Defining the Groove: From Remix to Research in The Beat of Boyle Street

Abstract

This paper represents musical remixing practices as a means of conducting leisure research. Our research engaged urban Aboriginal-Canadian youth through The Beat of Boyle Street, a music technology program used to teach young people how to produce their own remixes. Through this program we developed a “research remix” of narrative, Indigenous and arts-based ethnographic methods attuned to processes of making sense through making music. We examined the ways young people (re)produced not only songs but also stories, cultures and identities. Our research remix connects leisure practices and popular cultural processes by informing understandings of music and leisure in young people's lives.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Leisure Sciences for the following free supplemental resources: sound clips of El Jefe remix (a capella), “Broken Home,” “Street Life,” and “Turning Point (a capella).”]

Keywords:

• rap music
• leisure
• Aboriginal-Canadian youth
• arts
• qualitative methods

Acknowledgements

We thank the students and staff at Boyle Street Education Centre for their participation and support of The Beat of Boyle Street. We would like to acknowledge the funding support of the Canadian National Crime Prevention Strategy's (NCPS) Community Mobilization Program (CMP). We are also grateful to the Guest Co-editors and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. Brett would like to extend special thanks to Karen for her guidance of his doctoral work.

Notes

¹First Nations and Aboriginal are preferred terms for many Indigenous people of Canada. Participants in The Beat of Boyle Street used these terms interchangeably.

²The compositions made by participants in the program were frequently fragmentary, unpolished or otherwise rough. They represent young people's early (often first) attempts at music production.

³Indian and Northern Affairs of the Government of Canada explain Bands as: “a group of First Nation people for whom lands have been set apart and for whom money is held in trust by the Crown. A band can also be a group or band of Indians that the Governor in Council has declared to be a band under the Indian Act. Each band has its own governing council, usually consisting of one or more Chiefs and several Councillors who are either elected or chosen through traditional custom. The members of a band generally share common values, traditions and practices rooted in their ancestral heritage. Today, some bands prefer to be known as First Nations.” There are currently 614 bands. (Retrieved 2 August 2006 from http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/pr/pub/wf/trmrslt_e.asp?term=6)

⁴Brett's musical experiences include over 20 years performing as a drummer, and over 10 years of studio production and audio engineering work. While his experience was useful in The Beat of Boyle Street, it was by no means necessary, as Karen, without any previous musical experience or training, was able to successfully navigate and use the music technology software after a few lessons and sonic experiments. Such is the technological revolution in music creation and production software (see Théberge, 1997).)

⁵Although centered upon music-making as a leisure activity, students were able to earn high school credits through the music program.

⁶As an example of cultural syncretism, The Incredible Bongo Band's “Apache” (1973) is worth expanding upon here. According to Michelangelo Matos (2005), the song was originally a record written by a white Englishman imitating Native Americans as portrayed by white Americans (i.e., via Hollywood stereotypes); the tune was first made famous by a Dane with a vaguely Hawaiian sound, arranged by a Canadian, and a few years later became the biggest record in New York's nascent hip-hop culture. In the late 1970s, DJs would mix the track's percussion break on two turntables, over which MCs would rap. Versions of this “Apache” percussion breakbeat appear on countless remixes, including versions by The Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Fatboy Slim, Prodigy, Wyclef Jean, and Missy Elliot to name a few. (Retrieved 12 July 2006 from http://mmatos.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_m-matos_archive.html). This is not to mention, of course, numerous appearances on remixes in The Beat of Boyle Street.

⁹Not long after Patches and Brett made this remix, the rapper Nelly (2004) had a hit “Over and Over” collaborating with the country artist Tim McGraw.

⁷We primarily used Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge and Acid Pro, Fruity Loops, and Propellerhead's Reason production software in The Beat of Boyle Street. While the software is somewhat specialized, it was loaded on generic computers (PCs) running Microsoft Windows platforms. Similar programs, such as GarageBand are standard on Mac platforms.

⁸These compositions “mashed” together create a poignant lyrical collage. Tupac's rap begins: “I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself, is life worth living or should I blast myself? I'm tired of being poor, and even worse I'm Black …” and incorporates Hornsby's original lyrics for the chorus “That's just the way it is.” Patches' remix uses the chorus from “Makin' Believe” to respond to Tupac's verse: “I'm just makin' believe, what else can I do?”