White musicians and "artistic" use of the N-word: A Discussion and Social History

xpost
is that the same incident where Elvis caught an eye jammy from the female bassist for Stephen Stills Band at a hotel bar?

she was a singer not a bassist but yeah

I'm not sure I'll ever understand why a lot of white people are weird about whether or not they get to use this word. It strikes me as an incredibly easy word to not-use. Like, harder to use than otherwise.

totally, but at the same time there is the frustration about how prevalent the word is so as well as the obv shock factor there's the basic principle of being against the idea that some words must never be used however 'good' intentions may be (intensified because no other word is as taboo). there are some absurd/potentially amusing/potentially offensive effects too e.g. i did Gangsta's Paradise at karaoke once and i didn't say it but now i can't actually remember if it was displayed on the screen or not!

i think it must've been on the screen because otherwise i wouldn't have realised/remembered it was and having to think 'ha ha this was a stupid idea' (actually i thought that about 10 seconds in iirc)

I don't buy many of the justifications of the country teasers' shit but I like their music

the only reason I keep bringing them up btw is this kind of shit is like a quarter to a half of their shtick

totally, but at the same time there is the frustration about how prevalent the word i

what? only amongst the daily mail commentariat surely

p. sure they use the speaking thru characters justification but

i find nothing offensive or illogical about saying that some people are able to say certain words and others aren't

good luck with that

why don't we have a white history month

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/beastie_boys_apollo.jpg

stupid jews

totally, but at the same time there is the frustration about how prevalent the word i

what? only amongst the daily mail commentariat surely

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 11:15 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this post is so british that it made my mouth taste like prawn crisps

I don't think I even knew "Radio Ethiopia" existed

her best album!

― get your bucket of free wings (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 4:02 PM (19 minut

ok now i'm offended

AC/DC-Kicked in the Teeth Again. I think Bon drops an "N-bomb" in the first verse.

mark e smith does have some great lyrics on race though, like in "english scheme"

"where are the obligatory niggers" vs. "Jew on a motorbike!"

have read numerous well reasoned interpretations of the former, never seen any defenses/explanations of the latter. m.e. can be confusing.

"I'm not sure I'll ever understand why a lot of white people are weird about whether or not they get to use this word. It strikes me as an incredibly easy word to not-use. Like, harder to use than otherwise."

white people do get to use this word -- the angst comes from getting called out on it when it is "OK" for black people to use it. white people should just call out more black people on it, especially if they are the primary audience of the product with the offending words.

being legitimately crazy = a decent excuse, maybe

xp

NEVER FORGET:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6D5xpCgETk

re: patti: rock n roll nigger is like so embarrassing, ugh it makes me puke just as a song

white ppl just need to accept that it's not ok for you to say it but it is ok for black ppl to say it, but even if its not ok for black ppl to say it you really shouldn't get involved in a discussion with a black person about whether its okay for them to say it or not. that's the rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeEx18X6Y2A

Weren't we specifically not supposed to bring up DAC?

Answer:

White musicians and "artistic" use of the N-word: A Discussion and Social History

david allen coe is the third rail of american politics

well so much for giving you the benefit of the doubt

white ppl just need to accept that it's not ok for you to say it but it is ok for black ppl to say it, but even if its not ok for black ppl to say it you really shouldn't get involved in a discussion with a black person about whether its okay for them to say it or not. that's the rules.

― m@tt h (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 4:27 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

EXACTLY. i don't know why any white person would take issue with this, unless they're just a dick

newsflash: most ppl are dicks

I mean, it's a facile point but also undeniably true

^^^can't be said enough, really

i'm out of my depth on this discussion, its not intellectually elegant or anything, its just more a life pro tip for myself.

(tho sorry if i offended dan, see even posting in this thread violates the rule, and i'm sinking already)

in general I don't like when white ppl drop n-bombs, but you can't keep artists from using certain words.

I do find it odd that the least offensive example in this thread so far is "holiday in cambodia", mostly for the reasons dan points out. I guess "bragging that you know how the junkies feel cold" or any number of less offensive variations could work, but it comes off as savage satirical indictment rather than a lame attempt at being shocking. also it doesn't have the "hey I'm saying THAT WORD" space cleared around it, the delivery is off-hand, it's placed so well in the lyric.

there's nothing wrong with questioning why social rules exist and whether they should. "you can't say the n word, JUST ACCEPT IT" isn't a good way to go about it. the end result of a long and nuanced discussion - still gonna be white people not using the n word, but this "JUST ACCEPT IT. CASE CLOSED" philosophy certainly doesn't help. people should think about it and have discussion about it!

During the first Lollapalooza tour, Jane's Addiction brings out Ice-T to perform a rendition of Sly & the Family Stone's "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey (Don't Call Me Whitey, Nigger)". Perry Farrell sings the white part, Ice-T sings the Black part. Black quartet Living Colour comes onstage afterward and bandleader Vernon Reid announces "I'll never be anyone's nigger for entertainment..."

Backstage at a Rolling Stones show in 1989, Living Colour confronted Rose about "One In A Million" (both bands were opening the show). Rose said, "I didn't mean you guys were n*ggers!"

