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This class delved deeper into the world of sampling and displacement. Specifically in relation to the song “On The Floor” by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull. 

The genre known today as latin music once (and still) influenced music within the United States. In a racially segregated market, Central and Southern Americans were able to cross the divide through their Spanish heritage, even if dark skinned. This was originally brought about by the migration of Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants into New York City, bringing with them a distinct musical style and beat (which was further modified in French populated New Orleans within other music genres due to the islands’ close distance to the region). Around this time, the Mambo craze took affect (a type of Cuban religious music), until it faded into the background after the 60s.

That is, until its reawakening in a Bolivian folk song called “llorando se fue”. This song was then covered four years later by a Peruvian group. In the midst of its third remake (a Brazilian woman created a Portuguese rendition a few years after the cover), a French producer happened to see the audience dancing the Lambada to this song. The lambada is the descendent of the “forbidden dance” in Brazil known as the carimbó. Known as a very sensual dance, it had lost favor, only to come back strongly under the name of Lambada.

Inspired, the Frenchman gathered a band of Senegalese-Frenchmen (adding colonial African tunes) to create the Lambada song. Using the accordion (a German instrument extremely popular in mainstream Latin and South America), this song creates the melody of the 2011 hit “On the Floor”, sung by Puerto Rican-American Jennifer Lopez and Cuban-American Pitbull.

Confusing?

The purpose of this long historical description of one song is the various examples of sampling throughout music, well into the current age of 2011. Then there’s the displacement of many cultures’ music through each spin on the samples extracted and repurposed. There’s the:

Cuban and Puerto Rican Mambo beat, the Bolivian folk and Peruvian versions, then remade into Brazilian Portuguese with the Brazilian carimbó turned Lambada by the French producer and his African-French band. This is then again remastered by its Cuban and Puerto Rican roots by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, bring the displacement full circle.

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