I need the choir to sing a selection now...because you preached a good word bishop...it is true..you would believe black people were incapable of love, romance, passion, and all the other beautiful things God has given us to make life that much sweeter. Why is it we give fear, failure, low expectations, hate, jealousy, pain...ummm...forget it WHY does ugly have a soundtrack. Negroes with no standards for themselves or each other, women who reject being treated like the amazing creator that they are, uneducated or under-educated clowns who give a big ups to walking around the planet in a cloud of smoke...I love my white brothers and sisters who have embrace the soul movement...they are doing what it takes to had flava to their world...but Lord have mercy on my soul, where is the:
-She Used to Be My Girl
-My Girl
-Stairway to Heaven
-Cruisin
-Ain't No Mountain
where is the "slow jam", the "that's my joint", the songs that gave brothers game and made the ladies in their loves feel loved,respected, and beautiful.
We need to ask "Where is the Love?" like Roberta and Donny did..."Meet Me On the Moon," with Phylis.
Love needs a soundtrack, I want to be able to know that when a song comes on some Black man somewhere has grab the hand of his lady for life, held her close and rocked it slow on the dance for just one more time...because like Barry said "I Can't get enough of your love."
Toya Great Great blog , it's not just you that's feeling this all my music buddies this side of the pond say the same thing . Honestly i'm listning to Gospel right now because that's where the real true r'n'b sound has gone . It's obvious what's going on the big r'n'b producer's are being paid too much money to refuse producing pop artist's so now we have a false scene developed where those who think their listning to r'n'b are really listning to pop . The dj's in club's gave up their power & right's to play real music in urban club's long ago , now the crowd dictates what the dj should be playing & if their hearing the same ten wack records all day on the radio/mtv those are the one's the dj has to play !
The music has to go back underground , i hate to say it but that's the way it's gotta go but with the currant digital downloading climate it's a really tough time right now to sell music hence why these company's are playing it so safe with pop/r'n'b releases .
Saying all that their still some great music around . That "Anthony David" album has to be one of the best soul albums this decade ! & that's saying something !
I totally agree! As a big music fan, I am very choosey about what I spend my money on. Now I'm not going to lie and say that I haven't tapped my feet to a TI song or two, but it's a whole other issue when I comes to whether I spend my money on it or not. I choose to support the India Arie's and the Corrine Bailey Rae's as opposed to the Lloyds and Pretty Ricky's of the world.I refuse to financially support "art" that I feel is detrimental to my community.
As a therapist that works with kids, I can tell you that you are completely on the money. Our kids learn how to be "black" on 106 & park, and you have 10 yr old boys calling girls "boppers"...I won't get on that box, but children are my passion and my heart hurts at what I see most days..
Wanted to suggest to you that you check out a site called pandora.com. Its got great stuff and has linked me to alot of artists that I've never heard of but can't do without now...Check it out...
toya.
you know that i love you.
BUT.
let's stop blaming the music industry for the music that songwriters are writing themselves!
this is really no different than us blaming the porn industry for the "poor women who are exploited". those women don't feel exploited when they cash there checks.
we know from our friends that people record what they write...
why don't we stop putting the pressure on the labels, and put more on the black men that are writing and performing the music.
the bigger issue here should be black artists artistic integrity and courageousness to not sell out... more than these labels that push white artists to sing about love and black artists to sing about sex.
I encourage a heavy perusal and intense study through the free archives of Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide
http://www.robertchristgau.com/cg.php
which I just discovered. Ssince 1967 was the first white critic to listen with a critical ear to *the* broadest range of popular music-- white, black, latino, asian, world, etc. artists-- with the most open of minds yet critical of pens.
He infuriates and educates simultaneously, but reading the capsule reviews of the groups I grew up with in the 80s and 90s especially, it's not so simple about the race and the generation-- there's something plain messed up about the combined *gender* AND *race* politics going on. Funny thing is, it's always been that way in a MALE dominated industry.
When you look at the titles, a lot of the songs about devotion border on the obsessive. Some of the old school lyrics are great as long as they describe what's going to be done to someone, but it lacks humor and irony. And to be honest, much of what we thought was good honestly wasn't, except for the singles. As albums, they sucked. Be honest, you didn't invite a date over to actually listen to a whole album!
Anyway, Christgau and Harry Allen are the two music truth tellers in my book, but Christgau gives you the scoop on the issues you raise above. Just pop in the artists you like, and I bet you'll be surprised at what you thought they were saying...
Enjoy different informed perspective from this guy who obviously digs his music and is crazy enough to go out on a limb to tell you what it all means...
I am SO late in responding this this blog, but anyway.
oooooooooooooo Toya, I agree like...2billion gillion percent. I think that's one of the reasons why I absolutely LOVED John Legend's last record. While the songs were a bit more "hooky" on his debut, I could only listen through the CD every couple weeks cause the content was so WACK - I mean, honestly, as a single BLACK female desiring a black man, how many times can you listen to a CD about cheating without getting discouraged? I don't need that mess in my life! Hence, why John Legend's 2nd album "Once Again" was such a REFRESHER--he sang about REAL love which is NOT happening in black music right now, un-freakin-fortunately.
And don't get me started on the whole urban radio topic...I'll start blogging on your blog.
i have an honest question...
it seems to me like the same people who get frustrated with the industries favorite word, "urban" and the ignorant marketing schemes of "white geared" labels... are the first people to define what is or is not "black music".
as a single WHITE man, looking for a single WOMAN of high character and integrity, i'm offended by how much focus we still have on color... even those of us that are "liberated".
when are we going to recognize that this music isn't ours? black or white. creativity is from the father. it's his. not ours. or our races.
or... we can just keep living in "white rapper show" bliss...