"you really shouldn't get involved in a discussion with a black person about whether its okay for them to say it or not. that's the rules."

I'm with you if it's someone going around uninvited like pushy church witnesses, but my understanding is that the majority of NWA, Body Count records were bought by white people, so there's a natural relationship where they as the consumers get to tell the producers what's bugging them about their otherwise fine product.

'discussions' xp

I thought the Elvis Costello mention referred to the incident when he (allegedly) (drunkenly) applied the "n" to Ray Charles/sorta disqualifies him, no?

― lifetime supply of boat shoes (m coleman), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 11:02 AM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nah, the so-called 'Columbia incident' happened on the tour in support of the album "Oliver's Army" is on, a few months after the single's release. the 33 1/3 book on Armed Forces gives a lot of detail/context/analysis about the incident and the lyric.

― neal page (some dude), Tuesday, 22 June 2010 16:03 (30 minutes ago)

I've read that Get Happy! and its Stax/Volt influence were seen as an attempt to redeem Costello for the Charles comment. Sort of like "hey, look, I love Black people so much I will now rip them off."

its status was just different in the past -- e.g., the 70s, when it was still enough in common circulation that people might feel like they could redirect it. (I mean, as of the late 70s you could hear it on television, in certain circumstances

Is this really true, though? Seems to me you're way more likely to hear it on the street now, from say young white males addressing each other. In New York, at least. Growing up in suburban Detroit in the '70s, I remember it mainly being a "shock" word that kids used once in a while -- calling Detroit "N___-town", say. But it was always grandstanding, not commonplace, which is how it often seems now. If anything, I'd say its ubiquity in hip-hop has made it less off-limits for young whites. (I'll take your word about '70s TV, though I can't think of examples -- maybe it was used occaisionally by Archie Bunker or somebody, to make a liberal point about racism?)

that's the rules

what interests me is at what point this rule was set (and perhaps you would measure this by the judgement and reaction of people, black and white, in the media?) and at what point will it be redundant, if ever. which is more likely - a distant future where the word and any words like it are barely in use by any artist (ie significant decrease in rap, reflective of socio-cultural changes), or a world where they continue to be used casually tho less often by any artist to ever-increasing indifference (without an actual increase in use, which surely could not happen)?

"where are the obligatory niggers" vs. "Jew on a motorbike!"

have read numerous well reasoned interpretations of the former, never seen any defenses/explanations of the latter. m.e. can be confusing.

― in my day we had to walk 10 miles in the snow for VU bootleg (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 12:24 PM

always took the latter to be a skewed variation of the wellworn epithet "christ on a bicycle", there's loads of religious imagery in the song and the clash of ancient/modern times is a theme throughout the album so

Backstage at a Rolling Stones show in 1989, Living Colour confronted Rose about "One In A Million" (both bands were opening the show). Rose said, "I didn't mean you guys were n*ggers!"

if I lol at this does it mean I'm a racist

I never felt bad for vernon reid before but lord give him strength

I always thought that "Holiday in Cambodia" seems to be addressing the semantics of the thread topic, am I alone in this viewpoint? (nb: i'm not a DK fan btw)

I'm not sure I'll ever understand why a lot of white people are weird about whether or not they get to use this word. It strikes me as an incredibly easy word to not-use. Like, harder to use than otherwise.

Yeah I think if I was writing a song and really really needed to use that word I'd make damn sure I knew why I was doing it and could explain myself beyond the old holding up a mirror shit.

I quite like Country Teasers and can understand the irony/paradoy/in-character thing they're doing but I still (maybe wrongly) feel a bit uncomfortable hearing them live, like there's a room full of white people nodding and tapping their toes and getting a wee cheap thrill from the white man dropping the n-bombs it's ok to sing along to.

I dedicate this smh to corey glover

It actually took me forever to realize that some white people might hear this word a lot, used casually, and then wind up thinking of it as a casual word they can "reframe" in a song. That honestly took me a while to realize. Because, you know ... if you are black, you're not really going to hear white people use this word in person in a way that's not extremely non-casual and/or aggressively pointed at you. I'm not sure white people who choose to use it have, like, a reciprocal realization along those lines.

^^ (For the record, part of this is that I don't really think there's a single word that some people can say and some can't. I think there are two different words, one of which is hateful and one of which isn't. Your latitude to use the second one depends less on your race and more on whether you actually speak the language it's part of. I don't use it; plenty of non-black people in my city do. I kinda think that anyone who even needs to ask whether they can say it or not shouldn't say it -- if you're asking, that means it's not really authentic to your language/experience in whatever context you're in.)

well, i guess, for me, what am i bringing to the discussion? do i really understand (like REALLY understand) the cultural forces that resulted in the situation? am i invested in or knowledgeable about it in a real way? do i have something to contribute to the discussion? or is there just a great chance i come off condescending or a dick or whatever?

for me, the answer is no, i don't think i really know enough to contribute

Wait, where did M@tt do something that could have potentially offended me???? As far as I can tell, nothing like that has happened...?

man i don't even know!

i was just basing it on this:

david allen coe is the third rail of american politics

― m@tt h (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 4:29 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well so much for giving you the benefit of the doubt

― HI DERE, Tuesday, June 22, 2010 4:29 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink