Gender, new creativity and Carnatic music in London

ABSTRACT

This article examines creative projects amongst second-generation, British Tamil diasporic female musicians (focused on Sri Lankan examples) located within London’s Carnatic music scene. Several scholars have suggested that the twentieth-century Indian nationalist project constructed ideals of femininity that positioned women as bearers of tradition during colonial rule to uphold the inner core of Indian culture [Bakrania 2013; Chatterjee 1989], and which were also reflected in the restricted performance and creativity of Carnatic music for female musicians [Subramanian 2006; Weidman 2003]. This article focuses on second-generation musicians, who combine their Carnatic background and ‘South Indian’ sound with other everyday sounds in Britain. Their creative projects shift from an aesthetic that was responsive to colonialism in India to highlight female creativity and hybridity in decolonising processes. This article presents examples of how cultural expectations of women as bearers of tradition are decentred, repositioning them as creative agents in a transnational diaspora.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• creativity
• Carnatic music
• Tamil diaspora
• female musicians

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jasmine Hornabrook is an ethnomusicologist focusing on music, transnational networks and identity in South Asian diasporas. She is interested in how cultural practices facilitate a sense of belonging and identity across nation-state borders. She completed her doctoral research at Goldsmiths, University of London, and examined music and migration in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. Jasmine works on the Leverhulme-funded project ‘Migrant Memory and the Postcolonial Imagination’ in the School of Social Sciences at Loughborough University.

ORCID

Jasmine Hornabrook http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0662-9822

Notes

1 YouTube comments on Raman's videos include: ‘a new revolution in Tamil devotional songs’ (Karthikmein), ‘New era for Tamil devotional songs, no words Susheela!!! simply great!!! just do more!!!’ (Kayan Velauhtam), ‘a very special voice and style. It will take some more years to appreciate her style since in Chennai people are orthodox and conservative. Well done madam’ (Thygarajan Srinivasan), ‘This is a real prostitution of a noble Karnatic music. Never heard [raga] Shanmukhapriya has been so distorted. Many of the lines are totally out of pitch! God save music from these people’ (Jayaprakash Panicker).