the new indie colonialism

Who would have thought that all this fuss is being made over Vampire Weekend's supposed (inept) thievery of African music styles? Read the Robert Christgau piece mentioned; it's far more enlightening than someone just bitching about how they know more about music than their competitors do as the Reader thing does. Thank god I will never earn a single penny from writing (ineptly) about music, as I will never feel the need to protect my fragile sense of music-knowledge self-esteem. About a month ago I was describing them to someone as "reggae or calypso or something; i don't really know." I've seen about a hundred more African films than Richard Roeper; but if he started writing about Tsosti (did he?) when it was clearly the only African film he'd ever seen, who fucking cares? Vampire Weekend rocked live and I didn't have to pay to get in. The moral of the story: don't wear a soccer jersey out when you don't even know what team it belongs to.