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swiss

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DiamondDog7

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Bärs

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DiamondDog7

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Bärs
Well, rock is basically a "white" genre. Isn't it?

hmm... nope!

Tell that to Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz! ;-)

Yes, but their audience is white. I think it's uncontroversial to say that rock is sociologically a phenomenom for the white youth.

I understand your point, Bärs. But I do still disagree. Even the Parliament or Funkadelic adopt the sound of rock in their funky sound.

Isn't it interesting that some people are saying Parliament/Funkadelic shouldn't be in the RRHOF

I agree.

I do love Parliament/Funkadelic. They do use a lot of Rock elements in their songs. But it's still Funk, not Rock. Although some songs are really rock-ish.

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DiamondDog7

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swiss

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DiamondDog7

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Bärs

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DiamondDog7

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Bärs
Well, rock is basically a "white" genre. Isn't it?

hmm... nope!

Tell that to Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz! ;-)

Yes, but their audience is white. I think it's uncontroversial to say that rock is sociologically a phenomenom for the white youth.

I understand your point, Bärs. But I do still disagree. Even the Parliament or Funkadelic adopt the sound of rock in their funky sound.

Isn't it interesting that some people are saying Parliament/Funkadelic shouldn't be in the RRHOF

I agree.

I do love Parliament/Funkadelic. They do use a lot of Rock elements in their songs. But it's still Funk, not Rock. Although some songs are really rock-ish.

True - it's hard to know where to draw the line on genres - ultimately, what's rock? I personally have no trouble saying ABBA and Madonna shouldn't be in, that heavy metal should be, and that PFunk probably should be in, but understand how fuzzy the whole thing is. I don't give a lot of thought to RRHOF anyway.

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swiss
Objectifying anyone and "wanting them at my show" skirts very closely to being patronizing, dangerously close to objectifying black people and wanting them among us, coming right up to narcissistically feeling good about being "diverse."

I think that's true and I think it applies to white rock bands who like to have black musicians onstage with them as sideman. I'll give you an example of something I saw that bothered me. I saw Crosby, Stills, and Nash perform with an African-American bass player. "What's wrong with that?" you may ask. Nothing, probably, but there was just something about it that I found troubling. It seemed to me like they were USING this guy for more than just his considerable chops. It seemed to be part of his JOB DESCRIPTION to play with a broad SMILE on his face. In fact, he never STOPPED smiling. His head CONSTANTLY bopped up and down, as if this white-bread folk rock was the most AMAZING music he had ever heard in his life. The message they seemed to be sending out was "Aren't we good? We are SO good, that even this BLACK MAN thinks we are the best band he's ever heard! So we must be REALLY good, huh?"

Maybe I'm totally off base, but that's how it seemed to me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-12-19 17:42 by tatters.

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Midnight Toker
The current President of the USA is also a Stones fan. Stevie Wonder,Snoop Dog Wyclef Jean, Buddy Guy,BB King and Tina Turner are also big fans.

Wonder whether any of us has sat next to any of them at a Stones' show...?

I am sure that's your perspective living in Scotland which I respect.

Try living it in Atlanta where Affirmative action will kill you on one side of town and a stiletto will kill you on the other.

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teleblaster
If it was a derogatory racial stereotype directed towards an individual it would be classed as racial abuse which is a criminal offence where I live. If could also constitute a racially aggravated breach of the peace if shouted or spoken in a public place, also a criminal offence.

I am less up to speed about publishing and internet laws, but I live in Scotland and there are a number of anti - racism laws and I would anticipate further leigislation of this nature.

I am sure that's your perspective living in Scotland which I respect.

Try living it in Atlanta where Affirmative action will kill you on one side of town and a stiletto will kill you on the other.

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Altefutze

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teleblaster
If it was a derogatory racial stereotype directed towards an individual it would be classed as racial abuse which is a criminal offence where I live. If could also constitute a racially aggravated breach of the peace if shouted or spoken in a public place, also a criminal offence.

I am less up to speed about publishing and internet laws, but I live in Scotland and there are a number of anti - racism laws and I would anticipate further leigislation of this nature.

I am sure that's your perspective living in Scotland which I respect.

Try living it in Atlanta where Affirmative action will kill you on one side of town and a stiletto will kill you on the other.

And paranoia will kill you even more insidiously.

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swiss
And paranoia will kill you even more insidiously.

"There is no such thing as paranoia...they really ARE out to get you." - Hunter S Thompson

"We're all the same under the skin." - Keith Richards

This discussion is interesting, in both good and bad ways...I always reckoned music was one of the few things in the world that didn't need to transcend borders, race or gender in order to have an effect, be it the Stones or Hip Hop or whatever...

I live in the city, but I always respond to suburbanites who always claim for the "record" that they are never racist that I bet you don't know your neighbor 3 doors down but can tell you exactly where the black family or families live in their entire development.

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loveyoulive75

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swiss
And paranoia will kill you even more insidiously.

"There is no such thing as paranoia...they really ARE out to get you." - Hunter S Thompson

Love HST....but eeeah, maybe not the best reality check on paranoia

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loveyoulive75
"We're all the same under the skin." - Keith Richards

This discussion is interesting, in both good and bad ways...I always reckoned music was one of the few things in the world that didn't need to transcend borders, race or gender in order to have an effect, be it the Stones or Hip Hop or whatever...

If we walked around, every day, dealing with each other on a deep brotherly love level we'd be in nirvana. But we don't. We live in multilayered reality every day, so that we are all the same under the skin--aka we're all equal in the eyes of whatever "force" brought each of us onto the planet. At the same time, we're also each of us entirely unique. And our cultures are also "the same" and also "different."

For those of us who've been born or who have moved into power or privilege it's easier to say "Aah, forget all those trifling differences." As a result, you hear far more white people saying "We're all the same under the skin -- let's not talk about race" than you'd hear black people, or any people of color, say that. Even if we're "nice," progressive, caring people it's the advantage of those in power to keep the status quo as is. And not rock the boat. And to even deny the privilege, and to blame the people---who speak up and who aren't enjoying the same sense of entitlement and privelege---for inventing the problems."Everything was fine til you started making trouble."

The following analogy struck me after my car accident last week. An SUV, in the snow, roared up at 70mph right behind my cool beautiful little car. I don't think they even literally saw me -- they barrelled up on me probably 70 mph -- right up my ass. I tried to shift lanes and went flying off the highway, flipped twice, landed on my roof, and slid into the woods. I honestly do not think the SUV ever noticed. Or SUVs that have those blinding halogen headlights -- they can't see them. They think only of how dar into the night they can see. They do not think that people going to other direction have spots before their eyes for 5 minutes. They don't SEE their impact because they don't perceive themselves objectively -- just experientially.

And the way many SUV drivers drive. If you don't drive an SUV you will know what I mean. If you drive an SUV likely don't know what I'm talking about -- and may be about to call me embittered names or say I should buy an SUV like any other normal red-blooded American. But, often in big SUVs physically are so far above smaller cars they tend not to look where they're going, they cut off smaller cars, and basically drive with impunity, pulling out of parking lots, shifting lanes, parking and taking up more room than is rightfully theirs -- because they literally do not see other people (except other SUVs as big as they are). AND because they are in little danger themselves. And because other cars get out of their way -- without the SUV even realizing that's what going down -- and hat the others are getting out of their way because they're fricking bullying and forcing them through their sheer size and obvious lack of awareness.

If a smaller car tried to hold their ground they could easily be driven off the road (and the SUV driver through the privilege of being raised higher) might not even notice. And if the smaller car honked their objection or to express how they're being impacted, the SUV might say "What's that person's problem!!!"

That's what it's like being a white American, extra privilege points for being middle class or above, extra points for higher education, extra points for several other factors. I know I have privilege. I won't lie and say I don't enjoy the fruits of it, because I do. But as I drive the SUV of Privilege I was born with, I try to do so with as much conscientiousness and empathy for other people as if I were in my sleek little low-slung Honda (R.I.P.) And I don't ever say "We're all just cars."

Well being from Detroit, not a lot of AAM folks seem to care much for the Stones, and the average Detroiter is not going to shell out that much change for a Stones show. It is a province for suburban whities.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-01-07 11:28 by whitem8.

Maybe they have lost too much of their... soul? Listen to this '68 smasher n' compare with today's Stones..

In Suid Afrika the same thing slegs blankes, no black man insight. Well make Darryl an official Stone and get him more to the forground and involved in the composing, he's got the "right stuff" (if ye get me drift), and you'll see some new people appearing, black young whatever. I would say come on you Keef you had your time move aside and let this (younger) genius (yes Darryl Jones) step in the limelight and show the way into the future. Jagger would love it, he's got a black soul and always has been at his best with those Temptation, Otis Redding and James Brown covers instead of these repetitive same old rock tunes

I love it when these guys come along.

Yeah baby, move over Keith!

So selfish.

Selfish? Well, one could argue that keeping the Stones back from what they could be by wanting to stick to and "posses" the past glory is selfish.

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bassplayer617
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The reaction--hip-hop and rap crap-- is a very poor attempt at establishing a new and separate identity. It isn't music--it just sucks...

It isn't music and it isn't lyrics><
Fully Agreed

HMN

Furthermore if me wanting to see the Stones finish with a good soulfull funky surprising album that will get everyone by surprise and top the charts all over the world, and cause a whole new army of fresh new young Stonesfans (who may not even bother about their old stuff) to come out and go to that final tour which will be so refreshing different from anything that was done in the Stones name before that will break all existing records on audiencce atendance and financial profit, is selfish. Than, yes, yes i am very selfish.

I can't work out if behroez is a troll??

He does try his best even if it is totally bla bla....

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whitem8
Well being from Detroit, not a lot of AAM folks seem to care much for the Stones, and the average Detroiter is not going to shell out that much change for a Stones show. It is a province for suburban whities.

Here's something weird about Detroit: The basketball team plays their home games in the white suburbs, and the hockey team plays their home games downtown in the inner city.

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tatters
Here's something weird about Detroit: The basketball team plays their home games in the white suburbs, and the hockey team plays their home games downtown in the inner city.

It's the Detroit oxy-moron of diversity.

It must be a world wide thing, not just a black American thing. Listen to the Stones doing Mannish Boy and then listen to Muddy Waters. Why bother with the Stones? Jagger is embarrassing when held up next to Muddy Waters.

Maybe that's what black people across the world think and therefor the Rolling Stones are too white (vanilla, bland, whatever).

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skipstone
It must be a world wide thing, not just a black American thing. Listen to the Stones doing Mannish Boy and then listen to Muddy Waters. Why bother with the Stones? Jagger is embarrassing when held up next to Muddy Waters.

Maybe that's what black people across the world think and therefor the Rolling Stones are too white (vanilla, bland, whatever).

Yes, but that doesn't explain why BLACK audiences don't support BLACK blues artists, or even old school soul artists. Do they consider them too "fuddy duddy"?, too "uncle tom"?

Ha ha - very witty.

Perhaps blacks are just too busy living while whites are too busy looking back. Or maybe you're defending something that can't be defended? Obviously The Rolling Stones don't care what colour anyone is that comes to their shows, they only care that they spend their money.

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tatters

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skipstone
It must be a world wide thing, not just a black American thing. Listen to the Stones doing Mannish Boy and then listen to Muddy Waters. Why bother with the Stones? Jagger is embarrassing when held up next to Muddy Waters.

Maybe that's what black people across the world think and therefor the Rolling Stones are too white (vanilla, bland, whatever).

Yes, but that doesn't explain why BLACK audiences don't support BLACK blues artists, or even old school soul artists. Do they consider them too "fuddy duddy"?, too "uncle tom"?

