Case Study 2: Capitalism in and Around Utopia

[caption: picture of David Mancuso]

On Valentine's day in 1970, on 647 Broadway in New York City, David Mancuso held his first successful rent party.[1] Everyone on the invite-only guest list paid $2.50 each, to be 'treated to coat-check, food and drinks (no alcohol) and Mancuso playing music', with the money from their entry going towards paying his rent.[2] At first Mancuso's only regret was being the DJ at the party - stopping him from getting into conversations with his guests, but eventually he realised he could communicate through the music he played (see below for an example) as he responded to the dancers in the crowd, and they responded back to his music.[3] Dancing to a wide array of music from a multiplicity of genres and backgrounds, Mancuso, in his own words, created a world that: 'reflected what I thought [it was] supposed to be about. Everybody was there and we were like a family. There didn't seem to be any conflicts. Music helped us reach that place'.[4]

[caption: Demis Roussos - L.O.V.E, a classic Mancuso track.][5]

Mancuso's parties took place in his own apartment, which was situated in the manufacturing district of New York, until the search for cheaper rents drove the manufacturing companies north to New Jersey, which enabled artists to move into large, spacious lofts.[6] Mancuso's parties, however, opposed the surrounding capitalist conditions of New York at the time through encouraging a communal environment. [7]

More broadly, this disco party served as both a self-governing utopian creative space, [...] as well as a shelter from the everyday bummers of urban capitalist modernity [8]

From this we can see how Mancuso created an alternative social sphere from the capitalist world of Wall Street through his parties, by valuing all of his 'friends' that came just as much as the music that he played.[9] As seen in this interview: [10]

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Fast forward 40 years to 2008 in São Paulo where a new genre of music is being created, called funk ostentação:

[caption: MC Nego Blue music video] [11]

Rather than creating a space that challenges capitalist infrastructures, like in Mancuso's loft, funk ostentação places its value on material wealth and goods in order to imagine a life out of poverty.[12] Influenced by American rap music, music videos show off wealth and luxury items that create 'a contrast between the reality of their still poor neighbourhood and the wish for a better life'.[13] There is a contradiction between Mancuso's loft producing an anti-capitalist glimpse into Utopia within America, and the export of American capitalist ideals through American rap to influence poorer countries into dreaming of having material wealth. This highlights how the concept of Utopia, and utopian impulse, is so interwoven with the context that surrounds it.

[caption: MC Boy do Charmes music video] [14]

Through comparing these two case studies, we can see how music can imagine two contrasting Utopias, demonstrating how utopian impulse within music is dependant in the context in which it is played and created. This supports Brown's argument of Utopia within her article 'Buzz and Rumble', where utopian fantasy and impulse is mediated through music to react to the climates and contexts in which the music is created and consumed.[15]

The next blog post moves us to Lisbon, where diaspora and globalisation has helped to form genreless, transnational music that is helping to breakdown cultural divides within the city.

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[1] Tim Lawrence, Love Saves The Day: a history of American dance music culture, 1970-1979, (Duke University Press: United States of America, 2003), 9-12.

[2] Piotr Orlov, 'The Loft, The Most Influential Dance Party in History Turns 50', NPR, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807333757/still-saving-the-day-the-most-influential-dance-party-in-history-turns-50 (16th May 2021).

[3] Tim Lawrence, Love Saves The Day,13.

[4] David Mancuso in Tim Lawrence, Love Saves The Day: a history of American dance music culture, 1970-1979, (Duke University Press: United States of America, 2003),talking 13.

[5] AfromanDisco, 'Demis Roussos - L.O.V.E got a hold on me 1987 DISCO', YouTube, 27th Jan 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO_lAbitUNg (16th May 2021)

[6] Tim Lawrence, Love Saves The Day, 9.

[7] Piotr Orlov, 'The Loft, The Most Influential Dance Party in History Turns 50', NPR.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, 'Interview: David Mancuso', Red Bull Music Academy, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4cRFU6kmsI (16th May 2021).

[10] Ibid.

[11] Mc Nego Blue, 'MC Nego Blue - As Mina Do Kit (Web Clipe), Youtube, 30th May 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4cRFU6kmsI&t=18s (16th May 2021).

[12] Renato Martins, 'Between Dream and Reality', in Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter and Hannes Liechti (eds.,), Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World, (Germany: Norient, 2015), 84.

[13] Ibid., 84.

[14] GR6 EXPLODE, 'MC Boy do Charmes - um Brinde ao Retorno (Vídeo Clipe Oficial)', YouTube, 9th November 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuBCcpPZMjk, (16th May 2021).

[15] Jayna Brown, 'Buzz and Rumble: Global Pop Music and Utopian Pulse', Social Text, 28/1, (2010), 125 - 146.