Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X
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Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X |
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Identity and Exoticism in Sevara Nazarkhan's Yol Bolsin |
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Author: Tanya Merchant Abstract (E): This paper analyzes the disparate international and domestic media images of Uzbek pop star, Sevara Nazarkhan, by focusing on two albums: Yol Bolsin, which was released internationally by Real World Records, and Otmagay Tong, which was released in Uzbekistan. By examining her images in the two media arenas, one can see the various processes that are enacted when a Central Asian woman transitions onto the international music scene. This illuminates the different agents actively constructing layers of identity as well as the various gazes shaping the image and vocality of the Central Asian woman. Abstract (F): Cet article étudie les représentations médiatiques hétérogènes, tant à l'étranger que sur le marché domestique, de la pop star ouzbek, Sevara Nazarkhan. On examinera deux albums : Yol Bolsin , distribué mondialement Real World Records, et dont la distribution était limité à l'Uzbekistan. En comparant l'image qui se donne d'elle dans ces deux circuits, il est possible de voir les transformations subies par une femme de l'Asie centrale quand elle est présentée sur le marché international. Ces changements montrent que l'identité comme la performance vocale d'une chanteuse asiatique est façonnée par un grand nombre d'instances médiatrices. keywords: Sevara Nazarkhan, Uzbekistan, pop music, Real World Records, woman |
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On February 25, 2003, Sevara Nazarkhan's first internationally released album, Yol Bolsin, hit record stores in the United States (2003. Real World Records: 7243 543206 20). It was an album designed for international audiences and presented traditional Uzbek songs backed by traditional instruments as well as highly engineered electronic accompanying tracks. The U.S and European released album contains a reworking (or remixing) of nine of the folk song tracks from her earlier Uzbek release of traditional Uzbek folk and classical songs, Otmagay Tong (2002. Yitco Entertainment: DA 0097). Yol Bolsin also contains two songs that do not appear on Otmagay Tong ("Yor-yor" and "Soqinomai i Bayot"). These tracks are also reworkings of Uzbek traditional songs in the same style as the other nine. The songs on the both Yol Bolsin and Otmagay Tong are quite divergent from the mainstream pop music that Nazarkhan rose to fame with in Uzbekistan. The folk songs from Otmagay Tong received occasional radio play in Uzbekistan while I was there for two three-month fieldwork periods in 2002 and 2003. However, her pop output received the majority of media attention and radio play. Yol Bolsin, Nazarkhan's international release on the world music market represents a kind of fusion of Uzbek traditional songs and French and British postproduction. Using Nazarkhan as a prism to examine the phenomenon, this article will highlight various processes that are enacted when a Central Asian woman has disparate media identities domestically and internationally. It will analyze how the music itself supports the differing public images. To help unpack some of the issues that arise, two main bodies of theoretical research are helpful: ethnomusicological work dealing with "world music" (Feld 1994 and 1996, Garafalo 1993, Guy 2002, Lipsitz 1999-2000, Meintjes 1990, Taylor 1997, and Zemp 1996) and the post-colonial feminist literature dealing with images and perceptions of women in the Middle East and Central Asia (Abu-Lughod 1998, McClintock 1997, and Mohanty 1997). These two theoretical bodies help bring to light the fact that in terms of marketing world music, Central Asian and Middle Eastern women's identities are often elided into an anonymous, ancient, and exotic composite image. By examining Nazarkhan's public images in this way I hope to illuminate the different agents actively constructing layers of identity as well as the various gazes shaping the image of Central Asian woman in musical terms.
