Thoughts on "Scratch" Documentary

Music remains to be one of the most influential aspects of modern culture. Music can indirectly transform opinions, policies, art - all things that are part of a culture. Music is one of the key factors in defining the era of the present and the prospects of the future. "Scratch" is a interesting documentary which depicts turntables as one of the most recent advancements in music technology, a technology that has a capacity to shape a new era of music. Turntabalism is also a driving force for afrofuturism and an icon for the growing African American revolution to change the face of music by collaborating with the past to define the future.

"Scratch" shows the effect of turntables on the innovators of the turntable in the 1970's. At first the turntable was a tool to bring together neighborhoods of young African Americans. Now the music that is created by turntable players, "DJ's", use the instrument to bring the universe together - including all heritages, and origins (even intergalactic as commented by many DJ's). This type of music is a premeditated future of cultural unity. DJ QBert says that he finds influence for his music by playing the type of music that people would listen to in the future. The music created by DJ's definetly has a science fiction element as many of the fans and produces describe the music as a communication with alien beings or even declare that the DJ's themselves are aliens from a different planet.

Turntabalism was popularized majorly through "re-mixing" that allowed DJ artists to begin to be featured in clubs and major venues. By sampling popular music from previous decades, DJs find themselves intrinsically redefining the future using the past. Musical records are literally records and serve as a sonic memory of the past music and culture. Thus "re-mixing", became much like "re-thinking" where the DJ's took these old familiar songs and beats and incorporated their own ideas to "extend that tradition...towards the proleptic as much as the retrospective." (Eshun 2) By creating the same music a second time these african american DJ's were able to seamlessly integrate their African heritage into music that will remain as a "countermemory" for the future. (Eshun 1)

Music is one of the many ways that an artist seeks to redefine an era. The technological state of the present allows us to manipulate what was considered permanent. This science fiction type of music even falls into one of Eshun's definitions of science fiction where he says that science fiction is an "engineering feedback between it's preferred future and it's becoming present." (Eshun 3) By using turntable technology, African American artists are reprogramming the culture of the past in order to unify the roots of all cultures for the future. Although the sampling of other musical artist's songs may be considered stealing I feel that it should be synonymous with sharing. African DJ's alter past music in order to establish a link between African American culture and pre-civil rights culture in order to create a new proleptic bond between all cultures. Through turntabalism DJ's are filling in the missing stitch in the tapestry of the past in order weave a better fabric for the future.

Works Cited

Eshun, Kodwo. "Further Considerations on Afrofutursim." The New Centennial Review 3.2 (2003): 287-302.

Scratch. Dir. Doug Pray. Perf. DJ Qbert, Rob Swift and the X-ecutioners, Steve Dee, Cut Chemist. DVD. Palm Pictures, 2002.