Interview: Jack Carneal of Yaala Yaala Records

Over the spring and summer I conducted some interviews for the second article in my series "The Untold Stories Of So-called World Music" for Musicworks magazine. The topic of this article was to call to attention the methodologies and music of labels such as Terp, Yaala Yaala, Sublime Frequencies, Crammed Discs, as well as the plethora of blogs out there...

Seeing as the article only used fragments of the interviews, I decided I would publish the full interviews on the blog...

To start, I am going to present an interview that was not actually used for the article. It did end up having an impact on the article, though.

Here's an interview with Yaala Yaala Records founder Jack Carneal that I did over email. Regrettably, some my wording had initially led to some misunderstanding about my position vis-a-vis his label. I also allude in the questions to to the Wire's harsh criticism of some their methodology, which likely made it seem as if I was trying to "stick it to him" or something. Thankfully after explaining myself, Jack graciously answered my questions, and, as I had hoped, provided some fascinating rebuttals to said criticisms, along with other insights about the label.

Me: What is your perception of the term World Music? Do you think that the music you present under Yaala Yaala falls under that rubric or do you think it's something separate altogether? Why?

Jack Carneal: It's hard not to conclude that World Music was a term created by a marketing department whose job it was to figure out how to organize more products in order to better sell them.

It has become shorthand to describe a particular kind of comforting pop music usually made by effortlessly GOOD musicians with crack recording teams in studios in Europe even though I suppose it was started to categorize the more academic releases from the Smithsonian, etc. The term assumes that any music referencing mostly African or Asian culture is "world" whereas Swedish folk or Irish folk might conceivably be found under folk or "Celtic" tags, and these are but a few of the many puzzling inconsistencies about the term World Music.

The term has never made any sense to me even though I've probably used it before to simplify something as I was trying to explain it, for example trying to explain to an older relative or something what Yaala Yaala produces: Oh, it's World Music, grandma.

Why has the term not made sense? For obvious reasons stated above but also, to wit: I recently searched for an Okkyung Lee cd, not her new one, and found it at an online store classified as "african/world". How is that world music?

When I lived in Bougouni you could buy, along with bunches of Malian musicians, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Wu Tang Clan, Argent, Deep Purple. To Malians, this was rather exotic music, of course but it was hard to imagine them considering this as anything more than, well, weirdo rock music made by white men from far away with long flowing hair like women, or something similarly random.

Regarding the term as it applies to Yaala Yaala or Sublime Frequencies, I'm of the mind that if it helps sell more cds I'll call it whatever someone else wants.

I think of our releases as Malian folk-based music. It wasn't the most popular or common music I heard in Mali but did have a strong presence out in the brousse where we lived.

Me: Are there any quasi-activistic motivations behind your label? (even on a small scale, like, as a reaction to something within the domain of music)

JC: Not really, no.

The basic motivation of starting YYR could not have been simpler: this is great music and my friends need to hear it. After that I did start to make various judgments about what I was doing, namely, that if I didn't put this music out into the world then no one else would and therefore I became an advocate for the idea that the music needed to be heard.

Me: There seems to be a broader trend toward the emergence of labels and blogs that curate a range of popular music or neglected trad/ classical music from around the world (Sublime Frequencies, your label, Buda Musique, Terp..etc.) Do you feel that this is a mere marketing trend or do you feel like this is a wider movement? How do you feel this impacts the public's perception of non-anglo-american/ anglo-european music? I've read statements where you've related your source tapes to the early US punk/ independent scene.... Do you think it's a coincidence that most of these labels, blogs even, shared blood with that scene (Sun City Girls, The Ex, your own ties to Drag City)? Elaborate on this relationship if you feel that it's important...