Obviously making a recording to be distributed internationally, especially to Europe and the U.S., is a very different process from making a recording to be distributed within Uzbekistan. The audience and their tastes could not be more varied. Further, there is economics of the international record industry to consider when dealing with a widely distributed album. As Robert Burnett writes, "It is especially important to remember that popular music has developed as a commodity which is produced, distributed and consumed under market conditions that inevitably influence the types of phonograms made, who make them, and how they are distributed to the public" (Burnett 1996: 3-4). The tastes and assumptions of the consuming public are a huge consideration in both albums. In terms of the international marketing of the Central Asian woman, record companies and the press seem to latch on to the fact that their voices are tied to something much more ancient than your average Euro-American pop singer. This ancient and exotic soul seems to be talked about in terms of the voice, even though the vocal tracks on the recordings are often buried deep within a mix of instrumental accompaniment. Yol Bolsin's liner notes emphasize the idea of the exotic female voice by stating: "the history of a lone woman singing and accompanying herself on a string instrument is ancient" ( Yol Bolsin liner notes, p. 1). This is an especially interesting beginning to Nazarkhan's album notes, because her solo singing with dutar is often enveloped in the accompanying electronic tracks. Indeed this anonymous Middle Eastern voice seems to be an analog of what Chandra Mohanty calls "the production of the 'Third World woman' as a singular, monolithic subject" (Mohanty 1997: 255). These instrumental backing tracks all seem to reference a modern, but somehow still ancient theme. Nazarkhan's image in the international scene seems to be the result of a very conscious marketing of her as an archetype of the exotic Central Asian woman. The notes to Yo'l Bo'lsin provide an excellent example of this: "the real lesson of Sevara's unique musical journey is that time goes beyond convenient segments of past and present. It is a never-ending Mobius ribbon of emotions, sounds and ideas" ( Yol Bolsin liner notes p. 1). This is framed similarly to her Central Asian foremothers in the world music scene, most specifically her fellow countrywoman, Yulduz Usmanova, as well as other Middle Eastern singers like Natacha Atlas (who first rose to fame as the front woman for Transglobal Underground). The resurgence of Uzbek culture after gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 has included further investment in Uzbek language television and an decrease in state-sponsored Russian-language programming. Currently, most Uzbek television is broadcast in the Uzbek language with a focus on Uzbek culture. In other media in Uzbekistan , Uzbek dominates, and music in the Uzbek language, both popular and folkloric has been given more radio and television play than ever before. Nazarkhan and other pop stars like Shahzod, and Raikhon have filled an important gap created by the new emphasis on Uzbek-language media. However, for those who also manage to occupy a place in the international media, there seems to be a large discrepancy between the image that singers build for themselves within their national borders and that which they acquire when going beyond them.
Previous scholarship has certainly shown that world music in the music industry has its own curious hegemonies, which often follow colonial models (Feld 1996 and 1994, Garafalo 1993, and Lipsitz 1999-2000). Interestingly, there seems to be a recent shift in the publicity of world music, one that at least implies that the artists are asserting more agency. Such is the case with Sevara Nazarkhan. The publicity on her websites, as well as radio shows that aired on National Public Radio and newspaper articles about her album, all emphasize Nazarkhan's active role in the album production ( http://www.sevaranazarkhan.com and http://realworldrecords.com/sevara/ ). It is implied that Nazarkhan forced her French producer to come to Uzbekistan so that he would understand how to produce the album. Also in much of Nazarkhan's publicity, the fact that the music was recorded in Uzbekistan and performed by Uzbek musicians is given prominent mention. This publicity fails to discuss that recording was done in France as well as Tashkent , and the final mixing (including adding extra sonic effects) and mastering was performed in England. I believe this shows a specific emphasis on authenticity through location, even though this location is usually blurred into a romanticized ideal of the Silk Road.
