Beethoven, That Bass, And Black Culture
In 18th century Europe, one of the greatest classical composers performs as both a deaf and black man. He forever changes the game.
In the midst of the counterculture movement of 1990s hip-hop music, an impoverished girl from Boston picks up a violin and is forever changed.
My mother is seated in the balcony several yards away, waiting with bated breath for the hum of strings and percussion to commence at the flick of a conductor’s wrist. After a morning of shuffling a crisp, white, button-down no-name shirt, shiny patent-leather shoes, nylon stockings, and a lint-ridden, velvet-black, knee-length skirt onto me — her melanin-abundant, plaited-haired child — she helped me pack away my bow and violin.
My bow and violin now sit moist between my sweaty palms under the harsh light of the stage. The horse-haired strings of the bow have been slicked with sticky, powdery resin from forest trees, the wood and strings of the violin have been polished with a soft cloth at the extension of a hand using measured, assured, circular strokes. Now, I wait among other young, musical hopefuls. Here, the lights overhead are blinding. The murmurs from the crowd seated several feet to the left and below the stage send a rush through me like an electrical current. I poise the bow in my hand above the high-pitched stringed instrument as I prepare for my first performance at Boston Symphony Hall.
There’s a specific way in which the performance of my identity as a black, disabled girl with depression, anxiety, and Attention Deficit Disorder, and later as a black woman, has meshed or clashed with my performances as a classical musician. Both performances are complex, sometimes uncomfortable, and I don’t always receive standing ovations within the context of my life.
Performing musical compositions, often from European countries, often felt like I existed beyond myself. I played in a parallel plane where black girls with twisted plaits received as much recognition as white men with grey wigs and suits. I’d so often seen depictions of Ludwig van Beethoven, one of my musical idols, with a grey or white wig, performing at famed venues all over Europe. I was fascinated by this man, a musical genius, who couldn’t hear the tunes he made but could nevertheless move people for centuries with the riffs, keyboard variations, crescendos and decrescendos he created so many years ago.
With Beethoven, music transcended time, place, nationality, race, and gender.
Surely, I’d never be on the level of this man, a man who was white and wore curly, culturally accepted whigs while my hair had to undergo the stress of heat to behave the way society wants it to. A man who performed with musical celebrities, a man who was talented enough to use his music to support his younger siblings when his mother died and his father fell ill from alcoholism.
I was from another place altogether, one without expensive pianos, one without a parent who could teach you how to play an instrument from a young age, one without European music halls and courts.
And then, when the winter of 2014 struck, I made a startling, personal discovery: I learned that one of the greatest composers of all time, one of my personal idols, was not only hard of hearing but (probably) a mixed-race person of color.
The idea that Beethoven was not only disabled, but a disabled person of color, completely obliterated any understanding of identity and performance of that identity that I’d had prior to acquiring that knowledge.
Mother always said, “Knowledge, once acquired, is the one thing no one can take away from you,” and after this discovery, I will surely never be the same.
Where I grew up in the “inner-city ghettos” of Boston, Massachusetts (as political pundits so often like to call impoverished communities), hip-hop culture and its music were paramount, not classical music. There were no ladies in waiting, no Kings and Queens, no powerful family surnames.
It was the mid-nineties, and our royalty included Nas, Lauryn Hill, Tupac, The Notorious B.I.G., Missy Elliot — so many versions of our own Kings and Queens.
Hip-hop was important to us because, in a nation that systematically discriminates against many people and where not much can be gained and where much can be taken away if you’re black and poor, we turned around and made empowering music. Now, hip-hop is popular culture, but then, it was a matter of social justice and survival.
Our survival is at stake now, because of various forms of cultural appropriation. Well-meaning hipsters have taken something that was made for us — something that, when it was created by us, never received the recognition it deserved. However, we never needed recognition because the making of and listening to hip-hop music wasn’t about that. For many of us, hip-hop was essential to our fabric as beings and as survivalists in an oppressive society. And, for the same reason that white people regale a thousand times over the historical significance of the hoity-toity classics found in college classes that discuss the Western Canon of Dead White Men, hip-hop music was treated as cultural case study or a political manifesto of sorts where I grew up. You can’t recite lyrics from iconic hip-hop albums or bang out specific beats on your desk during class? You’re an outsider. You don’t belong here. If you can —and I could — well, now you have a family.
