Dexter Story, ethnomusicologist, composer and producer, gave a guest lecture in Choi Auditorium to Assistant Professor Ramona Gonzalez’s class MUSC105: Topics in American Music Feb. 26.
Gonzalez said while the course has been taught here at Occidental in the past, until now, no professor has brought in a guest lecturer to not only speak, but also perform live music. Story’s talk, titled “Day-O! Harry Belafonte, Labor and Afro-Diaspora Chart Toppers in Popular Music,” included live performances from Alan Lightnerner (steel pan/drums), Story (guitar), Dammon Aaron (guitar) and Allakoi Peet (congas, bongos, cajon and shekere).
In his talk, Story discussed his thesis, which argues “African and Afro-diasporic musics, rooted in labor and community life, repeatedly breach U.S. popular charts — transforming the mainstream in the process.”
In his presentation, Story defines a “breach” as “a moment when something breaks through a surface that previously contained it; the whale breaching is not destructive. It is emergence. It is visibility. It is a temporary but undeniable crossing.”
Story’s talk discusses a breach as a Caribbean or African diasporic sound entering the U.S. mainstream market. For example, Story said, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in the Lion King’s soundtrack is actually a derivation of Solomon Linda’s song “Mbube.” Other well-known songs in American pop culture include Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop The Music,” both of which employ lyrics in Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango’s song “Soul Makossa.”
Thea Fernandez (first year), who attended the talk, said she thoroughly enjoyed the live performance element. According to Fernandez, Story’s incorporation of both live and pre-recorded music helped bring the presentation to life.
“The thing that stuck with me is just everything they played,” Fernandez said. “[The] sounds [were] familiar, like I’ve definitely heard it sampled or in somewhere from a TikTok audio, which just goes to show [that] I had no idea about the artist or any of the backstory.”
According to Lilly Spector (sophomore), the talk helped broaden her understanding of the instruments Story played on.
“Getting to know the history behind the steel pans was just so cool […] and I’ve just always been really interested in that,” Spector said. “I’ve gotten to play them a few times throughout my life, so it was really cool to actually learn and understand the history, and then relate that through the kind of music that I’ve heard.”
Gonzalez said she has known Story since college, when they both attended UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. According to Gonzalez, Story was already a prominent figure in the music industry when she met him.
“He was already relevant,” Gonzalez said. “He had been, [for] a long time, in the music industry as a producer and composer, working as a figure in the business and as a musician.”
According to Story, his success within the music industry is a result of a lifelong passion to learn about, write and pursue music as a career.
“I kind of knew early on that I was put here on earth to just do music,” Story said. “I didn’t really wanna do anything else, and when I couldn’t do music, I worked behind the scenes. I just knew I couldn’t stray far from music.”
According to Story, when he was younger, he had many eye-opening experiences with music, allowing him to explore a multitude of genres from all regions of the world, a lesson he encourages everybody to pursue.
“Once you really dedicate yourself to music, I think you owe yourself the openness to appreciate everything,” Story said. “’Let me get off my high horse about whatever I’m into and check out that music that I don’t think is so great,’ you know, ‘Oh wait a minute, I can find some jewels and some really amazing things in that music.’”
According to Story, college allowed him to discover multitudes of different music genres and he hopes all students take advantage of their college years to do the same.
“When I was an undergraduate student at Cal, I woke up. I woke up, I went from listening to my parents’ music and being in bands,” Story said. “Man, I feel like at Cal, my brain exploded with possibility.”
Contact Mars Gallati at gallati@oxy.edu