From the music, the artwork, and the publicity on the international release, I posit that most European and American consumers do not locate her in Uzbekistan; most non-Uzbek listeners position her, I surmise, within some nebulous exotic female space. The publicity that surrounded the release of her album, such as an interview with Robert Rand on NPR, locates her along the Silk Road first, then more specifically in Uzbekistan. This publicity also locates her internationally by mentioning her collaboration with Peter Gabriel and her international tours. This contrasts greatly with her reception in Uzbekistan where all of her publicity seems to center around her identity as an Uzbek actively making Uzbek music in Uzbekistan. Her international renown is a source of pride, but doesn't seem to affect identity negotiation. This brings up issues of place and locality, and the way that they seem to shift depending on which musical arena an artist is functioning in. Margaret Rodman reminds us "the problem of place arises, paradoxically, because the meaning of place too often seems to go without saying" (Rodman 1992: 640). This rings true for Nazarkhan's international work, but regarding her musical output within Uzbekistan, place very rarely goes without saying. With album titles such as Ulug'imsan Vatanim (You Are My Great Homeland), Nazarkhan inserts not only her ethnic identity as Uzbek, but also engages in nation building with certain patriotic tracks on her albums. This practice is very consistent with pop singers in Uzbekistan. Many conversations I have had with people as they listen to the radio have included comments about the fact that in order to be popular and receive radio play, artists have to put out at least one song praising Uzbekistan. Beyond patriotic texts as a mark of location and natioanlism, it is significant that Nazarkhan's output is completely in the Uzbek language. The importance of promulgating Uzbek language as a part of Uzbek nationalism and the shift away from Russian as the lingua franca is certainly evident in Nazarkhan's oeuvre. Interestingly, in all of her interviews with the international press, Nazarkhan speaks Russian - this seems to imply that although she is exoticized for her identity as a Central Asian woman, she still needs to speak the languages of old regimes when dealing with the international press and international music industry.
Beyond location and place, visual and sonic markers are vital to the issue of identity construction. The album covers of the recordings from Nazarkhan's Uzbek-released output all feature Nazarkhan's face prominently. Occasionally she has what is considered national dress on and sometimes she is wearing more non-descript clothing that I believe locates her more in the modern situation, rather than in the Uzbek nation specifically. Regardless of traditional or modern dress, all the compact disks, audio and videocassettes I have seen of Nazarkhan in Uzbekistan feature her face and her name very prominently, often on both the front and back covers. The international release deviates greatly from this and I believe this has to do with Mohanty's concept of constructing Middle Eastern women as a "monolith." In Uzbekistan, Nazarkhan attracts an audience on the basis of her name. In Europe and America, she lacks fame and thus seems to be marketed with the familiar image of exotic femininity. Yol Bolsin is Nazarkhan's first internationally released and it is reasonable to think that this is an attempt to make a name for Nazarkhan on the world music scene. However, the album cover and art do not seem to support that; rather they focus the Middle Eastern (and Central Asian) monolith of a woman as an exotic flower and marginalize her name. Nazarkhan is shown on the Yol Bolsin album cover enveloped in long red dress, reminiscent of the image of red rose that is visible through the clear plastic after lifting the CD from its case. Nazarkhan's name is very subtly placed on the far left of the recording, vertically in a lighter version of the orange that is the background color of the album art. ( Yol Bolsin's cover can be seen at http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00007JV9T.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg.) This art seems to anonymize the star that the record companies are trying to make a name for. It seems logical that an artist who is trying to establish herself would want her name prominently printed on the album art so that it would become memorable to the consumer. I find Nazarkhan's international image and de-emphasized name very curious. It seems to locate her in popular discourses of woman as archetypal monolith, and also functions to play with colonialist notions of the exotic "Other."
The above discussion of theoretical considerations and the two albums, Yol Bolsin and Otmagay Tong , firmly establishes the differing images of Nazarkhan in Uzbekistan and abroad. The final important aspect for analysis is to see how the music or the sound objects of the two albums function to support the two different images of Nazarkhan. Through the musical content, one can see the importance of music in supporting both national ideals and "Orientalist" ideals. This ties into Lila Abu-Lughod's call for a rethinking of women in the post colonial situation: "In colonial or semicolonial contexts, the distinction between modernity and tradition (with its correlate, backwardness) had a particularly active life because it was paired with that between the West and the non-West. Europe was modern; the East was not. How might one become modern when one was not, could not be, or did not want to be Western?" (Abu-Lughod 1998: 13-14). I believe in the world music arena as well as in Uzbekistan , Nazarkhan is creating a sonic space for modernity and tradition to exist simultaneously and she is certainly doing it by injecting her music with what could be considered "Western" sonic elements. In the Uzbek example she accomplishes this by performing and recording both traditional songs and pop songs. In terms of the world music scene, she is able to combine both traditional songs and modern electronic music, mixed in at a European studio. In both the international and domestic music scenes, it is the mixing of European and Uzbek aesthetics that creates this multiplicity, which seems to be the result of Nazarkhan seeking an opportunity to be both modern and traditional simultaneously. Interestingly, in terms of the international market, this pluralism is publicized with an emphasis on the ancient and traditional. It seems to be providing a way for European and American listeners to access a concept of tradition in an exoticized manner, which lines up with the idea of the "the West" as modern, thus needing access to ancient traditions.