Tatters....I wrote a long response to you initially -- probably too long to read -- not blaming you But here's a few suppositions on black people and blues.

1. you've several times mentioned black people have turned their backs on blues and jazz. But good hip hop incorporates these forms (literally in terms of riffs and samples, and mentioning musicians who came before; in spirit; and in terms of incredibly complex rhythms, syncopation)

2. Black people moving from field songs and spirituals were probably criticized by white people who liked that music - for "abandoning" those "authentic black" musical forms, and moving to blues. And maybe the same happened when some musicians started moving onto jazz from blues. My point: black Americans have always been innovating and evolving musically.

3. All yall who rant "rap music isn't MUSIC!!! it's just NOISE!!!" Seriously....can you hear yourselves? You do know those are the sounds of old people resentful at not understanding something and feeling left behind, don't you? It's the sound of someone who's musically lacking open-mindedness, discipline, humility, curiosity, and zeal to try to appreciate an art form that's unfamiliar. It's the sound of over the hill people railing about the evils of rock and roll. Seriously. It's really the same thing. There's good hip hop and there's bad hip hop. There's smart hip hop and there's stupid hop hop. It's like any musical genre that's ever existed.

I can't speak to people from other countries, but I know firsthand it's hard for white American rock n rollers to "get" hip hop. If you're a rock n roller for whom lyrics or vocals aren't important to a song's whole sound and meaning, you won't be as interested in - or able to access the value of - rap. If you're someone who would be just as happy never to see a live band - and just hear the same thing over and over "perfectly" on wax; you probably won't be intrigued by the magic of really good rappers or DJs improvising.

BUT if you like lyrics, and are interested in rhythms, and have a sense of what's going on culturally - you might really end up loving hip hop! It helps to have a guide of some sort.

5. White people (again, talking about Americans because American race issues are the only ones I have an inkling about) have followed black people's musical lead for centuries. Not so much rap. Could there be some correlation to preferring an artform whose creators are essentially black? nd seldom boasts celebrated white artists? I don't know.

6. FINALLY -- tatters, I don't know where you're from -- I think America -- but even if your family came here 400 years ago, you have roots somewhere else. Are you a fanatic for contemporary groups that cover your ethnic folk music? like oom pah pah bands and lederhosen? or what young Irish people call deedle da music?

No offense to any of this music --- I love it all, in it's way. But you get my drift...

























respectfully,
swiss



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2010-01-12 05:25 by swiss.

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swiss

2. Black people moving from field songs and spirituals were probably criticized by white people who liked that music - for "abandoning" those "authentic black" musical forms, and moving to blues. And maybe the same happened when some musicians started moving onto jazz from blues. My point: black Americans have always been innovating and evolving musically.

swiss

In Search of the Blues: Black Voices, White Visions (Paperback)
by Marybeth Hamilton (Author)

[www.amazon.co.uk]

swiss, you'd probably find this book interesting: it certainly confirms your guess that in the early 20th century white enthusiasts for earlier forms of black music (spirituals etc) were unhappy about the new blues and jazz, and thought that they were a degeneration of black culture.

I guess every culture finds "grandpa's music" OK in its own way, but not what they personally want to dance to. On the other hand, the music of somebody else's grandpa is exotic and interesting.

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Green Lady

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swiss

2. Black people moving from field songs and spirituals were probably criticized by white people who liked that music - for "abandoning" those "authentic black" musical forms, and moving to blues. And maybe the same happened when some musicians started moving onto jazz from blues. My point: black Americans have always been innovating and evolving musically.

swiss

In Search of the Blues: Black Voices, White Visions (Paperback)
by Marybeth Hamilton (Author)

[www.amazon.co.uk]

swiss, you'd probably find this book interesting: it certainly confirms your guess that in the early 20th century white enthusiasts for earlier forms of black music (spirituals etc) were unhappy about the new blues and jazz, and thought that they were a degeneration of black culture.

