{"id":101708,"date":"2020-04-29T17:09:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T00:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=101708"},"modified":"2020-04-29T17:09:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T00:09:46","slug":"dont-rap-our-golden-old-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/29\/dont-rap-our-golden-old-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t rap our Golden Old Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

C<\/strong>hanaka Bandarage<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Rap music\nevolved around 1960s from hip hop music. It involves delivering existing songs\nin hip hop style, rock rhythms and fast beats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s\ncurrent young performers are heavily involved in rapping music (songs).  By doing so, they do a great disservice to\nour highly respected, old, established songs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dhanno\nBudunge is such a song. It was written by John De Silva in early 20th<\/sup>\ncentury (precisely in 1903). The first singer is unknown. Some say it was the\nsong writer himself. In 1940s and 1950s Rupasinghe Master sang it brilliantly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dhanno\nBudunge was first released as a LP record under \u2018His Master\u2019s Voice\u2019 label in late\n1950s. The cassette, CD, DVD, MP3 versions later emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dhanno\nBudnuge has been played in Sinhala homes with devotion to Lord Buddha and\nAnuradhapura, the ancient city. The song has nobility, impeccability and\nperfection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Dhanno\nBudunge has been rapped. It has been sung by artistes over different pop vocal\ndeliveries\/beats. The writer has been told that there had existed baila versions\nof Danno Budunge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By rapping\nour highly respected, oldish songs like Danno Budunge with cynical\/ulterior\nintention, these artistes not only cause disrespect to the song but also to our\ntraditions, customs and heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dhanno\nBudunge is not a song that should be sung in a baila beat to dance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazing\nGrace is sung devotionally in Anglo Saxon countries since late 18th<\/sup>\ncentury. There is so much respect shown to this song in those countries. They\nwould never allow it to be rapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nsimilar song is Australia\u2019s Waltzing Matilda. It is protected in that country\nas a National Treasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1960s\nand 1970s Sri Lanka produced brilliant and finest singers and musicians.  Rapping music (songs) was never done by them.\nThey created their own, original, authentic  music. Sunil Shantha, CT Fernando, Amaradeva,\nVictor Rathnayake, Nanda Malini, Milton Mallawarachchi, Clarence Wijewardane,\nMS Fernando, Anton Jones, Freddie Silva, Sanath Nandasiri, TM Jayarathne, Abeywardane\nBalasuriya, Dyarathne Ranathunge, Amara Ranathunga, Chitra Somapala and Anula\nBulathsinhala come to mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nimportance is that the highly respected artistes never stole others\u2019 songs to\ncreate their own. It is true that Amaradeva too sang Dhanno Budunge. But, that\nwas alright.  He never tried to own it.  Furthermore, he did not disturb the song\u2019s\noriginality, seriousness and sacredness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unarguably\nVictor Rathnayake has produced some of the best music of our time. He is a\nliving legend. He must receive the State\u2019s patronage. The remarkable thing is that\nat nearly 80 years of age he continues to produce brilliant masterpieces. His most\nrecent  \u0db8\u0d9c\u0dda \u0dc3\u0db3 \u0d87\u0dc0\u0dd2\u0dad\u0dca,  \u0db1\u0dd2\u0dc0\u0dd3 \u0dc3\u0dd0\u0db1\u0dc3\u0dd2\u0dbd\u0dca\u0dbd\u0dda and \u0dc4\u0dd2\u0dad\u0dd2\u0db1\u0dca \u0dba\u0db1 \u0d85\u0dba are examples. If  he sings someone\nelse\u2019s song (very rarely), he would always mention the original artiste\u2019s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have highly\ntalented young artistes today. Some of the music that they have created is most\noutstanding and marvelous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, sadly there\nare many that tend to sing old, favourite songs. They think that this is the\nonly way to become popular. This inhibits their creativity. They should try to\nmake their own quality songs\/music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On  two different aspects \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) Dancing\nto famous old tunes has become a new norm; veteran artistes in gala shows,\nchildren in school concerts commonly do this. They dance beautifully wearing\nincredible costumes. Often, they demonstrate superb choreography. The writer is\nnot saying that this is bad, but it is good if new music is also created.\nRather than dancing to old songs\/old beats with new words\/Hindi songs;\nperformers should try to dance to new songs\/music either created by themselves\nor others. This is how a culture is progressed. As stated earlier there is\nenormous new talent today. In olden days children performed in school concerts\nof their own creations (songs, acts\/dances); later in life they ended becoming\nhighly talented artistes.   Even in\n\u2018Handa Mama\u2019 today, children tend to recite old children songs; those days they\nmostly sang their own songs. During the show, some children made new songs\ninstantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) There\nis a tendency to \u2018rap\u2019 our traditional dancing as well \u2013 Kandyan and Low\nCountry. They rap them with Indonesian\/Korean, Lebanese, Latin American style\ndancing. Sadly sometimes such things are done by our \u2018acclaimed\u2019 dancing\nteachers. The writer has attended events where our Kandyan dancing had contained\n\u2018sexy\u2019 overtures. Recently dancers did inappropriate Kandyan type dancing\nbefore an audience that was largely of foreign dignitaries. Their costumes\nexposed body parts \u2013 something abnormal in our traditional Kandyan dancing. In\na certain scene, a Kandyan type dancing couple as part of the dance kissed each\nother on the stage. Why did the organisers tolerate such nonsense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, rapping\nold songs is very common and fashionable in Sri Lanka today. Such rapped music\nis in demand and promoted heavily by our TV stations and FM radio stations. Unlike\ntheir older counterparts, many of our younger generation seem to accept any\nmusic that comes their way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 30 – 40\nyears ago, it was SLBC and Rupavahini\/ITN that promoted good, local music. They\nmay still be trying to do that; but very few people listen\/watch them. As they\nhave lost dominance, they are no longer the major source of local music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rapping our\nolder, quality songs like Dhanno Budunge, Shantha Me Re Yame, Lo Ada Ninde\/Mal Bara\nHimidiriye (CT Fernando version) should not be allowed. The writer states that\nit is alright to sing others\u2019 songs in  public including older, quality songs. But, it\nshould be done without harming the songs originality, meaning and authenticity.\nWhat they must not do is to rap them, like hip hop, heavy metal or baila.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chanaka Bandarage Rap music evolved around 1960s from hip hop music. It involves delivering existing songs in hip hop style, rock rhythms and fast beats. Sri Lanka\u2019s current young performers are heavily involved in rapping music (songs).  By doing so, they do a great disservice to our highly respected, old, established songs. Dhanno Budunge is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chanaka-bandarage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}