Blackness and Identity Making in Popular Music

6:00 PM
Film Screening of Milli Vanilli
Documentary directed by Luke Korem, produced by MRC and Keep on Running Pictures
USA 2023, 106min, digital
MILLI VANILLI tells the story of Robert “Rob” Pilatus and Fabrice “Fab” Morvan, who became fast friends during their youth in Germany. With Rob coming from a broken home and Fab having left an abusive household, they shared a similar upbringing and future goal: to become famous superstars.
In a few short years, their dreams came true. In 1989 their first album went platinum six times in the U.S., and the hit song “Girl You Know It’s True” sold more than 30 million singles worldwide. Rob and Fab, better known as “Milli Vanilli,” became the world’s most popular pop duo in 1990 and won the GRAMMY for Best New Artist.
However, their ascension to success came with a devastating price that ultimately led to their infamous undoing.
8:30 PM
Conversation with Alexander Ghedi Weheliye and Matthew D. Morrison
Taking the 2023 documentary about music group, Milli Vanilli, as the starting point, the conversation will focus on the role of Blackness and identity making in the history of German popular music. Milli Vanilli’s late 1980s racialized performance forms part of a longer tradition of Blackness and Blackface produced in Germany during 1970s and 1980s Eurodisco as well as Eurodance in the 1990s. In this context, Blackness forms an integral part of how Germany imagines itself in relation to the rest of the world.
With the help of sound samples, Alexander Ghedi Weheliye and Matthew D. Morrison give insight into issues of cultural appropriation that have plagued popular music from the beginning with a focus on Germany and the US.
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Host or Publisher Goethe-Institut Boston