyone shares this appalling doctrine. While researching this morning, I came across a video of an American rapper reacting to the same Eivor performance. His reaction is truly heartwarming.
You don’t have to watch the whole video, which is at the very end of this post. Start at 3:30 and then watch as much as you’d like…though I think you’ll want to go to 12:30 just to see how moved he is.
The instant she starts singing you can see it in his face—he is blown away.
His first observation sets the tone: “Music is the universal language.”
“It feels like it’s from the earth,” he says, obviously transported by what he is hearing.
Then, albeit unintentionally, he responds to those who shriek about cultural appropriation:
“Maybe it’s not from my culture, but there are some parallels to all cultures.” He notes “the beauty that we all had similar music.”
Wait, you mean white people aren’t just despoilers and thieves, stealing the cultural fruits of non-white trees?
To the left, the Earth is a diverse tapestry of myriad unique nonwhite cultures, and then this white monolithic monoculture oppressing and pillaging their way through the world.
Yuck. I hate talking about this stuff. It makes me feel dirty and gross.
Back to the fun rapper, who then beautifully says…
“It’s speaking to me even though I don’t know the language.” Exactly. That’s what music does.
“Enchanting,” he calls it, because that’s what it is. Music transports us to magical places—happy, sad, and everything in between. (When I was a very little kid, the slow bouzouki piece on this album made me sob inconsolably…every time. I don’t know if it still would now—I am afraid to try!)
Around the world, musical cultural blending is happening more and more…
Nordic folk-rock bands are using didgeridoos.
Siberian tribal bands are using western rock instruments and mixing in some jazz scat for good measure.
Sitar players are playing with classical violinists…and even letting—gasp!—white women blend Indian classical singing with western songwriting. Imagine that.
There’s so much more. It’s all beautiful and good.
This will be happening more and more as our world gets smaller and more interconnected. People are sharing, collaborating, and cooperating, and it is making us happy. Increasingly, leftism—and its Voldemort-esque formulations for looking at the world—are going to seem reactionary, out of touch, and finally…just plain silly.
Oh man, I am listening to the Last Kingdom Opening now as I type this. When you make a music recommendation now, I get excited and write them down! Haha. You are so good at that. I faced an unexpected difficulty with a person today too. We are slogging through it one experience at a time but we do have this connectedness. When the rapper said "it feels like it comes from the earth" he was so right. (I haven't watched yet. I will watch it later. Just doing a drive by post here because this music is so awesome and your words have so much meaning to me) I guarantee you it DOES come from the earth! It's awesome. I hear you on the whole experience. I have one of those just about once a month these days. We are lucky that we are not "in it". May they find peace and awareness. Here is to you and your appreciation of other cultures and their music. I especially love it when I cannot make out the words or speak the language. It has even MORE meaning because I can imbue it with my own meaning. Things went well today in my unexpected lesson. I learned about how much I have grown.
OMG!!! SHE USED A DRUM! WHITE COLONIZER!!!
Anyone who can't feel the majesty of that and rejoice in the beauty is a fool. Looking at all that equipment on the stage, in the presence of that land and waters, I thought this is what is best of the modern age, to make a voice like that so immense.