Wegner, Jarula M.I.

In this chapter, Jarula M. I. Wegner’s interview with Kim Johnson explores how complicity functions on an individual and collective level, as well as what it means in relation to cultural products and processes of music. Johnson builds on several decades of journalistic, academic and archival work on the steelband movement, the culture around Trinidad and Tobago’s national musical instrument. He considers the steelband movement within the wider discourse of black music which he describes as a complex amalgamation of African, European and more elements. Analysing the concept of complicity in relation to musical works, such as James Brown’s classic “Say It Loud –I’m Black and I’m Proud”, Ella Fitzgerald’s live rendition of “Mack the Knife” and the everyday experience of Trinidad’s steelbands, Johnson traces the complexities of complicity with its wider artistic, cultural, social and political implications. He explains why in complex cultural contexts, it is necessary to shift from the binary of guilt and innocence to that of complicity and resistance to begin with. He theorises the intricate dynamics and interplay of complicity on the level of content and form in relation to rap music and steelband music, and criticises and complicates the classical opposition of scripted Western and improvised African music. Finally, he investigates the relation between complicity and appropriation, a concept increasingly debated in relation to black music and culture more generally and, most importantly, explains why black music is counter-hegemonic in its very musical form.