Hip-hop music legitimized my experience, it fed me. It helped me to perform within a context of my identity in a place that couldn’t offer much nourishment or nurturing other than through the social-justice-conscious culture, music, and people (usually, black and brown).
You see, the places I lived were home and they were comfortable but they were also, at times, greatly unsafe. And not in a “Reporting Live from the Ten-O’Clock News: Black people are scary, beware of their neighborhoods,” kind of way. As Cookie Lyon, the music producer from the television show Empire, would say, “The streets aren’t for everyone. That’s why they invented sidewalks.”
You had to be smart where I grew up, and not in a way that any book could teach you. I learned this the hard way, in a place where there are no makeup tests if you fail. When I was five, a man tried to break into my bedroom by bashing into my bedroom window. He was armed with a knife. My mother, unarmed and seemingly unafraid, scared him away. That was the moment I realized my mother must have superhero-like abilities that I didn’t know about. I’m still waiting for the day that I inherit mine. The next day, I watched the cops chase the man through an abandoned yard next to our home and apprehend him into their vehicle. It never occurred to my mother to call the police on the man (we didn’t have a death wish, after all), but somehow, the police had found him anyway. Later, when I was nearing eight, a neighbor of mine joined a gang, and I was no longer allowed to hang out with him, his sister, or the other members of his family. And, a trip to a local ice cream store that specialized in serving my family’s favorite Caribbean-American sugary treats ended with my mother yanking my brother and I by our collars to escape underneath the summer sun from a barrage of bullets between two warring families of businessmen.
And so, I spent my time leafing through my textbooks from school, riding a bike with my brother and Dad, while my mother, sick with chronic illness, often lay in bed. I also learned to play classical music.
I think my Mom figured it was time I experienced a place beyond our own seemingly designated dimension in the world. So, she found a program that would fund instruments and music lessons for impoverished youth and/or youth of color. The program would then train us for admittance into the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Mom realized hip-hop music could feed me, but it wouldn’t transport me anywhere in this world. It worked for Biggie, in fact, it made him the icon that he is today. Biggie’s performance of his cultural identity made him a star, a point he illustrated in “Juicy” when he rapped, “Now I’m in the limelight ‘cuz I rhyme tight.” He himself, “never thought that hip hip could take it this far.” But, for Biggie, hip-hop did take him to the places of my dreams. He continuously rapped about “that life” even when he lived in mansions and wore fur coats. What my mother understood, however, is that we can’t all be The Notorious B.I.G. She was trying her best to show me another way of life, another performance in which I could flourish. People are obsessed with black culture, as we see today, but most people only get respect if they conform or assimilate to Eurocentric cultures. This was a lesson I learned when my white friends would turn up their noses at the music I had on my stereo. Tupac was also teaching me this in his lyrics, as well.
Tupac taught me, “we ain’t meant to survive ‘cuz it’s a setup,” in “Keep Ya Head Up” and I felt a pit of fire in my stomach. I listened to the blasting music, seated in my parent’s beat up, blue Toyota as they drove down the street. My feet, arms, and legs felt weightless while Tupac rapped about the western media bias, the war on drugs, a penitentiary filled to the brim with black people, and so much more in “Changes.” One of my first experiences with this political commentary wasn’t from a textbook, but from living my life and from listening to the life affirming lessons of Tupac Shakur while I’m sitting in my parent’s Toyota eating McDonalds because they can’t afford to feed me anything else. Tupac ignited me with his rallying cry in “Changes” and he wrote a love letter to women everywhere, specifically black women, with “Keep Ya Head Up.” This famed black man was standing in solidarity with his sisters. His body of music was a long-winded way of telling a young, poor black girl, “I see you. You’re not alone,” and “don’t take things lying down. Stand up.”
That’s how hip-hop nourished me, fed me, and helped me survive. But my mother desperately wanted to cultivate a new lived experience for her daughter, away from strife and into another kind of expression. She wanted to help me escape my world and enter into another.
So, I picked up a violin and bow and transfigured my body’s performance in a way that could elevate its existence. Except, the world of classical music and Dead White Men’s compositions were a world removed from my own.
In fact, my world was different in so many ways.
