Racial issues in music

And I just kinda read the whole thing with disbelief - the way these people talk. Nobody talks the way they do. Ever!

And, Huck person, are you imitating the Brady Bunch thing?

It is, but it isn't from Eminem.

please to source this?

And I was, like, mortified.

if eminem gets to qualify as a street boy and juvenille delinquent, wu tang circa 93/94 do too. not to mention a million other rappers.

And why were you "mortified"?
Actually, don't answer that.

What's so "hip-hop" about it?

And, getting off this topic for a minute, I made this thread to cuz I wanted to talk about other racial stuff in music, too - not just Eminem in particular.
Not that I still don't wanna talk about him.

And I don't think there's anything hip-hop about wanting to kill your mom. It's wrong to want to kill your mom! Unless she was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really terrible. But even then...I don't know. I just love my own mother so much, it's hard for me to understand someone wanting to kill their own mother.
Wait, maybe I could...

i agree with whoever said eminem is more marilyn manson than punk. thats OTM.

Marilyn Manson is a Him?!?!?

Shit, he had me fooled.

Forget it - I barely even like him.

Right now, the rap I'm liking is Outkast. 'Stankonia'.

The blacks: Coldplay, John Mayer, U2, Phil Collins, Eminem, Teena Marie. And maybe David Bowie (mainly cuz he's married to a black chick) and possibly Aerosmith, and, maybe, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The whites: Kool Keith and Jimi Hendrix. That's all I can think of.

i have no idea. im not even sure if thats true, that the majority of black people roaming the universe like coldplizzzay.

And black people love John Mayer too. I don't really get it. He's so... white!

yeah, you could say his flow is more wondrous or more technically amazing/perfect, but hes not the only one in that department, and it depends on what you hold in higher regard.

"the reason(s) i imagine a lot of non regular hip hop listeners rate eminem higher than other rappers is because eminem a) sounds white b) generally raps without much slang and raps in standard english. c) references things that arent much to do with general black culture/life."

Well, what explains the glut of regular hip hop listeners who rate him? And wtf is 'general black culture/life' anyway for that matter (?) - treating black people as a monolithic group is absurd. Does every black person identify with everything Mobb Deep rap about? Get real.

i didnt need to explain why the regular hip hop listeners listen to him, its not really necessary. by general black culture/life, i didnt say all black lives were the same, that would be absurd, i meant that eminem doesnt rap about being black and poor or living in the ghetto or any of the black-working-class issues commonly rapped about by black MCs, he talks about a different world.

I cannot even begin to understand this.....

Seriously, I dunno. I'm willing to bet that a higher percentage of KK fans are white than Prince fans.

black people mostly just like Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow....and I agree with them!

but all this seems a bit patronising to me - we're saying black people as a whole only like stuff with beats. why dont we devote more of this thread to why certain black artists are popular with white consumers and others arent? why for instance are black eyed peas so damn popular with white music lovers? or outkast? why arent MOP? or screwball?

from what ive heard, and the times i was in NYC listening to hot 97 and the like, black radio in the US is in a miserably limited beats/hip hop-reliant state.

pop star jamelia in the UK doesnt do guitar rock or guitar pop even but white people sure love her music!

this post is turning into something like a 'i bet you this race buys that race's music more than the other race' contest......

Star Trek IV?

Ummm...no.

Well, gosh darn it, am I relieved! THANK YOU!
(Now, I am being sarcastic.)
No, forget that. I hate being sarcastic. Unless it's the right time and it's funny. Or when I'm pissed.
I'm just saying. Don't start talking about sarcasm. PLEASE.

I think Fiona Apple is better than average, though I don't like her quite enough to buy anything by her. (The thing I like least is the production.)

I remember an Egyptian supervisor (who was kind of African-American identified, as he had grown up in North Philly) who said that Bryan Ferry was one of the few white singers he really thought was soulful, or something like that. (This was a long time ago.)

-- Nowell (nowellkolin...), August 25th, 2004 11:36 PM.

Are you SURE you're a teenager?

I am very sure that I am a teenager. Why? I sound like a little kid, right?

x-post: I don't know what that means, but that's okay.

Also the singer Fefe Dobson(whatever you may think of her music)
doesn't sound stereotypically "black" she is also biracial.
Polystyrene from X-Ray Spex.
And Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy(who counted Elvis and Irish folk tunes among his influences).I'm sure there are tons more.

its true about non music obsessesives having very eclectic taste, without being self conscious about it.

is this thread going to turn into a 'name black artists that dont do 'typical' black music' thing?

I talk up the Roots n' Blues box set every chance I get, and I love the choice bluegrass/hillbilly cuts they have on there(black man here), at least the ones that aren't talking about darkies and pickaninnies and shit. Nothing I can do about the generalizing around here, but at least know that there's ALWAYS some exceptions floating around bud.
Carry on. There's always a lot to glean from the kind of intraracial discussions on race that one finds online.

