Musical-Self-Transformation and the case of Rob “Fresh I.E.” Wilson

• In Event: 3551 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 13. Performing Social Identity

Abstract

Musical self transformation has become an important question for music and cultural studies in recent years; transformation, as a gauge of music’s power to change, the self as the site in which change occurs, and music as that cultural object-subject that both expresses and inspirits change. This paper summarizes my dissertation study of musical self-transformation in the case of the Canadian hip-hopper, Rob “Fresh I.E.” Wilson. Throughout his 45 years, Wilson experienced and has used music in various ways to overcome challenges associated with processes of post-industrialization, such as poverty, racialization and sexuality, culminating in his most expansive popular achievements: numerous awards, including Grammy nominations in 2003 and 2005 in the category of “Best Rock Gospel.” However, struggles with the institutional organization of the church and of the culture industry making up Christian hip-hop contributed to self-doubt that nearly resulted in his suicide in 2010. His complex subjectivity reminds that his is not simply a case of musical self-construction but nor is it a matter of convention delineated by arbiters making up a specific art world. Drawing on a synthesis of scholarship from music sociology, anthropology, and African-American religious studies, and using historical and ethnographic methods, I analyze and explain Wilson’s case here. I finish with a discussion of my four main findings, which indicate that music is self-transformation, that there is need to theorize music throughout the life of the self or the musical self, that transformation practices vary between sudden and gradual forms, and that these are made up of various techniques and strategies. Such strategies make up a modern ethos that demands further consideration.

Author

• Aaron J. Klassen, Booth University College