Ladies, I saw your article on Mixed Media Watch and I am going to say something that will piss off black women, white men and black record excecutives. The Jewish - American -led music industry as it is presently consititued is about marketing Black American artists (particularly male ones) as sexual deviants for fun, profit and sterotype. My question has been where are the modern black bands like Sly and the Family Stone, War or Prince and the Revolution. Hip- Hop and poverty can't explain all that away. It was a concerted effort by record execs to promote rappers and singers and now the music has stagnated in America.
I made an asertion on the site Afro- Punk that the Brits have caught us in making compelling "mainstream R&B" when I said the best singer in mainstream Black- based music is Amy Winehouse because she writes her own music, her songs are personal and topical and she has a hand in her musical vision. All I heard was 'she's a drunk' and she can't compare to Badu, Scott, etc.. etc. or we sill rule !! I told them look at a Ciarra or Beyonce video on BET and can you tell me that they can compete with Winehouse as far as soul and talent.
And does everyone want to know who is the greatest deterent to taking black american"mainstream" music back from from the 'Coons' and lousy singers.. Black Folks themselves from the A&R executive (that doesn't exist in Black Music departments anymore)Hip- Hop created the greatest problem because black record execs thought Hip- Hop was a fad and would go away like Rubix Cubes and Parachute Pants.
When Hip- Hop blew up in 1988, a lot of black music execs were kicked to the curb by major record labels and has continued to this day. they did learn a lesson don't ignore the streets, and now instead of taking a risk on a black band (white a&r people get more rope to fail) or singer that will not go 2X platinum on the first album they go for the tried and true. Get the 'hot producer' who is "mentoring" an act signs them to his or her botique label and keeps their job, party status at "Justins" and entre at all the black functions as a "A&R" guy
or until the label no longer needs do-nothing black record execs and conslidates the black music department.
W.E.B. Dubois said, when the races gets tired of being pushed around in this case shoody entertainment and sterotypes that degrades our legacy. If you asked a young black person who is the greatest American Rock Bands in the history of the genre, they would be surprised that band would be 'Sly and the Family Stone' and Parilament- Funkadelic, but would know that Dr. Dre and crew who are repsonsible for most of this filth the prevades black music today sampled both artists on their classic albums.
Hey, Eric Daniels, you're right on the money. I'm a black woman and you couldn't be more correct!
Remember contray to people's opinion (and some of my black alternative friends) mainstream rock music is not suffering like mainstream black music. What should have have lasted until at least 1997 at the latest, has morphed into our attitude about each other as black men and women. I recently saw Wattstax again, and the love and soul these brothas and sistas had for each other was real, geniune and affectionate.
I grew up up in that era and black folks had 'soul' and it wasn't just a musical term,a lot of us didn't have much money but we had a community that respected and loved another. The music THAT WAS PLAYED AND HEARD fed that love. 96% of the modern black artists would have gotten booed off the stage back in the 70's for trying to do,what Ciara, Usher and Pretty Ricky does today. you had to be able to do more than look good in a tight dress or have washboard abs. A black artist had to sing, play your insturment and dance sometimes all three.
I don't think the majority -jewish/black puppet multimedia industry being fed black entertainment by "producers" like Pharell, Dr. Dre, Timbaland, and sexist/homophobic/black self- hating rappers are going to change anytime soon, as long as they got that new..
clothing line
sports drink
shoes
movie
violent video game
watch company
until the black people stop buying all these people's music and outside buisness interests and that takes courage, commitment and self-love of black people. I don't see that happening.
Amen to that. Tell the truth.
I am listening to 90.1 WABE Jazz Classics with your host H.Johnson out of Atlanta.
I completely agree with this post. It seems that for a black artist to have any credibility (at least in the eyes of the record labels), they have to sing about money, clothes and hoes. If you do a google search for "bend over" you will get numerous results for song lyrics. When I first heard Akon's "Smack That", I thought it was a joke ... some sort of parody of R&B music. Sometimes I think I'm being a prude but as the father of a 3 year old bi-racial daughter, it concerns me that the music video's she will see and that lyrics she will hear will have an effect on her self-esteem. Hopefully she'll be more into artists of the John Legend, Erikah Badu and Jill Scott school. Also, hopefully by the time she begins to listen to popular music, it will be acceptable for black artists to sing about love rather than smak'n asses and bending chicks over.
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see this what i been trying to say. a lot white people seem think they grew up on old-school r&b. and that the reason you see non-black saying they like it. but don't understand it. and it might be more white girls who like it than men.
I really liked this post, it delivers a new perspective. For a long time, we knew something was wrong, but we just haven't been able to put our finger on it. Thank you for that. I do still have some problems. First, we have to realize that every generation has had ignorant music. Some of those songs that probably would have been deemed ignorant then are still some of the songs that bring about good memories. They could limited or innumerable success. Not all of the music we reminisce about are exemplary. History repeats itself and I'm sure people were having this same conversation back then. White artists have always had a foot over black artists making the same music.
I also had a problem when you said, "But let's not give promiscuity a soundtrack." So often we look at promiscuity as a lot of sex rather than not having safe sex. I hope that is not what you are leading to here. The important part of sex is that we are respecting our bodies right to stay healthy.
Also, I do agree with Eric Daniels, in that this type of music is buying and perpetuating the male stereotype of hypersexual and the black woman as lacsvious (Sp?).
Lastly, I had a problem with the comment from Bobby: I agree that we do need to get past race. We need to educate ourselves about the social construction of race and stop defining ourselves around it. However, we also have to realize its hard when white privilege allows those that benefit from it to forget about their privilege as well as how race affects everyone around them. You Bobby, have the easy privilege of forgetting about race, that we, as people of color, don't.
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