Word: zydeco
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Zydeco, Chenier's musical style, sounds initially like rhythm and blues, mostly New Orleans with a pinch of primitive Chicago. Sometimes the saxophones break honkingly loose, sometimes they lay in one foghorn-like riff through an entire song. But the real musical underlay is Cajun, a musical cross-fertilization of Acadian immigrants driven from Nova Scotia by the British and Africans brought to rural Louisiana by slavery. Which explains both Zydeco's compelling rhythmic patterns and the fact that several of Chenier's numbers are sung in Cajun French...
...challenge, never mean to menace. They are, rather, about anger and desperation, about violence as a condition more than a prescription. Last Gang in Town, a fleet, bleak vision of the immediate future with London deeply riven by intramural combat between "rockabilly rebels," "skinhead gangs," "soul rebels" and "zydeco kids," is in part a smart parable about musical rivalries. Even more to the point, it is a shrewd reflection on class and generational warfare, as Strummer sings, "The sport of today is exciting/ The In crowd are into infighting/ . . . It's brawn against brain or knife against chain...