The Future of Black Music

Everytime I see a "Black" rap video (you know the deal: pimp, hos, drugs and any other negative stereotype we have) and seeing how people praise it so or buy into this crap, I always think of this video:

Seems like we really are headed this way, going completely backwards. Anytime there's a rapper that's proud of being - and staying - in the hood and never cracking open a book I really wonder for the condition of our people. Now I do know it's Black rappers on the cammeras but White execs who tell them to do this but the fact that it's all making bank is saying something. Of course, most mainstream rap albums are bought by White kids out in the Suburbs because we are like the "Arabian Nights" for them - a land so far and distant where there is lawlessness, exoticism, fast living and every moment is a cheat on death called "The Hood". Good grief, but Black kids are getting hit on the byway because that's really the most they ever see of anyone who has their skin, as some devious, modern-day rendition of some slave out of "Birth of a Nation".

Change can happen (I hope and wonder) but how? Yes there's AfroPunk but the issue goes far deeper than a website and independent film documentary. Even most of the Black community doesn't know we exist and as far as they're concerned, we think we're "White" because we stand outside the monolith. We went from Cab Calloway to Ella Fitzgerald to Lena Horne to Michael Jackson to this, Lil Wayne and T.I.. Ugh.

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Permalink Reply by Phactz on September 7, 2010 at 12:40pm

Which exact artist are you referring too? @ the OP.

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Permalink Reply by Chrissy Dee on September 8, 2010 at 9:22pm

Kodachi said:

Yeah, I can be a bit harsh, not one of my best personality traits >.> I was raised in the hood in Baltimore so I definitely see what you're saying. We have a strong poetry underground here and even tho most if not all the poets both big and small came from the same hoods I did, we still managed to find something else to talk about that didn't sound like guns and robbers, lyrical edition. There are whole articles, books and social hegemonic (what defines the 'norms' of a particular society) about hip hop, black music and the mainstream and how it is suppose to be the modern placemark of all that is wrong with society (according to the mainstream eyes) and even how Eminem is part of a bigger representation of that. It's good reading.

And you're right, it does appeal to rebellious teens and for many reasons. Part of it is because of how (White) America perceives Black culture and their opinions haven't really changed much since the 1600s, 1700s 1800s to today and that opinion to the rebelious teen is like as a described before, an 1000 Arabian Nights kind of deal. Listeners today are incredibly desensitized because most music today (not just Black music) that is considered popular isn't very deep but very catchy. It's meant to make money, not be a beautiful piece of art, so a lot of people are being jipped hardcore. However being Black and raised in the hood and hearing Lil' Wayne all the time is going to produce a different result than being White and raised in the suburbs and listening to Lil Wayne because one kid is submerged to the point they nearly can't tell the difference between the fantasy they hear and the reality they're living whereas the other sees it all as something to dream about but can turn off, just like a video game.

Blipp said:
Kodachi . . I would say you are a bit harsh, but I also don't agree with the excuse about being born in the hood therefore you are limited to rapping about what you are exposed to. Before hip hop existed there were ghettos and people who robbed, stole and sold drugs, however black music was not dominated with tales of gangstas guns drugs and ho's.

I suppose cursing, tales of extreme violence and sex will always appeal to rebellious teens.I took a listen to Emimen's "Recovery" CD and I swear most of the cursing and "shock value" is unnecessary . .or is it? . . Even with his talent as an emcee, he wouldn't sell as many cd's if he didn't include this sort of sick twisted lyrics to his songs.

It just shows how desensitized a generation of hip hop listeners are. The lyrics and behavior definitely had an impact on young black youth especially.The difference between the black and white listeners of hip hop are the fact that they have more options to opt out. Hip hop is mostly a genre decorated with words and not so much music . . the impact is much more severe since it can be absorbed and repeated so easily by anyone.

Kodachi said:
Even being exposed to the same stuff over and over can create change tho. Just because someone was raised in the hood and had Lil' Scrappy stuffed in their ears from cradle to whenever doesn't mean he should or that the has to talk about the stereotypical stuff. Being exposed to more music is pretty instrumental to bettering someone's music talent but not always needed, I don't think. Just some personal creativity but that's seems to be hard to find when looking in the mainstream. And you don't have to be educated just to find out there's something out there besides what's being set right in front of you. I have friends who never went to college or have GED's, know far more music than I ever will. And it's hard to break out of a little box when you don't even know that you're there, there's better on the outside or taught consistently that it's 'bad' because it's not 'Black'. If there weren't so many mental walls, places like AfroPunk wouldn't have to exist because there wouldn't be this problem of being outside the super narrow monolith.