I think that Yol Bolsin , and Nazarkhan's presence on the world music scene is quite encouraging and illustrates a couple of important directions that the music industry is moving toward. Namely, while still capitalizing on an exotic and feminine image, it has become important to emphasize the artist's agency in all aspects of musical creation and that the exotic image is the artist's choice. While still relying on a popular and profitable image of Asian women, one that doesn't necessarily differentiate between national or ethnic identities, there seems to be a push to emphasize female world music artists as powerful, modern, and cosmopolitan while still retaining their traditions and their exotic identity.
This is quite different from how authenticity is constructed within the Uzbek music industry. One thing that my colleagues in Tashkent emphasized to me, is that Nazarkhan's quality as a pop singer is enhanced because she was trained in voice at the state conservatory. Nazarkhan graduated from the Eastern Music department studying both folk singing and the maqom or classical style of voice (http://realworldrecords.com/sevara/). This apparently gives even her most mainstream pop music credibility. Further credibility was given to her by those I talked to in Tashkent because she continues to perform and record folk and classical Uzbek songs. Her 2002 release, Otmagay Tong is entirely comprised of folk and classical tunes, many of which are standards in the repertoire promulgated by Uzbek state musical institutions like the conservatory and the state radio. As mentioned before, this album includes all but two of the tracks that were also released on Nazarkhan's internationally released album, Yol Bolsin . The Uzbek album provides an interesting counterpart to the international album because there are many audible and differences. A good example of these differences occurs in the two versions of the song "Yo'l Bo'lsin." "Yo'l Bo'lsin" is the title track of the international album, and the first track on the Uzbek album. The first noticeable difference between the international and Uzbek releases are that the apostrophes indicating the Uzbek vowel that is between an 'o' and an 'u' are left out of the international version. I use the apostrophe in reference to the song title because they are included in the Uzbek release and are important for lexical meaning of the title; I keep my reference of the title of the international recording as it was published, without apostrophes. Obviously, lexical meaning is not a consideration for the internationally released version. The recording will be sold mainly to people who do not understand Uzbek. The apostrophes, which are a modification of the Latin alphabet to express certain vowel and consonant sounds in the Uzbek language, might be considered too confusing or foreign for non-Uzbek audiences who would interpret the use of the apostrophe differently. That said, Nazarkhan's foreignness seems to comprise a huge part of her appeal. The use of foreign language seems to add to the mystique of the modern, yet "ancient" image of Nazarkhan and her music that is marketed through the international release. The choice not to include the apostrophes seems to symbolize Nazarkhan's image on the release of Yol Bolsin : it is foreign, but not too foreign.
Yo'l Bo'lsin is an especially pertinent track to consider, because the international version of the song, in addition to musical differences, it has been ascribed a translation that is not entirely concurrent with the usage of the phrase 'yo'l bo'lsin' in the Uzbek language. I have spoken with a number of Uzbek scholars and although the meaning of the statement "yo'l bo'lsin" is sometime ascribed the meaning "where are you going" as the title of the song is translated in the liner notes, in terms of the context of this song as well as many contexts in conversational Uzbek, the phrase means something more akin to "have a safe trip." Those I talked to claim that it stems from the larger expression "oq yo'l bo'lsin," which literally means, "may your road be white." This is an idiomatic way of wishing someone a safe journey. Both the title of this track and the title of the album seem to have been mistranslated for the non-Uzbek speaking audience. In the international release, each track has a small English language summary of the lexical content in the songs. As with the title of the song, there are small problems with summary, the first being that it does not translate the full song text. Further, the small portion that is translated does not accurately reflect some of the lyrics that it claims to be translating.