In the neighborhood, people drive beat-up cars that shake relentlessly with the syncopated beats of hip-hop music. Men call out to passerby with deals for their demo-tapes. These announcements are intermixed with cat-calls towards not-to-be-bothered women. The back-and-forth love saga between my unwed mother and father plays amongst the soundtrack of baby-making Rhythm and Blues music and I learn that poetry, beats, and cleverly crafted hooks have the power to heal.
Here, my identity is represented in most aspects of life around me. This, and similar neighborhoods that I will go on to spend my childhood in, are that of working-class people. Many of these people are people of color, specifically Afro-Caribbean or mixed-race Caribbean-Americans. You know how people joke that on every street corner in America there’s a Starbucks or McDonalds? Well, in my neighborhood, there’s a Jamaican food place, a video store, and a family-owned convenience store that sells sage, spice, and incense for religious ceremonies on at least every other street corner. In the summertime, you can spot the women dressed in their best jewels, headdresses, and gaudy, colorful, liberating clothing during Carnival season, in celebration of a particular Caribbean nation’s independence from colonialism and subjugation. You can also spot dudes selling bootleg tapes, watches, and purses on the street.
In the neighborhood, they sell mangoes and coconut juice out of the back of mobile food vendor vans. It’s a touch of the motherland and it’s a performance. There’s a certain distinct pattern to my gait when I’m surrounded by people who look, move, and speak like me. Women in the neighborhood have brown, pronounced lips that, no matter how much bright-colored lip gloss they paint over it, are still overpowered by their browness. The people are animated and “live” when they speak. My father’s “uh-oh,” teeth sucking, and face-splitting smile isn’t uncommon as a response to something surprising because, in the neighborhood, other Afro-Latinos have similar mannerisms. My mother’s raucous laughter, uninhibited womanhood, and comfortable Jamaican Patois speech patterns are the norm.
In the neighborhood, my existence is validated. My body taking up space and time is supported. It’s existential. It’s affirming.
In the music classrooms of Boston University, however, there are no beat-up cars, hip-hop demo CDs, or fast-talking men with false promises. There aren’t a lot of black or brown people, much less people who speak with “broken” English or in African-American Vernacular English, either. (But, really, what’s so broken about a language that was created to assimilate to subjugation and enslavement?) The food served here is unseasoned and paltry. No one is loud or raucous, they are soft spoken and timid in nature. My shyness goes largely unnoticed here.
My blackness does not.
When I gather every Sunday, first to perform with the mostly white (and sizably Asian) orchestra, later to practice with the largely black and Latino orchestra made up of less affluent youth, I unpack my violin and bow and hoist the vessel of music onto my shoulder. I watch for the conductor’s instructions, a white, accomplished woman who is using her passion for music to afford me, and other black and brown youth, the opportunity to perform at such places like Boston Symphony Hall.
My performance here is different than in the neighborhood.
In the music classrooms of Boston University, my performance is a different kind of passionate. It’s not the comfortable, confident gait that I’m accustomed to back home. It’s a swaying dance of my body seated in my chair. It’s the soaring notes from my violin that dictate the melody of the rest of the orchestra. It’s the sharp string that’s digging into my brown flesh as I pluck them rapidly in succession. My womanhood is a performance of embellished, colorful, long nails, but in Boston University’s musical classrooms, they are filed down to the nub so that I may better play my instrument.
I wear preppy clothing here because I want to follow the trends of the Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch wearing pre-teens and teens. Eventually, I will chemically straighten my hair because it’s rough, untamable, and unprofessional for this atmosphere. Or, so I fear.
The bodies here, at least during my rehearsal with the more prestigious and more famed Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, are not black and brown, but pale and of affluence. They’ve been playing their instruments since they were two years old. Or, their parents are famed musicians, like Beethoven’s father. They’ve paid for their thousand-dollar instruments. Mine is donated from the funding of the second, more black and brown populated orchestra that I rehearse with after rehearsing with the BYSO at BU.
Here, I constantly question my abilities. My ADD makes it more difficult for me to concentrate in a place where your ability to play well and better than others adds to your status. I constantly compete to be considered “1st Chair” in the violin section and to lead the others. But, when I don’t leap ahead in the rat race, I find myself wondering: can music from brown hands be as beautiful as the music coming from cherished and systematically protected white bodies?
