This article on sea slums is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the subject may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of fact-checkers or Snopes editors.
Amid global media coverage of the pandemic and Donald Trump’s last days as president of the United States, an unexpected musical genre went viral on TikTok: the traditional slums of the sea, spurring what became known as the “ShantyTok” phenomenon.
Global interest in ShantyTok started when a postman named Nathan Evans, who lives near Glasgow, Scotland, posted a video on his TikTok singing “Soon May The Wellerman Come”, a 19th-century slum sung by sailors who manned the brothers’ ships Weller, founders of a whaling station in New Zealand. These ships carried supplies to Weller’s whaling station in Otakou (Otago), New Zealand’s South Island.
SeaShantyTok is getting better pic.twitter.com/yWLEHzlPlB
– Peter Fries (@Peter_Fries) January 8, 2021
Evans, who became something of a media star on the back of his viral video, managed to explain this blocking phenomenon. He told the New York Times: “If it weren’t for TikTok, I would be so bored and claustrophobic” – a condition that may also have been experienced by whalers.
These hunters sailed the sea for long periods while searching for the largest mammal in the world. Evans’ performance has an authentic sense of stoic patience that certainly seems to have touched the COVID generation, who, like the whalers, are also marking time.
TikTok allows users to add their own parts to the previously posted material and, therefore, several singers, often with splendid beards, have layered harmonies, adding depth to Evans’ stimulating performance, creating a meme in the process. There’s also a folk violinist who adds a reel-type counter-melody, a techno remix, a fake pirate who adds his own comment, a bodhran accompaniment by a lady in her kitchen with her son dancing a techno-jig behind her, pizza guys singing the various parts and more.
Is Wellerman really a slum?
Wellerman’s success did not come without its controversies. David Coffin, a folk musician and music educator from Cambridge, Massachusetts, questions whether the song can be considered a slum. “It’s a whaling song with the beat of a slum,” he told the New York Times.
Shanties show the clear influence of the African American tradition of work songs. Enslaved people who worked in the southern plantations would replicate African traditions of singing songs to accompany their work. This practice was also adopted by merchant seamen to perform specific tasks on sailing vessels, such as pulling ropes and hoisting anchors. These tents have a strong rhythmic flow and a call and response structure, the call being made by the “shantyman”, a leading sailor who would start each task with a specific song.
It is no accident that British maritime slums “have striking similarities to the songs of Caribbean slaves”. In fact, ‘the practice of favelas itself may have its roots in the interaction of black sailors and dockers’. @bhatiap on the Haitian revolution: https://t.co/bmbJhMXNhh
– London Review of Books (@LRB) January 15, 2021
On the other hand, the whaling songs seem to have emerged from the favela tradition with the addition of a narrative structure of folkloric ballads. Wellerman shares many characteristics of the cabin: its form of call and response, strong pulse and a melodic structure that rises and falls, like a wave. However, the song also has six verses that tell the story of a 40-day whaling expedition by a ship called Billy of Tea and his crew’s struggle to land a particularly rebellious whale.
There is innocence and integrity in Nathan Evans’ performance and most responses to him. But there is darkness built into the music. The lyrics of the chorus begin: “Soon Wellerman will come, To bring us sugar, tea and rum”. These were products brought in from what became known as “The triangular trade”, with enslaved Africans being sold to work on plantations in North America and the Caribbean and the goods being brought back on the back leg.
There has been some debate on social media about the “problematic” nature of these references. But it is evident from the analysis of the lyrics that music is neither a type of post-colonial criticism nor an embrace of the exploitation of indigenous peoples or the slave trade. It can be seen as a genuine cultural expression by exploited workers, for whom “sugar, tea and rum” provided a much-needed break from the tedious work and toil of their daily lives.
In a world divided by competing ideologies, drowned in false news and with the lives of many people on hold because of COVID, it is not surprising that joining an online community to harmonize a melody and lyrics that goes back to a simpler past, though more brutal, it has many attractions. Understanding the context behind these songs allows us to go beyond the visceral pleasures of communal performance and towards a more nuanced view of the world, encouraging us to consider what has changed since the days of Wellerman.
Adrian York, senior commercial music performance speaker, Westminster University
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.