WORDLAB

Free Naming and Branding Consultants and Resources

Shadow Walkers: CBS apologized today for any offense taken to the American Indian-motif performance by Outkast at the Grammys. Some people are really on the warpath.
The San Francisco-based Native American Cultural Center (NACC) posted a notice on its Web site this week calling for a boycott of CBS, OutKast's label, Arista Records, and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which sponsors the Grammys.

"It was the most disgusting set of racial stereotypes aimed at American Indians that I have ever seen on TV," NACC board member Sean Freitas said in the online statement. "It was on par with white people dancing sexually in black face, or yarmulkes ... I am shocked and outraged."
Actually, Outkast's performance reminded me more of The Village People. A pop culture mainstay of the music scene that is still touring the world, The Village People features the group's stereotypical American Indian, Felipe Rose, performing disco hits.
Felipe is much credited with being the inspiration of putting together a group of people all representing types of New York’s Greenwich Village. His keen visual sense and performance experience led to input and direction for the entire concept of the group representing a true sense of tribal ship. Felipe regards the members of the group as his brothers.
In addition to his continuing performances with The Village People, Felipe is a member of the board of directors of the group's corporate entity Sixuvus Limited, and also has his own recording company called Tomahawk Records. In recent years, Felipe was given the honor of opening performance at the Nammys, The Native American Music Awards.

Felipe Rose is a native New Yorker, having been raised and brought up in Brooklyn. His Puerto Rican and Native American heritage (Lakota Sioux) is reflected in the clothing that he dons to perform. This is not just a costume but also a signifier of where he comes from and his long association with Native American groups across the country. Felipe has been called a “shadow walker”, a Native term for walking in two worlds.
In the history of music and the performing arts, there are many shadow walkers; Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Eminem, among others. Offense is taken most often, not to their music, but to their crossing of cultural and racial stereotypes. Why can't we all get along like those village people?
Posted by abnu on Friday, February 13, 2004 @ 11:53 PM [ + ]

WordLab

More blogs about naming and branding.

Technorati Blog Finder

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?


Latest Wordlab Entries
  • Fanatastic
  • Shock and Almonds
  • Will Drink for Food
  • A Parent's Guide to Ambulance Chasing
  • Sproil
  • Hunt and Garter
  • Crutch and Dagger
  • Zenacity
  • Dwealth
  • Exosurance
  • Atilla Mockingbird
  • Born to Scrum
  • Harpo Marxism
  • Outliving Your Life Insurance Company - A Parent's Guide
  • Ciàobama






© 2006 WordLab. All rights resilient.


Note the cool Fine Print: The content found on WordLab is free to the world. Although we cannot guarantee that any of this content is not already in use by someone, somewhere, on this planet who may have seen it on this Web site or created it independently of our Web site, we have made a reasonable effort to give you what we believe to be original names and slogans and generally good stuff. Use what you will of our content since it is here for the taking. However, if you decide to use one of our names for a commercial activity, and since we have no assurance that the name may not already be in use by someone else as a trademark, domain name or otherwise, we strongly suggest that you take appropriate legal precautions, such as seeing a lawyer. In short, any necessary due diligence is up to you, but we at least make no claims on your potential future dream name. We merely ask that if you do decide to use any of our content, that you please send us an email ["word at wordlab dot com"] about it for use in our internal records and eplosive marketing campaigns. Thank you, and enjoy.