"The group Roomful of Teeth came under fire recently from Inuit singer Tanya Tagaq about their use of throat singing, or katajjaq, which comes from a long oral tradition among Inuit women, and can be heard in the composition Partita for Eight Voices. The piece has won two noteworthy awards: a 2012 Grammy award, as well as a 2013 Pulitzer prize... Tagaq, an award-winning composer who has worked with Kronos Quartet and Bjork, writes: "No Inuit are named as composers, no Inuit hired. At least credit the Inuit who taught you as composers so they too can benefit and book more gigs to put food on the table... Taking from poor brown people and siphoning it into white throats and profiteering is wrong." This story shows how traditional practices, such as Inuit throat singing, which has cultural protection status in Canada, contrast with Western ideas of the "public domain" - saying that pre-copyright creations are common property. Post-colonialist thought problematizes cultural appropriation, where the dominant culture reaches into (its) former colonies to, once again, pull out the plum of "inspiration" and profit. That old comic comes to mind, where David Byrne and Paul Simon encounter each other in the bush with field recording equipment. Perhaps tellingly, the composer of Partita later worked with Kanye on the Pablo record, and Inuit throat singing apparently made it into Beyonce's concert movie last year. Meanwhile the Inuit see no profit and struggle with many of the same problems that formerly colonized peoples face - poverty, racism. It's problematic to say that absolutely everything pre-copyright is "public domain" - this mindset is itself a product of colonialism - colonizing the past. Derivative works in the present may likewise gain copyright protection within a Western legal framework and be actively profited on. Likewise, Roomful of Teeth brings "folk art" into the realm of "fine art", treating native practices such as Inuit throat singing as mere techniques to be learned, reproduced, and re-contextualized. They can then be seen as doing "something new" in the classical music world, and take all the credit for their "original compositions". They may pay and acknowledge their teachers, but that doesn't give them the right to insert indigenous work blithely into their compositions. It's not just problematic for middle class Americans, either: Tagaq has also recently boycotted Canada's Indigenous Music Awards over non-Inuit use of Inuit throat singing. Sadly it seems like it does take giving something "cultural heritage" status for westerners to take cultural appropriation seriously, bringing "traditional folk art" up to speed with a contemporary legal framework.