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Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
 Posted - 03/18/2005 : 09:37:09 AM
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Interesting article, some good, bad and ugly. Thought it was an interesting read despite also thinking that everyone should see the good and move on.
From: http://starbulletin.com/2005/03/17/features/story3.html
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Local Grammy controversy
strikes sour note
By Tim Ryan
Charles Brotman's "Slack Key Guitar Volume 2" Grammy win was a coup for local musicians who had sought Grammy recognition for years. But right after the win, in the inaugural award for Best Hawaiian Album, which should have been a source of pride for all, the backlash began.
The four nominated groups and artists who didn't win began fielding calls of condolences and some outrage from friends, fans and family in Hawaii over the fact that Brotman is not Hawaiian.
Even Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, director and professor at the University of Hawaii's Center for Hawaiian Studies, got into the act, telling a local television news reporter that non-Hawaiians awarded a non-Hawaiian for packaging Hawaiian culture.
Which put nonwinners, including Robert Cazimero and his record producer, Mountain Apple Co. owner Jon de Mello, and Keali'i Reichel and his producer, Jim Linkner, in the position of trying to calm the folks back home, saying that the win was neither "an outrage" nor "another case of those mainland haoles giving it to a haole" and "screwing Hawaiians again."
Randy Lorenzo, one of the winning slack-key artists and recipient of 11 Hoku awards, was angered by Kameeleihiwa's remarks.
"What she's saying is that only Hawaiians should perform Hawaiian music and only Hawaiians should be allowed to enter the Hawaiian music category," Lorenzo said recently at a private Grammy celebration party at Puako on the Big Island. "That's racist, plain and simple.
"(Slack key) is Hawaiian music, and that's all there is to that. I'm so offended that there's this resurgence of haole vs. Hawaiian thing. Aren't we past that?
"I'm Hawaiian, and our music is for anyone to enjoy, to listen, to play. How can we all live together with comments like hers? Music is a universal language."
What Kame'eleihiwa, who did not return several messages left for her at her UH office, didn't say -- or didn't know -- is that eight of 10 guitarists on the winning CD are at least part Hawaiian.
"Hawaii must be proud that its music finally is being recognized," Robert Cazimero told a caller. "Slack key is very Hawaiian, and the CD is filled with fine guitarists, many Hawaiians.
"This is a time for joy and unity."
Frank Kawaikapuokalani Hewett, kumu hula of Kuhai Halau O Kawaikapuokalani Pa Olapa Kahiko and Merrie Monarch judge, is a voting member of the Grammy academy and the Hawaii Association of Recording Artists. Hewett was a proponent of a rule that would have required albums in the Hawaiian category to comprise 100 percent Hawaiian language. That rule was struck down.
"I called Charles to congratulate him and said, 'You may not be Hawaiian, but you are perpetuating a Hawaiian tradition,'" Hewett said.
Hewett also received telephone calls from people criticizing the "non-Hawaiian" selection.
"I tried to give them the right perspective that it's still Hawaiian music," he said. "Most of them thought Charles was the only one on the CD, so I had to tell them about all the Hawaiians who played."
The award is for Hawaiian music, and not just Hawaiians are eligible, Hewett said.
"That point of view distressed me," he said.
Linkner said being Hawaiian "should not be a prerequisite for the award."
"If you're supporting the culture, you're supporting the culture," he said. "It should not be a race-based award, but based on artistic culture that promotes the Hawaiian culture."
WASHINGTON STATE-born Brotman has lived in Hawaii for more than 15 years and taught guitar at the University of Hawaii for nine. Moments after winning the Grammy, he received a call from a Hawaii TV reporter who "implied 'how dare you, a non-Hawaiian, winning this first Grammy,'" said Jody Brotman, Charles' sister and business manager of his label, Palm Records. She declined to name the station or reporter.
"That hurt all of us, but especially Charles," she said. "This call came from our home."
Brotman, who lives with his wife and two daughters in Waimea on the Big Island, didn't mention any negative reaction in Hawaii when interviewed by mainland reporters. But he did name all the musicians on the CD and credited slack-key greats like Gabby Pahinui for passing down the tradition.
THERE ARE understandable reasons for some of the negative responses. People from within and outside Hawaii's music industry didn't understand Grammy criteria for what qualifies as a Hawaiian album.
Also, for weeks leading up to awards ceremony, Hawaii media and HARA members predicted a win for the Cazimeros or Reichel.
Reichel won eight awards at last year's local Na Hoku Hanohano Awards ceremony, and the Cazimeros' three-decade career, body of work and 36 career Hoku awards caused people to think of them as front-runners.
