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swiss
tatters, you say you like to see a diversity of people mixing it up at shows.

Do you ever go to hip hop shows? If you're white and you go to a show in, say, DC where I lived for a dozen years (and I don't mean a show at a big place, of a rap group that's been commercially successful and crossed over into the mainstream, I mean an upcoming, underground, or local group, rapper, dj) you will find yourself in a teeny minority. I've been to these shows -- and even tho up here in Maine now (96% white population) people like to say "hip hop has no race" often it does. And the race is black. or more to the point: the culture is black. That's changing certainly worldwide. And up here in New England there are white MCs, incidentally mostly poor, with mad skilz And on the west coast I've been to impressive Latin and Asian hip hop shows. But in many places the realest, newest, hottest, most innovative, emergent, generative and interesting hip hop is black. And if you're white and you're in the crowd at a show like this, most likely you will not understand everything that's going on culturally, and you'll not experience the ubiquitous comfort of invisible privilege, of being white, that most of us experience without even realizing every day in America.

If you go to a local indy/folky/acoustic show (most places in the US) you're likely to be in a white-majority crowd. Why are there so few black people there? How about: Don't dig the music. Don't dig the scene. Don't know anyone. Don't particularly wanna. Not relevant. Not exciting. Speaking to life experiences that don't resonate or feel particularly "real." No reason black people should be there if they don't want to be. The indy kids would love there to be more black or brown people at their shows. But usually they're disappointed. Stones shows...I'd guess most Stones fans don't usually shed a tear about not seeing more black and brown faces around them. Is that bad? I don't know. Is it bad that the indy kids want to see more? I don't know. 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." Is that as bad as actively not wanting black people at a show? No. Not wanting any group to be around is worse than actively wanting people around even if it is to make us feel good about ourselves. Do people at Stones shows not want there to be more black people? I wouldn't guess so. Do black people wish they could come to Stones shows, but don't because it doesn't feel inclusive? Probably not likely. There are other factors that would keep throngs of black people from wanting to attend a Stones show, that trump the other possibilities. Such as, not liking the Stones all that much. Not preferring the music. Incidentally, I'm sure you know, in DC, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, NYC, in fact every part of the country there are members of ot only black middle class but a black aristocracy who could afford a Stones show if they felt like it. But the question may more be about relevance and potential for high enjoyment factor -- at any price, but especially at Stones tix prices. I wouldn't pay those prices myself, unless the Stones surprised us and played small venues like Dylan did in 2000 (they won't, I know).

Last thing: as far as black people should study up on their roots...you really meant to say that? Well, if so, let's start with hip hop. The best most intelligent hip hop, the art of MCing and DJing (as you may know - not to mention the 2 other elements of hip hop, breakdancing and graffiti), are steeped in tradition and history. I'm not talking about mainstream shit on the radio -- which is exactly as bad as white people mainstream music shit on the radio -- but the good stuff: it often comes into being with recognition and even reverence for those who came before. The best hip hop is part of a 35-year-old community growing out of South Bronx's Afrikka Bambata and Zulu Nation, crossing over to Harlem and Sugar Hill, spreading through every nook and interstices of America, speaking to and from the heart of African Americans, creating a musical cultural web connecting generations of fans and MCs. This lineage and connection to history is mentioned overtly in lyrics, with talented MCs directly quoting others or merely picking up someone else's cadence, rhyme patterns, lyrical themes, metaphors as a nod and thank-you to them. As well as DJs sampling everyone from Jesse Jackson calling for "Nation Time!" at Wattstax to Coltrane and Sun House riffs. In rap music are history lessons, musical and otherwise.

For people to write off rap or hip hop because of what they hear in the mainstream is a shame. In my opinion Keith never developed an ear for it because it's so wordy--it's cerebral, complex, and poetic in a way he's not--and the music is not guitary, the creativity in the music comes from mixing, sampling, and writing beats, hence little points of reference for Keith. Really good rap songs are multi-layered, complicated, and easy written off. It takes time, concentration, dedication by people who haven't grown up around it to "hear" it, and to listen to it many many times, being ok with not understanding all the words, the meaning, the images, the implications, the cultural references, raw look at what life is like without the buffer of invisible white privilege. If you're young enough, or lucky enough to grow up in a really integrated community, or if you have a "translator" or "interpreter" to help you through, or a bunch of time and an open mind, a white person may get hip hop.

So...why would or should black people like the Stones? as someone already said - what about young people of any race? do they flock to Stones' shows? No -- they're, well...they're just not that good unless collecting Stones tkt stubs year after year is your thing. And, to young people, too many old people go to Stones shows. I wonder whether people aged 50 now have wanted - when they were 18, 19, 20, up to 25 - to have beeb surrounded by sagging bellies and grizzled beards and rhuemy-eyed droopy tank topped people who rarely get out and screaming guzzling beer trying to relive their glory days? I know I wouldn't have wanted to be around that as a kid.

So why would black people who weren't huge Stones fans Back In The Day want that either? What is it that resonates with Stones fans here about the Rolling Stones? what does it speak to that keeps us talking about them, listening to them, looking at photos? why do they fascinate us? Speaking for myself, it's partly associated with a type of rebellion that would be (is) experienced by someone who is inside the dominant white class and who--from the inside, with all privilege at my disposal--stubbornly rejects many of its limitations, rules, and hierarchies, refuses to kow-tow completely to the powers that be, and the status quo. My perspective is definitely as a white person of privilege. I feel like I'm badder than I am when I listen to the Stones--that the Stones and me, we're outlaws, around many lame-ass nonquestioning conformists. I am poking fun at myself but it's also true. Second, as much as a I love complex polyrhythyms of heavily African-influenced music, I also love the Stones' rhythms which -- sorry -- are actually quite white. They're obvious and driving and relentless and white-mannishly aggressive. I LOVE that flavor. It can be sexy, but it's not very "black," at the end of the day (Sympathy and a few others are exceptions). I get my sexy black rhythms elsewhere. And I imagine some of the above might hold true for black people too. Dunno.

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skipstone
There is still talented black musicianship in the world. In Louisiana there are black horn players (all kinds), black singers, black drummers, black guitar players, black bass players. They play with whoever whenever however.

There are gospel groups that play hymns and spirituals and churches (they're in churches) and they take, for instance, that goofy country song Elvira and change the lyrics into something local.

They play for mostly, as in 99%, a white audience from what I've seen when they go out to play. At church it's whoever is there.

It seems that perhaps the blacks don't want to hear the blues because they're not connected with that part of their heritage anymore than they are connected to their blood line coming from Africa. They're not from Africa. They're from the United States. They don't want to hear blues, they want to hear something else. Whatever that is, the songline is dead.

And why anyone would want to go to a Stones show and hear them do Little Red Rooster now in all of their brilliant fakeness of being a blues band amuses me.