Here is the blog where I'm trying to organize my thoughts about this Quest
Trying to organize my thoughts
More recently I've been intrigued by the role of YouTube in this process. On YouTube, we see people all over the world singing American songs back to us. It's not always the same song, but it's a kind of international communication.
Now, just recently, some people out of Central Asia have been drawing my attention. One of these was #Dimash. I blogged about going to see him.
blog about Dimash concert
His coming here, only 2 years after going on a Chinese TV talent show, and nearly selling out the Barclay Center strikes me as a miracle. He's probably the best singer in history, but he's from Kazakhstan. It seems to me that fifty years ago the likelihood of a singer from Kazakhstan filling an arena in the USA would have been extremely low.
Well, I'm not sure whether Mongolia is considered central or east Asia, but there's a new group out of there as well, The HU. What they bring is a music style that I've never heard before that fuses traditional Mongolian instruments and throat singing with heavy metal influences. The result is the most intriguing and innovative rock band we've heard in a long time.
And what are they singing about? Genghis Khan....
And shortly after I discovered these intriguing videos I learned that they were touring the USA> They performed in Brooklyn, which isn't too far from me, but the time wasn't convenient, which was very frustrating to me. I did find some super cool interviews with these people. Now I'm not finding the interview that I liked best. Maybe I'll add it later, if I can find it again.
There's an interesting disconnect here, between what Genghis Khan means to people outside Mongolia and what that name means inside Mongolia.
Prior to encountering this group, my idea of Genghis Khan was that he was a terrifying imperialist, riding roughshod over most of Eurasia, bringing terror, rape, and pillage wherever he went. I didn't know much about him, really, just this negative impression.
Here, tho, this group is saying that people should return to the wisdom of Genghis Khan. Listening to this message was disturbing to me. These people have these beautiful instruments. They're out in this very spiritual looking desert. They're evoking images of this horrendous period of history -- and yet I'm listening, because the music is so intriguing and the videos are so good.
Obviously, I wasn't the only one intrigued, because, like Dimash, these people are touring the world, not too long after first becoming know on YouTube.
But, listening to them, I think I'm seeing the disconnect. For them, Genghis Khan was a spiritual leader who sought unification, world peace, religious tolerance, and even music.
This all happened a very long time ago, of course. I wasn't there. Were people terrified of the golden hoards merely because they were mysterious foreigners? Did they misinterpret the intentions of the "invaders?" Or, are these modern day Mongolians deluding themselves about their history?
In any case, these Mongolians *are* taking over the world musically, in a sense, traveling even farther than Genghis Khan to bring their music to the farthest corners -- and they want to bring peace and unity and religious tolerance. So, perhaps, it doesn't really matter so much what the historical Genghis Khan really was like. Perhaps it's more important what these intriguing images mean.
And, perhaps, The HU is going to help this Quixotic Quest.
BTW if you read my blogs, you should know that I edit them from time to time. If you come back later, it might not be exactly the same.
