We’re going to do something a little different for this week’s #FreedomMusicFriday. The song below does not have any lyrics from which to divine freedom-oriented messages…but there are messages nonetheless.
The Kiffness is a very talented and creative musician in South Africa who does online musical collaborations. He first became virally known for his collaborations with cats, in which he takes a popular video of some cat making a funny cat-noise, makes slight adjustments to the pitch and rhythm, and then creates a piece of music around it. He has also made similar remixes with other animals and with people.
That description makes it sound a bit trivial, but the music he makes is really good. One piece in particular is next-level, and become something of an international phenomenon.
It began with this collaboration with a rather upset cat:
Sometimes, a set of chords, notes, and harmonies just nails it. You hear it, you feel it. The chords are phat. The baseline grooves. The harmonies cruise.
Is it as much of a musical achievement as Mozart’s Requiem? Maybe not. But it is groovy. As Duke Ellington so wisely said, there is no reason for comparison or categories: “If it sounds good, it is good.”
If you heard it and felt it, you were not alone. Musicians from around the world heard something deeper here too. They started sending him videos in which they add their own part to the piece. He took those and made this international-collaboration version.
I wonder if it sounds as beautiful and anthemic to you as it does to me…
At some point, the hokeyness of the cat hook fades into the background, and you just hear the beauty of the sound. At least I do, anyway.
This piece also has freedom messages in it.
We complain about technology, and rightly so. People spend way too much time scrolling their phones—looking at other people’s lives when they should be interacting with their loved ones. Social media creates cheap dopamine addiction. Anonymity brings out the worst in people. We could go on and on.
But we are also free to use it in other ways. Technology can be used to create beauty, and the internet allows us to share it.
The internet is introducing us to people in far away lands. Cultural collaboration opens up new possibilities, and new possibilities are themselves a kind of freedom.
Even Netflix, for all its wokery, is playing a positive role in this regard—making the world smaller in a good way. (Half of the shows my wife watches are from South Korea.)
The internet and technology create the freedom of options—expanded opportunities that would not exist in their absence.
We also decry the malaise, anomie, and eventual social decay that comes with having too much ease and free time. We’ve all heard the “cycle of civilizations” argument that abundance heralds decline. And maybe it does.
But we are also free to use our free time differently. We are free to use it well. Maybe we are even free to break the cycle—keep the abundance, skip the decline. We are at least free to try.
There are tons of dangers associated with globalism, especially when governments—in bed with creepy billionaires, multinational corporations, and shadowy ideologues—get involved. But this kind of globalism—people from around the world making delightful music together—is the right kind of globalism. Putin and Zelenskyy may be at war, but that flautist (Russia) and low-whistle player (Ukraine) are in a state of beautiful peace.
God (or nature, if you prefer) gave us free will. What matters is what we do with it.
I love your take on this. But I'm laughing too hard. That cat! 🤣🤣🤣
I love the Duke quote. Another Duke quote I love.
Interviewer: What’s your favorite song you’ve ever written or played?
Duke: Oh, the one I’m going to write tomorrow.