Back’s article asserts that the diffusion of music across and within cultural diasporas occurs horizontally, along the geometry of a rhizome through which “connections can be developed between thins that have no necessary relation with each other” (185). Examples highlighted in this article include the ways in which features of reggae sound system technology (the use of mixer boards, operators/selectors, turntables) have permeated other forms of diasporic popular music (soul, funk, hip hop). The axes of diffusion and connectivity between musical cultures are manyfold: diffusion of musical ideas can be conceived of as between national scenes that are both part of a broader diaspora (American hip hop <--> British hip hop), or between scenes within a nation (London reggae technology <--> punk and hip hop scenes in smaller British cities), etc. The “rhizome” model works in these cases because while many aspects of these musical traditions fall under the broad umbrella of the African diaspora, they have emerged and developed under disparate geographical, cultural, and local conditions and therefore the spread of these ideas is complicated by their greater containment within the “same” diaspora.
Back describes soul, R&B, hip hop and reggae as “parallel” scenes throughout the article, and emphasizes the distinctions between how and why technology was implicated in the creation of these ‘distinct’ genres. Given that Back also discusses the level of “horizontal” transmission of sonic ideas and their ideological underpinnings across cultural boundaries within the black diaspora, when do musical elements become shared or common enough to qualify as intersecting...when does the parallel nature of musical ideas become parallel no more? When does the diffusion and extension of musical concepts beyond their derivative ‘communities’ create musical landscapes that are too integrated to contain parallel movements and trends?
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