The Long-Time-Coming MUSIC AND RACE Thread

Ebony's recent cover stories include Master P and Ja Rule. They big-up those artist with success and the nu-soul ones with "something to say". But in the pages of Ebony I find NO artists who don't get airplay on yr. typical Clearchannel "urban" station. Excepting gospel, but one of my clearchannel stations in Chicago plays at least a little of that.

NB: also hip-hop ranked lowest in their poll asking "favorite music" losing mainly to Rhythm and Blues, but also Gospel, then Motown, and even Easy Listening!

Maybe I'm just a sucker for things outside my own range of experience. I'm sure this is the case. In that context it does seem foolish to blame someone for not being different enough.

Sterl of course: this is Ebony's demographic breakdown. Older, conservative. "no rap, no crap" It's like Reader's Digest.

Except they are FORCED to give big ups to mainstream rappers as success symbols, and their articles on them are forced to portray them as family-values types at heart.

Also tracer: one would *think* it appeals to an equiv. audience of readers digest but this is not the case -- Ebony/Jet have a substantial history as THE organs of the black middle class -- i.e. what you get moving UP not DOWN the wealth scale -- compare to Readers Digest which the "sophisticated" white middle class wouldn't be caught dead reading.

Well, being a white German kid living in Portugal, I can't really participate in this discussion, since the black audience here likes mostly music from their own home countries or Brazilian stuff, and feels no kindrance with Hip Hop/Reggae/Soul/etc. whatsoever; likewise, I doubt it many of the white local Metal bands have any sort of "liberal guilt" complex for ripping off black tradition.

All I know is I got made fun of for liking "nigger music" when I was in 8th grade (the first Run-DMC album, for the record), and now every damn white kid on the island thinks Eminem is God, and IT MAKES ME MAD!!! The only black guy my age that I've ever met here, btw, thinks Eminem is overrated and gets most of his fame because he's white.

Other interesting tidbits:

In 8th grade someone once asked me who the black guy in Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" video was ; I answered it was Snoop or Dre, can't even remember who it was; to which he replied "that guy has NO STYLE at all!". What the fuck?

The most inteligent guy my age I know on this island once went into a diatribe about how "white people are trying to be black these days", citing some female friends dancing to Ja Rule as an example (this kid is white, mind you, but has lived in Angola for three years); when I asked him what HE liked, he answered "Rock...and Blues and Jazz, which is black music, but it's not DUMB".

Go figure.

um... hello? black hip hop revilutionized music

read this; 2pac