Blog Post #15 - Bell Hooks

In this modern day, it’s hard to find people who are interested in artists who use foreign languages in their songs. This is quite often caused by the listeners finding the lyrics worthless or meaningless especially if the song switches between different languages.

Bell Hooks, an African-American author and social critic stated in her essay “The Language of Power”: “I suggest that we may learn from spaces of silence as well as spaces of speech, that in the patient act of listening to another tongue we may subvert that culture of capitalist frenzy and consumption that demands all desire must be satisfied immediately, or we may disrupt that cultural imperialism that suggests one is worthy of being heard only if one speaks in standard English…”

After looking into this question, I have wondered how a non-English artist can successfully integrate themselves into an international community whilst still partially using their mother tongue in their music. To answer the question, I will use American stereotypes to look at how Latina singer Shakira has been successful.

Some key reasons as to why Shakira learnt English had similarities between why the Africans learnt English during the slavery era, were; motivation (both Shakira and the slaves learnt English because they were motivated and they had a clear goal to try and meet, so that they could communicate with the others and express themselves.)

Whilst connections can be made between the artist and the story, Bell Hooks’ story is an exploration into the discrimination of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) in American society.

Finally, Shakira is from a country where there are a limited number of famous singers who can speak/understand English. Shakira deliberately goes against the stereotypes that English speakers have of listen to English songs for her songs to appeal to non-Spanish speakers, although Shakira is not overly well known in the United States, she is quite well known around the rest of the world. While this connection may seem invalid, to some extent it reflects the solution proposed by Hooks, that you don’t need to know and speak correct English to communicate to a specific audience, although in this example Shakira has immersed herself into a community where standard English is commonly used.