The Skrillex of His Era

John Philip Sousa and the Minnesota March

BY GABRIEL MATIAS CASTILHO

On episode 4 of th fourth season of Brooklyn Nine Nine (“The Night Shift”), after seeing the waning morale of his squad, captain Raymond Holt (played by legendary Andre Braugher, rest in peace) decides to throw a party to uplift the 99th Precinct. Among all the—should I say—“interesting” entertainment choices (like forced laughter and naming their favorite sailing knot), Holt decides to play some music for people to dance to. When he presses play on his speaker, a contrast is immediately made present in the room: while captain Holt is sending it with his dance moves, his detective squad is totally unfazed, asking why they would dance to “carousel” music.

The song that was playing came from John Philip Sousa—according to Raymond Holt, “The Skrillex of his day.” Even though the entire situation was hilarious, I was intrigued by who Sousa was. Andre Braugher’s character in the show is generally known for appreciating classical literature and music while delegitimizing anything of “recent” production. In the last phrase, “recent” was put in quotes because it encompasses the entirety of the 20th century too, as according to him in season 5, episode 11, “all music after Mahler” is basically noise—Gustav Mahler was an Austrian-Czech composer who died in 1911.

My main starting point of wonder was the origin of his last name “Sousa,” which is one of the most common last names in Brazil, where I am from. John Philip Sousa was born in 1854 in Washington D.C. to Bavarian and Portuguese parents (hence the “Sousa” last name).

Sousa, since 1880, dedicated his career to writing and conducting music. He is mostly known for his military marches, composing both the national march of the United States (“The Stars and Stripes Forever”) and the Marine Corps’ march (“Semper Fidelis”). He did, indeed, write a waltz called “King Cotton”, which, in the 1973 film “The Sting”, was classified as carousel music—so detective Rosa Diaz did actually have a point when calling it merry-go-round music.

Perhaps one aspect that goes unnoticed is that, in 1927, Sousa actually composed a march dedicated to the faculty and students of the University of Minnesota—a.k.a the “Minnesota March”. The Minnesota March was one of the only four marches Sousa composed for specific universities. This song, starting with the familiar lyrics of “RAH! RAH! SKI-UMAH!” was first performed by Sousa and his band on September 3 of the same year at the Minnesota State Fair, and, on the next month, would be performed by the university band at the University of Minnesota Armory building, where the University’s three ROTC units are now located.

Sousa, after playing the piece at the state fair, said it was the best piece he had ever written. According to the U of M Marching Band Centennial Book on the College of Liberal Arts archives, Sousa also dedicated the march to the heritage of the state, its Native history, and its city names. Lotus D. Coffman, president of the University at the time, disapproved of the fact that the piece was first presented at the state fair to a crowd of 12,000 people and not at the University. State fair officials described the fair as “an innocent third party” and said they only wished to fulfill the personal wishes of Sousa.

Brooklyn Nine Nine captain Raymond Holt’s remarks of Sousa as the “Skrillex of his day” are not at all far-fetched—in fact, they were on point. Skrillex has recently seen a revival of his music career. After exploding on the charts in 2011 with his Bangarang EP and his 2016 song with Rick Ross “Purple Lamborghini”, the artist Sonny John Moore would return to the top of the charts with his long-awaited “Quest for Fire” album, which would render him a Grammy award for his track “Rumble”.

Just like John Philip Sousa in 1927, Skrillex did play in the Armory (but the one downtown) earlier this year. His songs are mostly known for their instrumentation and innovations, just like Sousa’s compositions.

There is nothing more appropriate than to call John Philip Sousa the Skrillex of his day.