I guess every culture finds "grandpa's music" OK in its own way, but not what they personally want to dance to. On the other hand, the music of somebody else's grandpa is exotic and interesting.

Not for every culture. It's true I find the music of my black friends parents exotic and interesting, but my black friends don't think MY parents music is fascinating at all, not even the BLACK artists that my parents liked, like Johnny Mathis and Dionne Warwick.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-01-12 16:51 by tatters.

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swiss

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tatters

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skipstone
It must be a world wide thing, not just a black American thing. Listen to the Stones doing Mannish Boy and then listen to Muddy Waters. Why bother with the Stones? Jagger is embarrassing when held up next to Muddy Waters.

Maybe that's what black people across the world think and therefor the Rolling Stones are too white (vanilla, bland, whatever).

Yes, but that doesn't explain why BLACK audiences don't support BLACK blues artists, or even old school soul artists. Do they consider them too "fuddy duddy"?, too "uncle tom"?

Tatters....I wrote a long response to you initially -- probably too long to read -- not blaming you But here's a few suppositions on black people and blues.

1. you've several times mentioned black people have turned their backs on blues and jazz. But good hip hop incorporates these forms (literally in terms of riffs and samples, and mentioning musicians who came before; in spirit; and in terms of incredibly complex rhythms, syncopation)

2. Black people moving from field songs and spirituals were probably criticized by white people who liked that music - for "abandoning" those "authentic black" musical forms, and moving to blues. And maybe the same happened when some musicians started moving onto jazz from blues. My point: black Americans have always been innovating and evolving musically.

3. All yall who rant "rap music isn't MUSIC!!! it's just NOISE!!!" Seriously....can you hear yourselves? You do know those are the sounds of old people resentful at not understanding something and feeling left behind, don't you? It's the sound of someone who's musically lacking open-mindedness, discipline, humility, curiosity, and zeal to try to appreciate an art form that's unfamiliar. It's the sound of over the hill people railing about the evils of rock and roll. Seriously. It's really the same thing. There's good hip hop and there's bad hip hop. There's smart hip hop and there's stupid hop hop. It's like any musical genre that's ever existed.

4. I can't speak to people from other countries, but I know firsthand it's hard for white American rock n rollers to "get" hip hop. If you're a rock n roller for whom lyrics or vocals aren't important to a song's whole sound and meaning, you won't be as interested in - or able to access the value of - rap. If you're someone who would be just as happy never to see a live band - and just hear the same thing over and over "perfectly" on wax; you probably won't be intrigued by the magic of really good rappers or DJs improvising.

BUT if you like lyrics, and are interested in rhythms, and have a sense of what's going on culturally - you might really end up loving hip hop! It helps to have a guide of some sort.

5. White people (again, talking about Americans because American race issues are the only ones I have an inkling about) have followed black people's musical lead for centuries. Not so much rap. Could there be some correlation to preferring an artform whose creators are essentially black? nd seldom boasts celebrated white artists? I don't know.

6. FINALLY -- tatters, I don't know where you're from -- I think America -- but even if your family came here 400 years ago, you have roots somewhere else. Are you a fanatic for contemporary groups that cover your ethnic folk music? like oom pah pah bands and lederhosen? or what young Irish people call deedle da music?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

1. I said that blacks have abandoned blues and old school soul. I didn't say they had abandoned jazz. The audience for jazz has always been much smaller than the audience for "popular" music and I think a large percentage of that small audience always has always been, and continues to be, black.

2. Good point.

3 & 4. I myself don't dislike rap. I do think that it's a YOUNG person's music, and that at the age of 50, I'm a little too old to be seriously into it without looking like an old fool. Also, I have the nagging suspicion that the rap music I like, LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out", for example, must have something "wrong" with it. It must be too commercial, a sell out, not the real deal, otherwise a 50-year-old white guy wouldn't like it.

5. I work with many young people and rap seems to be just as popular with the young whites as it is with the young blacks. I don't consider it to be the exclusive property of blacks. Eminem and Kid Rock, my homeboys from Detroit, are pretty good at it, yes?