No question. Thirty-five years after they began, Yes is still giving up the funk!

This was a short commentary on NPR's "All Things Considered" a few weeks ago. The link: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1920058

This Welsh/biracial girl lived for early American and British folk music a few year back.I was as much an folky nerd as any middle aged white guy(scary!).
Good on yer Nowell this thread has been very interesting!.

i think the reason he gets played more on rock radio, gets coverage in rock magazines, etc, is pretty obvious, and also why anticon stuff gets into all the rock mags - its a mixture of having 'rock mag' press contacts and the fact that, becuz 'Nem and the majority of the anticon folks is white, they're a lot less threatening to mags with mainly-white readerships, who think (often correctly) that a mag with a black artist on the cover sold to a mainly white audience will sell less copies than a mag with a white artist on the cover sold to that audience. its a mixture of the insidious racism within the editorial departments, and the more-overt racism displayed by a section of the readership. and in some ways, those editorial departments are only reflecting the racial prejudices of their readership, and are in some ways confirming them, and in some ways helping to foster them and continue their influence.

i'm writing as someone who would love to write about MF Doom in a metal mag, because his whole schtick would work, and someone who got the NMS album reviewed in Kerrang! because, I argued, the sentiment behind the album could be defined as 'punk', and that it was a great enough album to surpass its genred delineations. of course, you could argue that Def Jux is just as 'white' in its appeal as Eminem or Anticon, though i'd argue sonically these records appeal to most rock-listeners demands of hip hop, ie it be noisy and dissonant and fucked up, and also their fuck-you anti-coporate ethos (no matter how bogus or inneffectual you may deem it) also fits rock'n'roll's parameters.

a big reason why anticon appears so often in metal mags in the UK, however, is that they share PR with a lot of punk/rock/underground bands, who are getting the records to these writers. they just aren't being sent rap records, because rap prs assume they either won't like 'em or won't be able to get 'em press. so it becomes something of a vicious circle.

someone should submit/paste that TVOTR interview that was in kings magazine to this thread. a few people have mentioned it on ilx - it talks quite a bit about racial issues in music.

i find it funny that rap is the only form of current black music being brought up here. i would love to see someone like van hunt with his why-isnt-this-top-10-single 'dust' get more coverage in the music press at large.

i'd disagree with regard to Mojo - I've got some pretty obscure records reviewed there (Madvillain, Diplo, NMS, etc) and Angus Batey's hip-hop coverage is very broad and inclusive.

x-post, they were told by the editors on the mag, stevie. i suppose the freelancer thing is right, but i suppose that depends if they have all the freelancer contacts at hand.

well, that's what i was saying - if the freelancers aren't being sent the CDs in the first place, they won't be pitching them for reviews.

but youre right, yeah, they have reviewed some weird stuff. i know they got some complaints though for doing more hip hop coverage than the readership appreciated which is why they were *apparently* cutting back.

Well whadayaknow!.Yeah mei I'm from South Wales,a little valley town a couple of miles from Cardiff.Whereabouts are you?.

"The American white man and the American negro is the most advanced two figures on earth. Nobody outdo us--they can't whup us. Nobody. Just the works of the lord. See, suppose I'd been in Africa sittin' up in the banana tree with nothin' but that diaper on eatin' banana, hollerin' boola boola...I'm glad they brought me here, it helped."

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220627-the-uss-first-interracial-love-song

in the 1960s interracial duets were almost unheard of. Diane Bernard explores the forgotten story of Storybook Children, the taboo-busting song that became a hit.

Billy Vera and Judy Clay

oh right, I just know it as one of the songs I tend not to listen to on the Nancy & Lee lp.

Bunky & Jake were female-male interracial folk-rockers, mainly known to me re 60s-70s work, but this says they released a kiddie album in '93. Jake was also in the Magicians with Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon, whose songs were hits for the Turtles, and I also have an album by his band Jake and the Family Jewels, The Bog Moose Calls His Baby Sweet Lorraine, kind of like a more laidback Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. They must have gotten some pushback for being an interracial duo, but also their musical interests were pretty wide-ranging for a duo, not some skills-proud combo, hellbent on being eclectic, which was a trend of sorts (re Beatles, Byrds etc.). And Jake is quoted here as saying one wide-ranging album project never did cohere enough to finish (or get released anyway). Interesting musical people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunky_and_Jake

The BIG Moose, sorry!

I have a Magicians cd cos I liked the song on Nuggets. Invitation to Cry. Not played it in years though.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bunky-jake-ex-fug-and-folkie-form-blues-rock-combo-191095/

Forgot Jake was a Fug too! He did get around. Another folk etc. interracial couple recording back then: Hedge & Donna, who got to make more albums than Bunky & Jake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_and_Donna

John Renbourn and Dorris Henderson recorded 2 great lps together. Not sure if they were connected on any other level.

The Bog Moose would be a great name for a Canadian sludge metal band.

The initial release of this milestone was a little earlier than xpost "Storybook Children""

At the age of 14, Ian wrote and recorded her first hit single, "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)", about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother and frowned upon by her peers and teachers. Produced by George "Shadow" Morton and released three times from 1965 to 1967, "Society's Child" became a national hit upon its third release after Leonard Bernstein featured it in a late-April 1967 CBS TV special titled Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution.[8]

The song's theme of interracial relationships was considered taboo by some radio stations, who withdrew or banned it from their playlists accordingly. In her 2008 autobiography Society's Child, Ian recalls receiving hate mail and death threats as a response to the song and mentions that a radio station in Atlanta that played it was burned down.[citation needed] In July 1967, "Society's Child" reached no. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single sold 600,000 copies and the album sold 350,000 copies.[7]

At the age of 16, Ian met comedian Bill Cosby backstage at a Smothers Brothers show where she was promoting "Society's Child". Since she was underage, she was accompanied by a chaperone while touring. After her set, Ian had been sleeping with her head on the lap of her chaperone (an older female family friend). According to Ian in a 2015 interview, she was told by her then manager that Cosby had interpreted their interaction as "lesbian" and as a result "had made it his business" to warn other television shows that Ian wasn't "suitable family entertainment" and "shouldn't be on television" because of her sexuality, thus attempting to blacklist her.[9][10][11] Although Ian would later come out, she states that at the time of the encounter with Cosby she had only been kissed once, by a boy she had a crush on, in broad daylight at summer camp.[12]

Ian relates on her website that, although "Society's Child" was originally intended for Atlantic Records and the label paid for her recording session, Atlantic subsequently returned the master to her and quietly refused to release it.[13] Ian relates that years later, Atlantic's president at the time, Jerry Wexler, publicly apologized to her for this. The single and Ian's 1967 debut album (which reached no. 29 on the charts) were finally released on Verve Forecast. In 2001, "Society's Child" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which honors recordings considered timeless and important to music history. Her first four albums were released on a double CD entitled Society's Child: The Verve Recordings in 1995

(Her other big hit meant a lot to many as well, and that kind cruelty was an unusual topic then, seems like, certainly in pop hits:

"Society's Child" stigmatized Ian as a one-hit wonder until her most successful US single, "At Seventeen", was released in 1975. "At Seventeen" is a bittersweet commentary on adolescent cruelty, the illusion of popularity and teenage angst, from the perspective of a narrator looking back on her earlier experience. The song was a major hit as it charted at no. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, hit number one on the Adult Contemporary chart and won the 1976 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female, beating out Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy.

Oops--both of those are from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janis_Ian

Man, Cosby never runs out of ways to disappoint...

I used to hear kids talking about this place, dunno if any of them made it up there--from a memoir that references church bombing, hence the title:

One Sunday morning, September 15, 1963
Pamela Walbert Montanaro
PAMELA WALBERT MONTANARO
Age 18 in 1963

...My parents, Jim and Eileen Walbert, had moved to Birmingham in 1947. My father taught piano lessons during the day and played piano for supper clubs and parties in the evening and on weekends. My mother, who had been a singer in her home state of Virginia and later in New York City, did occasional part time work, but, like most other wives and mothers of her day, was a “stay at home” mom and prodigious volunteer.

My parents were introduced to the Civil Rights Movement by their friends Anny and Frederick Kraus who were refugees from Europe during World War II and had been active since their arrival in Birmingham where Frederick worked in the VA hospital and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center. From the mid fifties on, the Movement became my mother’s primary work, as a volunteer—and a very devoted one. She was very involved in school desegregation and provided support and counseling to the young people who integrated Shades Valley High School that had been “whites only” when my brother David and I attended. In 1965, she and my brother marched in Selma in support of voters’ rights. David later opened the first integrated coffee house in Birmingham called Society’s Child and performed there with an integrated band that featured future Broadway and television star Nell Carter.

Society's Child was a music club located in the former Dale's Cellar at 1927 7th Avenue North in downtown Birmingham near Linn Park.

It was opened in 1968 by guitarist David Walbert, son of Jim and Eileen Walbert. He and singer Jackie Dicie formed a folk duo that served as a house band. Nell Carter was also a frequent performer. The club did not sell alcohol, and was open to minors. It closed in the early to mid-1970s.

"Society's Child" was the name of a song written by Janis Ian in 1965 about an interracial romance. The song became a controversial nationwide hit in 1967.

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References
Haden, Courtney (July 31, 2008) "Friendly folk: Local music lovers get a BFF." Birmingham Week