Yeah we could educate young rappers about the Black musical past and maybe even turn a couple of them into decent emcees but it seems Black kids don't even wanna learn about Black history. I was called "too White" just because I corrected some kid about Fredrick Douglass and explained that Blacks weren't always porch monkeys. It's like they don't care (yeah, someone can argue they were practically taught not to care but still, this is what I see).

R&B's not what it used to be either. Seems to be the same thing rap is but attached to a ballad but it also reflects the whole of Black music because at current it seems to be the same crap said over and over but either over terrible trip beats or copy+paste instrumentals. Steve Harvey was right in The Kings of Comedy when he said that no one ever sings about love anymore. It's all violence and sex.

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Permalink Reply by Chrissy Dee on September 8, 2010 at 9:35pm

Damn button...
Just to take a broad view on the subject
as someone who use to love Hip Hop
I think what I feel most lacking is a sense of history
I've encountered folks who think the "hood" is actually worse than what slavery was
perhaps in some ways
regardless, our people, who stepped off the boats and created blues, rock, jazz, etc. to express
our pain, frustration, outsider-ness
I believe, at least, strove to reach higher, reach beyond the plantation gate
But it seems today the new plantation gate are demarcated by streets
streets that we brag about, as they keep us locked in a stagnant mindset
and that we aren't striving to get out, by out, I'm not meaning being a CEO and living in the suburbs,
out as in expression of freedom, out as in going beyond your childhood environment and discovering
who you are and what you love
it seems we no longer believe in finding freedom in educating ourselves
but rather immersing ourselves so bone deep into capitalism, the same capitalism that kept us captive,
all that is cared about is money
how to get it, how you got it, how you gonna get it
solution (been scratching my head for years) I dunno
I find the best thing I can do is teach art whenever I can
it's one of the best ways to crack the code of negativity

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Permalink Reply by SDMF Dallas on September 9, 2010 at 12:45pm

i see what you mean, the old sterotype in the last centuray. but us metalheads need to reconize to. Im posting another bulletin called sublimnal racism

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Permalink Reply by Newsoul on September 10, 2010 at 8:20pm

To me, creative mainstream Black Music died in 1993 with two seminal albums "The Chronic" and "Doggystyle" with those two albums creative Black Music along with "Soundscan" killed record labels looking to sign "career black acts". They realized that suburban white kids and middle class black wanted the hyper racial sexual ghetto tales of rappers like Biggie, Pac and others AND THE AMERICAN RECORD INDUSTRY REJECTED true Black Artists who were releasing great landmark records.What would have happened if the 'biz" signed and allowed the natural order of things to happen like they do in Rock, Country and Indie music instead of signing "Coon and Blues" acts they actually played these LANDMARK Black Music albums on all radio formats (including black radio) that came out during 1992-1993

Mother's Finest - Black Radio Won't Play this Record
Living Colour - Stain
Stress - self- titled
Subject to Change - self- titled
Total Eclipse - self- titled
Eye and I - self titled
24-7 Spyz - Strength In Numbers
Fishbone - Give a Monkey a Brain...
Meshell Nedege Ocello - Plantation Lullabies
Chocolate Genuis

Along with the Native Tongues, Tony' Toni' Tone', Brand New Heavies, and other veteran Black Acts there would have been musical balance until Black Rock could have gained a legitimate toehold on mainstream black radio because Living Colour and other Black Rock Acts were starting to gain a foothold on mainstream Black Listeners around 1990-1992. But 'gangsta rap' along with it's cooning musical cousins killed all that progress, so the only solution I can think of is to start new black owned independent labels like a Motown and Stax because the mainstream white and black American record industry thinks that Black Alternative Acts, Black Soul, Funk, R&B, and old skol veterans are "non sellers to whites and blacks", and would rather sign "crossover coons" like Souljah Boy, Plies, Lil Jon and others and pass that off as 'REAL black music' to the masses while critically lauding White and other ethnic groups who do Funk, Soul, Hip- Hop, and R&B music well to massive sales and profits like No Doubt, Adele, Natasha Beningfield and Justin Timberlake.

But these same critics will say 'WHY DON'T YOU BLACK PEOPLE PLAY MORE POSTIVE MUSIC instead of being so violent, sexist and racist and playing that rap-crap.