6. My ethnic folk music? Well, I'm of mostly Italian descent, so what's my ethnic folk music? Opera? Not into opera, but I AM interested in what Italian-Americans contributed to the rock and roll music of the 1960s, and that's why I DON'T understand why if you go to a Four Tops or a Temptations concert, the audience is almost entirely white. You DON'T see black people who are interested in what black people have contributed to the music of the 1960s. At some point, those groups completely lost the black audiences they started out with, and began catering exclusively to a white clientele. How did that happen? Did their original black fans begin to see them as sell outs, marketing a watered-down version of soul to caucasians? Did they switch their allegiance to other artists whose soul was more authentic? Who were those more authentic artists? I'd be curious to hear from anyone who ever saw James Brown in concert. Was the audience mostly black? or mostly white?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2010-01-13 02:33 by tatters.

tatters, you know I'm fascinated by this thread of yours. But I don't want to take this thread too far afield from your original intent--i.e., African American Stones fans. So after this thread, after I respond to you, if I wanna keep yammering about hip hop, blues, and black and white people, maybe I should start an semi-OT thread. What do you think? It's up to you.

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tatters
1. I said that blacks have abandoned blues and old school soul. I didn't say they had abandoned jazz. The audience for jazz has always been much smaller than the audience for "popular" music and I think a large percentage of that small audience always has always been, and continues to be, black.

Thanks. Not sure about that about jazz audiences. I thought seeing jazz live was more a white thing. But I could be very wrong.

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tatters
3 & 4. I myself don't dislike rap. I do think that it's a YOUNG person's music, and that at the age of 50, I'm a little too old to be seriously into it without looking like an old fool. Also, I have the nagging suspicion that the rap music I like, LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out", for example, must have something "wrong" with it. It must be too commercial, a sell out, not the real deal, otherwise a 50-year-old white guy wouldn't like it.

That's cool. I didn't remember whether you liked rap! I don't think we're too old for anything.


I know you're kind of joking about LL Cool J's "Mama Said to Knock You Out." But it's a catchy song.

But it came out in 1991 when there was so much intensely good new stuff happening. New artists taking things to new levels -- lyrically, rhythmically, flow-wise, musically, comically, politically, stylistically, productionwise.

Just a few of 1991's many hip hop gems.










----------------------------


So...tonight I was thinking. Seems there's 3 main ways that both blues and hip hop is appreciated.

As culture, as entertainment, and as art.

As culture. Black originally people liked the blues because it set their everyday difficult life experiences to music. It was coming straight raw from the heart, telling it straight, saying things that people could relate to and feel - hearing their own experiences being articulated and sung by someone else. Add some musical accompaniment that's sometimes plain, sometimes clever, sometimes gorgeous, many times catchy. And always no bollshet. Also, it probably horrified the older people who thought they should be singing gospel and not this devil's music. (Thanks for this reference, Green Lady! "In Search of the Blues: Black Voices, White Visions," by Marybeth Hamilton)

Same with hip hop. Looked at culturally...rap is stories, rants, broadcasts, history lessons, bleatings, beat-downs, verbal wars, love songs that (in good hip hop) is straight from the heart. And straight from real-life everyday experiences. Made by people who--for the most part--are in places and cultures ain't too "nice" - life's straight-up brutal in ways most of us can't totally imagine (some of us have more direct experience w/it than others, but I'd be surprised if many people in iorr grew up in a project, in a major US city, of the past 30 years). But if that's where you grow up...and if you're smart, and if you are sensitive, you got a few choices.

One is to work against the odds, and do well in school, actually take home your books and try to do your homework, probably many times get shit knocked out of you on the way home, be kept up at night with focked up people coming into your space, too many people, guns firing outside, drugs everywhere. And be ridiculed by even your family (who fear you might get your hopes up too high, or become soft and unable to survive the reality of where you are). But another way...if you're smart, and you like to read, and you remember everything you see and hear on TV, and you're funny and clever, maybe even hyperactive, loud-mouth, can't ever shut up, pain in the ass who know how to twist words---is to rap.

