Where do you want your music to go today?

Published: 28-08-2004
Author: Ben Camp

It's been almost 4 months since Andrei asked me to write a column for this website. "I'm working on it, I still don't know exactly what I want to write" I kept telling him.

I knew exactly what I DIDN'T want to write. I didn't want to write a column about how some new release had a bassline bigger than my you-know-what, and pads silkier than the sheets on my bed, and how all the greatest DJ's are playing it now, even though they'll all have thrown it away in 3 months. I didn't want to write a review of a half-packed club when Sasha came to town to (mostly) play a bunch of insignificant records that nobody would remember in a few years, aside from the odd "oh yeah, sasha used to play that."

I just wanted to avoid, at all costs, writing an article that would lose it's relevance over the years. The best way to avoid writing an article who's content fades away is to avoid writing an article on a type of music who's shelf life is, at best, a year or two, and at worst, a few weeks.

It wasn't until this weekend's train ride out of town that something about my music, and my world view finally hit me. I sat down next to a young lady who informed me that she had just returned from spending two weeks in Chad.

"Chad?" I asked her, "Why would anyone want to go to Chad?"

"Well, I was on a research project, and we're gathering information about what's going on in Sudan, but being that the Sudanese government is giving out Visas the way bush would give out gay marriage licenses, we had to go to Chad to do our research."

Fair enough, I thought.

"What research would that be?"

She proceeded to explain to me, in no uncertain terms, that private militia in Sudan were out destroying tribes in Sudan's wilderness in an act of what essentially boils down to genocide, or "ethnic cleansing". (You know, the same thing some crazy german was accused of back in the 40s.)

"I was sent there," she continued "to interview refugees of these tribes who had fled to Chad in order to escape this persecution. What I found out, though, is that it's actually the Sudanese military who are training these militias, and in some cases the Sudanese military is going in and destroying these tribes without any private militias at all."

"Wow, that's ridiculous, why is the government killing all these tribes?" I asked, as if people committing acts as barbaric as that actually felt something as insigificant as reason or justification had any business mucking about in the more important matters of ethnic cleansing.

"The Sudanese government thinks that the tribes are living above oil reserves. The government wants the oil."

Sound familiar?

But I digress. I am about to get to the reason I'm telling you all this long winded story, which will be revealed after I asked her this question.

"So how old are you?"

"24" she said.

24 Years old, and she was out gathering information to save thousands of people from undue hurt, pain, death, and suffering. To what better cause could such a bright young spirit be directing her life? (Incidentally, before doing this work, she was involved in lobbying for nuclear disarmament.)

Then came the bombshell.

"What do you do?" She asked me

"I make music?"

I hesitated.

"Dance music?."

Another slight pause.

"For nightclubs?"

Even though she told me how wonderful it was that I was able to follow my dreams, I couldn?t help the nagging feeling that somehow my dance music wasn?t exactly holding up to her years of work in bringing good will to the rest of the world?s citizens.

Over the next few days, I started to ponder the significance of my music, and of dance music in general. I've started to wonder what it means to have your song at the top of the balance charts, or on a global underground compilation, or even just heard by a friend. The only conclusion i've been able to come to as of yet has been not at all a conclusion, but a question. I want all of you producers, djs, promoters out there to ask yourselves this question :

Music is a powerful tool, how can I wield it's power to make an impact on the world?