At home away from BU, my depression makes me lie in bed, looking past my window as I try and picture something beyond this plane, when I should be glancing into my music notebooks. My practice time is inhibited because the pangs of anxiety, depression and a lack of attention dictate another performance from my body: feeling lethargic, writhing from pain, and ultimately, in a bid for peace, falling asleep.
And, despite this, I often hear that I’m good, in fact, great, that I sound like I’ve been playing instruments just as long as any of these other children.
I enter a competition in the middle of nowhere where white people are still calling the violin a fiddle. I’ve been rehearsing this fiddler music for weeks, perfecting it, learning how to stomp my foot and bob my head in a fast tempoed way that other fiddlers do, in time with the frenzied music from Ireland. This is a new kind of performance. It’s more fun, it’s less hoity-toity, it’s born from a people who gathered around to listen to this music outside of European famed halls and courts.
In the crowd, I see people dancing and clapping their hands. I smile. My braces tickle my teeth. I can still taste the fried-dough and sugar on my tongue that I bought earlier during the fair.
I bob my head. It’s not like I’m listening to hip-hop music or anything, but if I strain myself, this is sort of like hip-hop. It’s got a beat you can kind of get hip to.
I’m bowing and the piece is over. “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi,” I count in my head. I unfold my body from its bowing and look into the smiling faces of the cheering crowd.
I did well. I shuffle off of the stage. It’s a waiting game now.
“Fifth place goes to…” the announcer begins. My stomach sinks. There’s no way I’m going to win.
“Fourth places goes to…Jasmine Rose!”
I did it! I jump in place backstage, amazed that I was able to place in my first competition, ahead of so many people. I run on stage and accept my yellow ribbon and smile broadly as it is tacked onto my dress.
“It was all a dream,” The Notorious B.I.G. says in my head.
Later, my mother drives for hours to take us back home to the neighborhood.
***
I played the violin from the age of six to the age of fourteen. I performed in competitive contests and won top prizes against white children whose parents probably gave them an instrument when they exited stage left from their mother’s womb. I performed at Boston Symphony Hall, beginning at the age of six, and I performed with my orchestra as an introduction to The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s performances, as well.
I studied theory, music composition, and the piano. I picked up learning to play the viola at twelve and became an expert player at that, too.
I studied composers of the likes of Beethoven to Mozart and every Dead White Man in between.
So, why didn’t anybody, anywhere, tell me that Beethoven was a Moor, or a mixed-race person with sizable African ancestry?
I tried to wrap my head around it: a disabled Moor has composed some of the most famous musical compositions of all time? A disabled, Afro-descended person has made contributions to classical music that forever changed the game. He was The Notorious B.I.G. of his time, y’all.
And, no one thought that I, a black, disabled girl who often doubted her own abilities, needed to know that? Why had I always seen pictures of Beethoven depicted with thin lips, a pointy nose, and straight, wispy hair, things that are signifiers for what most educational materials seemed to want me to believe?
Why hadn’t an academic, or a musician, or anyone who studied the craft told me?
I wish someone had mentioned all of this. I deserved to know.
Maybe my performances would have changed. I’d have played louder, I’d have been less amazed by my success and treated my performances more like the hip-hop stars do. Hip-hop isn’t an art form of narcissism. It’s an art form that enables black and brown people to be empowered in a world that systemically discriminates against black and brown people while constantly tells us that we should be grateful and humble.
If I had known about Beethoven, I’d have demanded that everyone else know, too.
Beethoven was black. And that, for me, changes everything.
Jasmine Rose-Olesco is a writer and activist concerned with the topics of intersectional feminism, mental health, popular culture, race, and technology. Her interviews, cultural essays, long-form narratives, and long-form reports on beauty, civil rights, class, comedy, gender, race, and technology have appeared on, or are forthcoming from, The-Toast.net, TheBillfold.com, Femsplain.com, HelloGiggles.com, LuckyMag.com, Refinery29.com, TheRiveterMagazine.com, TIME.com, and xoJane.com. In addition, she is a Featured Contributor for Femsplain.com and a Regular Contributor for TheRiveterMagazine.com.
See more of Jasmine’s musings by following her on Twitter.