Most rappers (again, not all), despite their tough front, were the smart kids wherever they grew up. Most of them were wise-asses who could talk their way out of being beaten up by stupid bully a$$holes. You know the type. They're in every school. Hang around, look menacing, lean against the wall, get the stupid pretty girls, enjoy throwing kids into lockers if they look at them the wrong way. Well, imagine what you know, but a lot tougher. And maybe one day you insult the bully in front of some other kids, making up a rhyme on the spot that he can hardly follow, that's funny, true, mean, and clearly bests him. Draws a crowd, kids whooping and laughing, and you actually get the respect of this same a$$hole, who gives you protection. You're a modern court jester of powerful people in your school and/or neighborhood.

Back in the days of the early blues...down South if you were a smart sensitive smart creative male you also had limited options. You could pick cotton. You could be a tenant farmer---and give most of the money back to the landlord, who used to own you, and consider you both lucky and ungrateful for being able to keep any of your money. Or maybe you're lucky enough to be the 2% who got Sherman's 40 acres and a mule (or at least 10 acres and a chicken) and now you got a farm (don't be too successful or the midnight riders could pay you a visit). You could give up trying to pretend these options was cool, and wander, or ride the rails - or simply be restless and bored and do the same. Or if you were smart and sensitive and had some musical talent, you might could play the blues.

---> so that's blues and hip hop as cultural expression. That's at least 50% of why I like the blues. And probably 50% why I love hip hop. If I were of the culture where the blues arose --- or where hip hop is still bring born --- I'd have a much different appreciation for it. Because it would be my people and my stories. They're not. There's universal elements to these experiences, but they are not my stories. They never will be. And they were not created for my enjoyment. It was a matter of someone else's sheer survival, to get this shit out of their systems and speak, sing, and play it out.

The blues was alive for a certain period of time, and then it ceased to connect vibrantly to the people whose culture the music originally sprang from -- it no longer resonated or told their story. What sounds fresh now--new stories with new settings and old themes--is rap. Why would young black people want to hear basically old people embarrassingly naked baring their souls? Hip hop does the same, and can bring tears to the eye, but it and the people making and lsitening it cannot afford to be so vulnerable and exposed. If you get used to listening to it you hear the truth and vulnerability, but it's coming from a cultures where basically: you soft you die. So it's filled and surrounded by defenses---jokes, posturing, hyperbole, smack talk.

So that's the cultural part. The entertainment part is obvious. People like blues and rhythm and blues originally because it wasn't all gloom and doom. It was funny. And fun. And sexy. Rap too. You can dance to it. You can act the fool to it. It makes you feel good.

And blues and hip hop as art...I've gone on too long, but really all I have to say is they're both art. Often imitated, adopted, adapted by others less adept at creating their own art forms.

Rakim and Eric B's music is 22 years old now, but it's the sort of thing, if you can appreciate what they were doing -- and see how good it is -- then you can fast forward 22 years and find current stuff that sounds more modern but is GOOD. The lyrics are on this youtube page. Obviously these are written lyrics, but Rakim was a famous freestyler who'd glance around him and spontaneously invent rhymes off the dome, as quickly as he could speak.

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tatters
5. I work with many young people and rap seems to be just as popular with the young whites as it is with the young blacks. I don't consider it to be the exclusive property of blacks. Eminem and Kid Rock, my homeboys from Detroit, are pretty good at it, yes?

You're right on all counts. I personally don't like Kid Rock, but Eminem is one of the best rappers alive. Here in New England there are definitely some good young white MCs.