The slack-key CD had fewer record sales than Reichel's or the Cazimeros' nominated albums and contained no Hawaiian language.
Perhaps the biggest and least-discussed factor for slack key's win rests on pianist George Winston's shoulders. Since 1985, Winston's Dancing Cat label has produced 36 slack-key albums with Keola Beamer, Sonny Chillingworth, Ledward Kaapana, George Kahumoku Jr., Dennis Kamakahi, Ray Kane, Ozzie Kotani, George Kuo and Cyril, Bla and Martin Pahinui. All toured the mainland.
"George Winston set the tone for this Grammy win," said de Mello, who explained that mainlanders' perception of "traditional Hawaiian music" differs from that of kamaaina.
De Mello, who is the distributor for Brotman's Palm Records and for another nominee, Ho'okena, is well aware of Grammy voter demographics. There are about 16,500 Grammy voters, with half living east of the Mississippi River, he said.
"There are a lot of pickers and guitar players back (East), so what do you think they recognize when they look at the ballot?" he said.
By comparison, there are fewer than 100 voters in Hawaii, although hundreds more would be eligible if they joined the Grammy organization, de Mello said.
Membership costs $100 annually, or $180 for two years.
ALTHOUGH THERE were more than 100 music categories this year, Grammy members are allowed to vote only in seven. The organization asks members to vote in genres in which they understand the music.
"It's very easy to understand what happened with the Hawaii award if you're in the music business," De Mello said. "It's called f-a-m-i-l-i-a-r-i-t-y."
Linkner, who said he was "very surprised and disappointed" with the slack-key win, said Winston did "a great job to introduce slack key to the country."
"He ... educated audiences," he said. "So everything worked out true to what the Grammy people had explained to us.
"We were warned ... that (for a Hawaiian music category) there would have to be an educated, informed vote about the nominees. We assumed that the majority of people who were going to vote would be from Hawaii, but obviously, the vote came from the mainland."
ANOTHER miscalculation was thinking that winning multiple Hoku Awards would lead to a Grammy.
"I'll bet Hawaii's Grammy voters voted according to who won Hokus," de Mello said.
Hewett said the Hokus "may belong to Hawaii, but the Grammys aren't concerned at all about our awards here.
"We went into the Grammys knowing that; we knew the Grammy business," he said. "If we want to play at this level, then people who are eligible to vote need to join Grammy, but know full well what you're getting yourself into.
"Make sure you know all the rules, and then don't cry if you lose."
Linkner and Reichel believed that "the heaviest competition" would be among the four vocal groups, including the Brothers Cazimero, Ho'okena, Willie K and Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom because "so much stress was put on the Hawaiian language prominence."
"We ... were wrong," Linkner said.
ONE THING ALL the nominees agreed on is the need to separate vocal and instrumental categories.
"The Hawaiian language lyrics are poetry; so much of the culture is promoted in the music form of a vocal album," Linkner said. "To have attached a single vocal personality or group to the award ... would have moved the category forward."
When the nominations were announced last December, no one seemed concerned that an instrumental album was included.
"No one expected it to win," said Linkner. "Slack key really isn't unique to Hawaii, so I don't really understand why it fell into the category. It's prevalent here but not uniquely Hawaiian.
"These aren't sour grapes, but slack key is easy to embrace ... because it's simplistic, very accessible, very nice."
Hewett disagrees.
"Slack key is Hawaiian music," he said. "And it's the music the (voters) chose."
Hewett attended several meetings here beginning two years ago when Grammy executives arrived to discuss criteria for a Hawaiian music category. Hawaiian language requirement suggestions ran as high as 100 percent to as little as 25 percent, Hewett said.
"I was passionate that if hula is the heartbeat of the Hawaiian people, then the blood that beats in that heart is our language," he said.
When the final criteria were announced, no percentage of Hawaiian language lyrics was specified, with the understanding that Hawaiian music or language had to be "prominent" in the music.
"We figured that it meant 51 percent," Hewett said.
It didn't, according to a former Northwestern Grammy official. "Prominence" meant a Hawaiian theme has to be prominent, whether a recording was instrumental or vocal.
"Eventually, (mainland voters) will realize the importance of the vocals and that the Hawaiian language carries the culture; they will eventually get it," de Mello said.
Manu Boyd, lead singer for Ho'okena, said a single category combining instrumental and vocal albums is "stage one."
"This is a baby step, and the baby, the category, is going to grow," he said.
Hewett agreed.
"We all have to work toward having more categories," he said. "This has opened the door. ... If we continue to work with Grammy people in a positive way, it will happen.
