Tom Zé's Fabrication Defect and the “Esthetics of Plagiarism”: a postmodern/postcolonial “Cannibalist Manifesto”
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Accepted Version
Date
2007-06-26
Authors
Rollefson, J. Griffith
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis Group
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Abstract
On his 1998 album Fabrication Defect the Brazilian composer-performer Tom Zé articulates the discourses of postmodernity and postcoloniality. More than simply touching on various aspects of ‘‘post-ness,’’ Zé forges from them an updated manifesto premised on Oswald de Andrade’s 1928 ‘‘Cannibalist Manifesto.’’ The former Tropica´lia musician proposes an ‘‘Esthetics of Plagiarism’’ as a way to appropriate and then reformulate the products of Western techno-capitalism. In this discussion, I will argue that the composer reconfigures the modernist and colonial tropes of primitivism and cannibalism in a subversively technophilic postmodern and postcolonial fashion - an oppositionality embodied in the album’s ‘‘defective android’’ figure.
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Keywords
Postmodern , Postcolonial , Primitivism , Cannibalism , Plagiarism
Citation
Rollefson, J. G. (2007) 'Tom Zé's Fabrication Defect and the “Esthetics of Plagiarism”: a postmodern/postcolonial “Cannibalist Manifesto”', Popular Music and Society, 30(4), pp. 305-327. doi:10.1080/03007760600834853
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© 2007, Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Popular Music and Society on 26 June 2007, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03007760600834853