One of the big topics we started to get into this class is the relation between music and race relations in the US. The first thing we looked at was the difference between the beat structures of New World music with European origins, which emphasizes the 1 and 3 count, and Afro influenced music which emphasizes the 2 and 4 count. This was something I had never realized before, but could definitely recognize when I thought about it and watched the examples in class, and I had the same reaction when it was pointed out that songs by traditional black artists tend to have a lagging beat when compared to white artists. This lagging beat gives the song a more sensual, relaxed, and laid-back feel that a lot of white artists can’t achieve with their energetic, fast-paced leading beat. There was also a weird displacement thing going on between the entertainment production companies and black and white artists, for example Louis Prima was an Italian American man who grew up in New Orleans and was influenced by the music style of the predominantly black artists who lived there. He made a name for himself as a white artist who imitated “black style” and when Disney was producing their animated film The Jungle Book, they cast Prima as a pseudo-Louis Armstrong character, King Louis the Ape. The association with a black artist being portrayed as an Ape in a popular and respected film of the time is bad enough, but the fact that it isn’t even a black artist playing the character is just an example of so many weird levels of displacement in the industry at the time, and the lingering white fascination for what they view as black culture.