Tom Ze's Fabrication Defect and the “Esthetics of Plagiarism”: A Postmodern/Postcolonial “Cannibalist Manifesto”

Abstract

On his 1998 album Fabrication Defect the Brazilian composer‐performer Tom Zé articulates the discourses of postmodernity and postcoloniality. More than simply touching on various aspects of “post‐ness,” Zé forges from them an updated manifesto premised on Oswald de Andrade's 1928 “Cannibalist Manifesto.” The former Tropicália musician proposes an “Esthetics of Plagiarism” as a way to appropriate and then reformulate the products of Western techno‐capitalism. In this discussion, I will argue that the composer reconfigures the modernist and colonial tropes of primitivism and cannibalism in a subversively technophilic postmodern and postcolonial fashion—an oppositionality embodied in the album's “defective android” figure.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to Yale Yevelev at Luaka Bop Records for assistance.

Notes

1. Bary writes: “the MA (Manifesto Antropófago) has retained more immediate scholarly and even popular interest as a cultural, as well as purely literary manifesto.”

2. For further discussion of the cannibalist lineage in Brazilian music and Tropicália, see Harvey, Moehn, Galinsky, and Perrone (“Pau‐Brasil”).

3. Similarly, Bary writes of de Andrade: “The MA (Manifesto Antropófago) challenges the dualities civilization/barbarism, modern/primitive, and original/derivative, which had informed the construction of Brazilian culture since the days of the colonies.”

4. For a discussion of the “antinomies” of musical nativism, see Tejumola Olaniyan, “The Cosmopolitan Nativist.” Another conservatory‐trained musician turned political activist, the late Fela Kuti exemplifies the oppositional potential of musical nativism. Special thanks to Teju for inspiring this article and help with an earlier draft.

5. See Hall (“On Postmodernism and Articulation” 52). Hall speaks of “articulation” as “the connection that can make a unity of two different [discursive] elements.”

6. Chris Jenks writes “the practice of getting acquainted with reality reflexively involves the action of shaping, formulating and changing reality. This is Marx's notion of ‘praxis’ and is instructive in understanding a Marxist approach to culture.”

7. See Hall (“Old and New Identities”). Hall describes this new hegemony as “a way in which the dominant particular localizes and naturalizes itself and associates with a variety of other minorities” (67). For a description of this view as applied to music, see Veit Erlmann's “The Aesthetics of the Global Imagination” and Timothy Taylor's Global Pop.

8. See also Dunn (Brutality Garden 196–97) for a discussion of such “consciously ‘mispronounced’ names.”

9. A noted scholar of Spanish literature, Federico de Onís founded the PhD program in Latin American literature while a professor at Columbia University.

10. Similarly, a recent article by Luis Madureira argues that de Andrade's Cannibalism anticipated postmodernism.

11. All translations from the original Portuguese reproduced here are from the liner notes by Alex Ladd.

12. See Young (ch. 28) for a concise discussion of Derrida, catechresis, deconstruction, logocentrism, and post‐structuralist thought.

13. Bary is citing Benedito Nunes's discussion in his French translation of the manifesto.

14. Joanna Demers's work has examined the legal issues involved with Dangermouse's remixing of the Beatles' White Album and Jay‐Z's Black Album.

15. The album art on Fabrication Defect is by Chris Capuozzo at Funny Garbage.