war@33.3: The Postmodern Turn in the Commodification of Music

clipped from roychristopher.com Since postmodernism as a mode of thinking and of theory-building is so beleaguered by misconception, misuse, and general ambiguity, this is an attempt to use DJ culture as a concrete example of the postmodern condition in the overlap of music and commerce. Twenty or so years ago, the Hip-hop DJ emerged as a vigilante on this landscape of music as commodity. While remixing and recontextualizing the product, he decentralized the power of the record company. DJs break the code. They reorganize the power structure in the world of sound. The product is no longer the be-all, end-all, but just another piece of the new story. This is what the DJ in Hip-hop does when he combines and reanimates bits and pieces of old recorded history to create entirely new compositions. The music represents a future without a past.