De Mello said it's "a big task" for Hawaii music lovers, musicians and the local recording industry to "untangle about 100 years of perception that Hawaiian music is Arthur Godfrey, Bing Crosby and Do Ho."
De Mello predicts twice as many Hawaiian nominees will try for next year's Grammy.
"Every musician in Hawaii will all be thinking they can beat slack key," he said.
Some Ho'okena members and de Mello have joked that their next CDs will be called "Cool Elevation Slack Key" and "Some Call It Slack Key ... Don't Tell," respectively.
MEANWHILE, De Mello wonders how mainland Grammy voters feel about Hawaiian words. He doesn't think there'll be a Grammy-winning album with a Hawaiian word in the title "for a few years."
"As soon as you put a Hawaiian phrase in the title, it becomes a tongue twister for people on the mainland who don't know what it is," he said.
Matt Catingub, Honolulu Symphony Pops musical director and a former Grammy nominee, says: "It's great that this year's Hawaiian music Grammy was a general award.
"It lets a lot of musicians and not just one person run around saying they're the first," he said.
Maui-born Jeff Peterson, one of the winning CD's guitarists, agrees.
"What's really so beautiful about this recognition is that it's not for one person, but for many people," said Peterson, who performs at Michel's at the Colony Surf. "This award is all for all slack-key musicians who traveled all over to spread the music and the people we all learned from. The tradition is being carried on."
Catingub, who was raised in Los Angeles where his music career began, takes the Grammys with a grain of salt.
"Knowing what wins and what doesn't win every year, well, there's not a year that goes by that you don't ask, 'How did that happen?'" he said. "You can't take the Grammys too seriously because you'll get your heart broken every time."
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Mark E
Lokahi
USA
186 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2005 : 8:05:48 PM
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By contrast, this makes me think of a comment made to me by a New Zealand Maori about 20 years ago: "Who do we regard as Maori? Easy -anybody who wants to be Maori."
An incident from our recent trip to Rarotonga: I was standing on an empty beach in front of our house early one morning when three Maori young men came walking towards me. They didn't look especially friendly and I internally braced for some kind of not-too-nice treatment. As they walked by, one of them touched me on the shoulder and said: "God bless you, man." (!!!) I don't think I'll ever forget that moment.
Mark (E) |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2005 : 6:06:40 PM
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I think it's understandable for people who have been sh-t upon for decades to want things to be "righted." And that is how I understand the Hawaiian/non-Hawaiian controversy. Let's face it, haole HAVE ripped off Hawaiian's royally, (as well as royalty.)
I disagree with the ideas behind the sentiment, mainly because they share the same racism that led to the abuses of the Hawaiian people.
In addition, as I wrote in other posts, the award should have been given on musical values. I don't think we know how many people voted for the Hawaiian category, and what percentage came from HARA members. Would be interesting info. |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2005 : 7:24:28 PM
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I think the news story laid out the controversy pretty well and there is no reason to declare anyone's views on the issue as immoral or invalid.
The article did say that no one should expect a mainland recording industry group to recognize the nuances of almost 200 years of musical development in Hawai'i that's also intimately entwined with more than 200 years of social upheaval. Plus, those identifying themselves as Hawaiian natives are a small minority, and those who speak the native language and follow any semblance of cultural tradition is a minority within that minority.
That means that it's easy to criticize anyone for being outside the very exclusive group of kanaka maoli. That's harsh and unfair and, some have said, racist. But racism doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's usually related to very real social patterns and change.
I appreciate that people are talking about it because it was on my mind when I heard the winner announced, but the non-winners understand what happened and are taking it goodnaturedly, so it's not necessary for us to keep chewing on it. (It's interesting, though.)
Jesse Tinsley |
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donkaulia
Lokahi
249 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2005 : 10:56:47 AM
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Wow!,
I remember giving my mana'o on this very same subject right after the grammys regarding the pilikia part and being Hawaiian. This is very good. Now that the debate is on and with the different opinions only proves that 'Slack Key' is the ultimate choice amongst the outcome of the 16,500 votes. Wow Lau Lau!
Some times people with rank or high prestige isn't all right. They thought they were right and guaranteed to win but...the outcome of the 16,500 votes proved them wrong. Good for them. They needed this. Too muchy 'high maka maka'. I know. I have been in this business since 1978 and I am so happy that Charles' project won over overall. What seems a 'slap in the face' is actually a 'wake up call' to the record labels and producers here in Hawaii. Think out of the box guys. Domination only can last so long. I'm sick and tired of these guys whom think they rule because of their hoku domination...B.S. big time. Now try doing it beyond Hawaii...try. This was meant to be...no body expected this I knew myself because I face the people everyday while playing slack key. They love what they hear. Watch how many slack key cds come out now? Think out of the box...next year it might not be slack key? It might me steel guitar!