Beyond lexical issues, I think that the track "Yo'l Bo'lsin" on the international release is a very interesting reworking of the way that the song is recorded on the Uzbek release. In Otmagay Tong , "Yo'l Bo'lsin" is the first track on the recording. It is marked by its relatively unmeasured and improvisatory feel. Musical interest is held with the timbral contrast between the solo tanbur (a three-stringed plucked lute) which switches off with Nazarkhan's solo voice. [1] Throughout the entire song, the tanbur fills in the gaps between verses and plays introductory material that is based on the melodic material that Nazarkhan sings. The listeners' interest is held with the contrasting timbres of the voice and tanbur, as well as the contrasting ornaments and embellishments given to the melodic material. The monophonic texture of the song as well as the subtle differences between ornamentation styles is not in keeping with European and American pop stylings. In light of this, the internationally released version is quite different.
The most immediately noticeable differences in Yol Bolsin 's version of "Yo'l Bo'lsin" is the faster tempo and the polyphonic texture which utilizes fairly standard pop harmonies. In this track in particular the synthesized tracks that were mixed in the European studios (Taklab MKII in Paris and Real World Studios in Wiltshire , England ) stand out from the beginning. There is a heavy bass line, a drum track, and brighter treble tracks reminiscent of bells, as well as an electric guitar track mixed in. Most of these sounds precede the entrance of the tanbur and the voice in the recording. Once they enter, the tanbur and voice trade off as in the Otmagay Tong version. However covering all of this is a heavy dose of electronic sounds. These electronic tracks serve to engulf the vocal tracks, leaving the words less intelligible (which is not important for a non-Uzbek speaking audience), and allow familiar sounds to take a foreground. In this way, the track will sound exotic and foreign, but not too foreign to European and American ears. I believe that these electronic tracks serve to further exoticize Nazarkhan's voice as well as anonymize it. These electronic sounds are very reminiscent of the manner in which other Asian vocalists (Natacha Atlas especially) have established their sound in the world music arena.
In addition to the album art and publicity, there a promotional video for the track "Yo'l Bo'lsin" accessible on the Real World Records website, http://realworldrecords.com/sevara/ . This video provides and interesting look at how visual and audio signals combine to create Nazarkhan's modern yet traditional image. "Yol Bolsin's" video displays Nazarkhan dancing with a white background where a geometric shaped moves and changes behind her in a manner suggesting a screen saver. Occasionally Nazarkhan is shown with her own image duplicated so that there are up to four Nazarkhans on screen at one time. This video seems to be emphasizing the ideas of technology and thus modernity, rather than of the specific mix of tradition and modernity that marks most of her international musical output and press. The only marker of tradition is the Uzbek fabric of her dress. It is quite possible that this specifically Uzbek marker may not be observed by much of the audience. Regardless, it could easily be interpreted as generically 'Eastern' fabric and thus fit in with Nazarkhan's image. The multiple images of Nazarkhan dancing in the video, which are often out of synch rhythmically with one another, can been seen as referencing the idea of a generic "oriental" exotic archetype. In general, the multiple Nazarkhans seem to represent the traditional, while the electronic screen-saver-like background references the remixed aspects of the song.
The liner notes to Yol Bolsin taut the songs on the album as being "outside time and essentially Central Asian" ( Yol Bolsin liner notes p. 1). I believe that this is especially apt because there is certainly a lot of essentialism occurring here. Nazarkhan's material needs to appeal to Western audiences, at the same time as being seen as authentic and connected to ancient traditions. This essentialism may be not only strategic, but also heartfelt by Nazarkhan herself. She now has an opportunity to create fusions which Uzbek audiences have little appreciation for, preferring either her pop music or the more orthodox versions of folk music. From the interviews on her websites, Nazarkhan seems very invested in all the types of music she performs. I do not wish to imply that either recording has more or less merit than the other, only that there are very specific marketing strategies employed with both, one following a national agenda, the other following the agenda of global record companies.