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tatters
6. My ethnic folk music? Well, I'm of mostly Italian descent, so what's my ethnic folk music? Opera? Not into opera

No, I'm thinking it would be more like the music in this video---Alan Lomax didn't only capture American folk and blues; he also found the real deal of Italian music (I heard raw stuff like this a couple summers ago in Puglia):

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tatters
but I AM interested in what Italian-Americans contributed to the rock and roll music of the 1960s, and that's why I DON'T understand why if you go to a Four Tops or a Temptations concert, the audience is almost entirely white. You DON'T see black people who are interested in what black people have contributed to the music of the 1960s. At some point, those groups completely lost the black audiences they started out with, and began catering exclusively to a white clientele. How did that happen? Did their original black fans begin to see them as sell outs, marketing a watered-down version of soul to caucasians? Did they switch their allegiance to other artists whose soul was more authentic? Who were those more authentic artists? I'd be curious to hear from anyone who ever saw James Brown in concert. Was the audience mostly black? or mostly white?

Ask most white young people about Kurt Cobain or REM or John Lennon. Music geeks/freaks might like them, but to most young people it's just not relevant. There is always new stuff to keep track of when you're young. It's one of the ways you bond w/your peers. tatters....did you listen to the Big Bopper and Bill Hailey and Comets when you were a teenager? did you give a shit about them? I didn't. That's part of the reason many young black people don't care about the blues. Or even soul.

So why would African Americans want to go to a Rolling Stones show? I don't know if my 3 themes work here, but: culturally, for many black people there'd be little resonance, unless they really dug the Stones back in the day; entertainment value? in my opinion anyone who goes to a Stones show really has to enjoy big spectacles -- big spectacles with a lot of white people. Art? I don't think many people of any race or background go to stadium shows for art.


I would like to know that too about James Brown shows.

Ten yrs ago I saw the Temptations as part of a summer fair in Richmond VA -- it was free, and in some kind of open lot, very informal, not in the "better" part of Richmond -- not a glitzy stage show, sweltering August heat, people standing on cars and fences, I was on a sound truck. This was most definitely a black folks summer gathering, I was vastly in the minority, and stayed only because my friends weren't white. Otherwise I would have felt like an interloper or gawker. I think people went to that show because the Temptations happebned to come to this local fair that people were at anyway -- and it was a novelty -- and the fact they didn't have to be with white people and could enjoy the Temptations in their own way, honestly. But as you say, Motown groups were constructed, with their sanded-off rough edges, smoothed down hair, lighter skin, and gentile manners, in part to facilitate the gentrification process of black people, and to market kind of black music that wouldn't scare away white people. (In the way that hip hop scares many white people. btw....for white people who get offended about hip hop, tho you're probably not reading this anyway: (1) if you were in the South 80 years ago in one of these little hollars, where only poor black people lived, guys on shotgun shack porches jar of hooch and guitars on their knees -- I bet you'd be as attracted to them and their music as you are to rap music today; and (2) if you listen to the clips above they'll seem less incomprehensible to you than when it came out - they'll seem tame and you may even see what there was to like - cuz they've lost their teeth, aren't scary any more)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-01-21 10:27 by swiss.

Heart of Stone picture sleeve. Song features Mick Jagger on vocals with Leon.


Leon with Marianne and Anita.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-01-21 15:29 by Carnaby.

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bassplayer617
I'm gonna get slammed for this by some folks, but I believe that too many blacks disavow their own musical heritage (the blues in particular) because it reminds them of old unhappy times. Sames goes for reggae.

The reaction--hip-hop and rap crap-- is a very poor attempt at establishing a new and separate identity. It isn't music--it just sucks. The urban black mentality WANTS to be downtrodden, and throws out this crap just to prove that whites don't get their eternal victimization obsession, which is increasingly self-induced and encouraged by loud-mouthed extremists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

I am a Democrat, who believes in equality, BUT there are certain people who have a self-interest in keeping the old stereotypes alive.

Call me a racist if you want, but I'm speaking truth. However, if it weren't for black musicians, rock n'roll would never have happened.

How many black rock n'rollers do you know?

Living Colour were a pretty good all black rock band who even opened for the stones,plus I read once that Rock & Roll is a black word they invented for having a good time in bed with your woman ,"Rock & Roll" dunno if thats a fact tho.