Much Aloha...if I have offended anybody reading this...my mana'o only...no harm done. It is good to know that our Hawaiian Culture is alive ... more so throughout the world now. It is so good that Slack Key was the very first Grammy...I am so happy.
Aloha,
Don Kauli'a |
donkaulia |
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Kapila Kane
Ha`aha`a
USA
1051 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2005 : 01:43:32 AM
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These "controversies" occur over and over in Grammy categories.
Well, there's always politics and opinions...we all have 'em.
Think of Rap and Jazz...and Blues. Or Classical. Or Hillbilly. Some think there shouldn't be artists of a certain color or background in "their" category.
But it breaks down under the realities.
Music is the "Mother of all melting pots."
The choice was a good one, a great way to introduce Hawaiian music and culture...and perhaps, Aloha to the world. |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2005 : 10:34:05 AM
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With everyone's indulgence...
In the March issue of Northwest Hawai`i Times, I wrote a cover story on the Grammy win, along with an interview with Charles Michael Brotman. I also wrote a sidebar article, addressing the hubbub over who won, and in it, I tried to answer several of the questions that I was hearing in the music community:
=== Music writer Gregg Porter is a programmer of Hawaiian music for Muzak as well as for radio, and a musician with a local hula halau; he is also a voting member of both NARAS (presenters of the Grammys) and HARA (presenters of the Hokus.) Here, he speculates a little about the first Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Album:
> Why did the slack-key album win over the bigger-name (and more established) artists?
One theory is best described by thinking about the people who vote for the Grammys, and the voting structure. There are about 17,000 voting members of NARAS, and fewer than 100 of them come from Hawai`i. Voters choose which fields they will vote in, based on their personal knowledge of most of the music in that field. Fields range from Pop to Rap, from Country to Classical, from Folk to Jazz, from World to New Age. Within each “field,” there are anywhere from one to several individual “categories” – each of them representing an individual award to be presented. So, if someone familiar with Folk music chooses to vote in that field, they can vote on four categories: Best Traditional Folk Album, Best Contemporary Folk Album, Best Native American Music Album, and the new Best Hawaiian Music Album. If a voter chose that field in order to vote on one or more of those categories, but didn’t know Hawaiian music that well, they might have left that category blank – or they might have looked at the nominees and thought “oh, I know what slack-key music is, I’ll vote for that one.” In a pool of 17,000 potential voters, but with a limited number choosing to vote in the Folk field, it doesn’t take that many people thinking along those lines to translate into a win.
> What can people do to make changes in the process?
Don’t expect much to change; NARAS has not been known for being an accurate reflection of the record-buying public’s tastes (remember the first time they gave an award for Best Heavy Metal Album --- to Jethro Tull?) It took about twenty years of lobbying to get the Academy to even add this award – maybe it would have fit better in the World field than in Folk – but at least the Hawaiian music scene has shown that it is unique and large enough to garner some attention from the Academy. However, there are several hundred members in HARA (the Hawai`i Academy of Recording Arts); so why are there only about 90 Island-based voters in NARAS? HARA has begun a push to encourage their members to join NARAS, which could lead to more knowledgeable voters making the decision in this category.
> Is this really that big a deal? Why is everybody up-in-arms about who won?
It is to the winning artists – a Grammy win can equal a huge leap in sales, though not necessarily, especially in a category with a small fan base. The cachet of a win, of course, is very special. But you have to keep a sense of perspective – those who follow a specialized area of music, like Hawaiian, tend to be very informed and passionate about it; they know who all the nominees are as well as the history of those musicians, so of course, they have their favorites. But when you step back to see how few of the Grammy voters know about Hawaiian music, you realize that they likely don’t know about Reichel’s popularity, or the Cazimeros’ longevity, for example.
> So, did the slack-key album deserve to win?
Of course – every one of the nominees deserved to win, as they were all strong representatives of the scene. But before anyone disses the slack-key album, be sure you know about the musicians involved – look at their backgrounds, and recognize that these are players with deep roots in Hawaiian music. Some people have trouble looking past Charles Michael Brotman, who is the public face of the project as the album’s producer, the owner of the label it’s on, and one of the players on the disc. Even though he’s been in Hawai`i since the mid-70s, some people will always view him as an outsider, a bias that is hard to battle. |
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