Through this example I think it is evident that, in recent years, the world music industry has become more sensitive to ethical considerations, perhaps due to legal pressure from artists as well as pressure from the academy (Guy 2002 and Zemp 1996). The current situation seems to mandate that non-Western artists need to at least be seen to have agency in the decisions made regarding the content and marketing of their albums. I believe in Nazarkhan's case she does have much agency, but still carries the image of the exotic "Oriental" woman. Despite the music industry's moves toward balancing their economic and the creative relationships with non-European or American artists, and the work in the academy against colonial and Orientalist norms, Orientalist thought seems to still have a place in public life. Further, these exoticized images are marketable. Nazarkhan's case seems to prove that international audiences, mostly in Europe and the U.S. , are still hungry for sound objects and their creators which can be fetishized as exotic and connected to the ancient past. References:
Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1998. "Introduction: Feminist Longings and Postcolonial Conditions" in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East ed. Lila Abu-Lughod. Princeton , NJ : Princeton University Press.
Burnett, Robert. 1996. The Global Jukebox: The International Music Industry . London : Routledge.
Feld, Steven. 1994. "From Schizophonia to Schizmogenesis: Notes on the Discourses of World Music and World Beat." In Charles Keil and Steven Feld, Music Grooves: Essays and Dialogues." Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
__________. 1996. "Pygmy POP: A Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis." Yearbook for Traditional Music 28: 1-35.
Garafalo, Reebee. 1993. "Whose World, What Beat: The Transnational Music Industry, Identity, and Cultural Imperialism." The World of Music 35(2): 16-32.
Guy, Nancy. 2002. "Trafficking in Taiwan Aboriginal Voices." In Handle with Care: Ownership and Control of Ethnographic Materials. Sjoerd R. Jaarsma ed. Pittsburgh, PA : University of Pittsburgh Press.
Lipsitz, George. 1999-2000. "The History of the Present is Not Being Written: Music and Memory in the Transnational Economy." Repercussions 7-8: 327-349.
McClintock, Anne. 1997. "No Longer in a Future Heaven': Gender, Race, and Nationalism." In Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives, Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti, & Ella Shohat, eds. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press.
Meintjes, Louise. 1990. "Paul Simon's Graceland , South Africa , and the Mediation of Musical Meaning." Ethnomusicology 34(1): 37-74
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1997. "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" in Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives, eds. Anne McClintock, Amir Mufti, Ella Shohat. Minneapolis , MN : University of Minnesota Press.
Rodman, Margaret C. 1992. "Empowering Place: Multilocality and Multivocality." American Anthropologist 94: 641-656.
Taylor, Timothy. 1997. Global Pop: World Music, World Markets. New York : Routledge.
Zemp, Hugo. 1996. "The/An Ethnomusicologist and the Record Business." Yearbook for Traditional Music 28: 36-56.
Websites (all active as of August 3, 2004) :
Biography of Nazarkhan from her official website, www.sevaranazarkhan.com : http://www.sevaranazarkhan.com/sevara_e.php Image of Yol Bolsin's front cover art from www.amazon.com : http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00007JV9T.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg Overview of the Uzbek instrumentarium: http://www.classicmusic.uz/instrument=.htm Real World Records' site for Sevara Nazarkhan: http://realworldrecords.com/sevara/
[1] An overview of the Uzbek instrumentarium with small pictures can be found at: http://www.classicmusic.uz/instrument=.htm |
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Tanya Merchant is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles who is currently finishing her dissertation research in Tashkent, Uzbekistan as a result of a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. This is her third fieldwork trip to Uzbekistan, where she has researched topics such as: the institutionalization of traditional music, women's wedding music, and images of women in popular music. Her research interests include Central Asia, music and nationalism, identity negotiation, and gender studies. |
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