JC: People who consider themselves outside of the mainstream of popular culture have ALWAYS been arbiters of cultural and musical trends and not because it's hip or now but because these people have ALWAYS been nerds of the highest order who have little else to do but to try to find new music to get into. As the interwebs have allowed the instantaneous access to unlimited information and data these same tirelessly curious people--read: NERDS-- have run out of krautrock or Peruvian psych or Montreal indie bands or Japanoise or Swedish free jazz improvisers or Berlin heroin house to discover, so naturally one begins to look into the farther corners of the world. All of the people you reference above (Drag City, Alan Bishop) are of that order, that is, tirelessly curious culture hounds. Also, the success of the Ethiopiques series definitely opened up a lot of doors.


Me: The Wire, in June 2007 mounted a very interesting critique of your label in their reviews section. They reference Yoro Diallo who not only had a considerable reputation (not least for his position as a man among a female-dominated scene) but also rallied against music piracy, alongside other Malian artists . I'm curious about your response to this, in light of your choice to reissue pirated cassettes as well avoiding liner notes.

JC: The answer to this question is so complicated and involves so many socio-cultural elements that I was surprised that a mag like the Wire that purports to serve the segment of the music market who probably consider themselves intellectual or almost academic studiers of music would dumb it down to such a degree. I would've been happy to respond to Clive Bell's claims but they chose to run it without ever once contacting me. I thought it was horrible journalism.

It's not Sublime Frequencies, Mississippi Records, Terp and Yaala Yaala who're hurting these musicians, it's SF and YYR who're guaranteeing that a new order of Western music fan knows what Mali (and Ethiopia, Zaire, etc) is and that there is a lot of great music out there in the world.

All of these labels have firm moral beliefs that people will benefit from what we do, both musicians and listeners, and I would assume that we all sleep the sleep of the just.

I've stated a bunch of times why I don't use liner notes and it's getting tiresome. I knew nothing about this music, nothing at all. I couldn't understand what they were singing. When I picked up these cassettes in Mali they didn't have liner notes. It was a consistent and easy decision to make: I did not want this music to become about my perception of it, something that would've happened if I'd subjectified the music by trying to write about it, and I wanted the listener to be able to stumble upon this music exactly as I did.

Me: I am curious in general about your perception of this whole industry of pirating music that exists around the world. This is something that seems to be particular to musics outside of the "Western Music Industry", and can be found all over the place. I would love to hear your comments on this underground industry--why one cannot even order a single Googoosh album from the HMV catalog in Canada (despite her status as *THE* Persian pop diva) yet can readily purchase CD-Rs of her music in certain suburbs of Toronto.

JC: Criticizing the music industry these days for shortsightedness is like kicking a retarded toothless dog that is also blind and incontinent, if of course the dog chose to be blind, retarded, etc. The problem of course is that, like airline industry, they have over the decades created an entirely unsustainable and top-heavy business model where each artist is essentially treated like a corporation: debts are incurred against accounts (recording, promotional work) and there are an awful lot of hands waiting to be paid from these debts. Everyone who has half a brain knows that entering into any business relationship with anyone in certain sectors of the music industry is to cast your fate to the wind.

So people around the world have recognized that the old paradigm of ensuring that people hear your music is broken. The industry monolith just does a horrible job of identifying and producing and distributing music that people want to hear. There is more interesting music out there than is possible for us tiny and inconsequential humans to ever understand and finally the music, and the artists who make the music, are winning: they are in control of what gets out there to be heard.

The internet has made this paradigm shift all the more extreme. The big record companies will die out, there is no question. Bootlegging and other sub-industry means of distributing music will eradicate any semblance of the industry as we know it before too long.

Low overhead operations like YYR, Sublime Frequencies, Mississippi Records, Terp, etc., with the help of sensible and gentlemanly operations like Drag City--former punks whose sense of moral rectitude is strong and old fashioned--are the future of the music industry.

Me: Have you had any other hostile reactions to your label's modus operandi? Describe them, if they differ from the Wire's and talk to me abou your feelings regarding these concerns/ criticisms.

JC: No, none. Particularly from the Malian musicians who I've been sending money to over the past year.

(images drawn from the Yaala Yaala Myspace)