The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something
something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears. After
all, Bon Scott said it best years ago:
In the beginning
Back in nineteen fifty five
Man didn't know 'bout a rock 'n' roll show
And all that jive
The white man had the schmaltz
The black man had the blues
No one knew what they was gonna do
But Tchaikovsky had the news
(Although, Tchaikovsky? What the...?)
What I want to know is why young black Americans, do not, in their majority, do
rock anymore. I get that the music industry always tries to control what gets
airtime, but who needs the music industry today, and who needed the music
industry in the past? If it was for the music industry, nobody would have heard
of Jimi Hendrix- a black man with a guitar? That'll never sell!
Look at metal and how it took hold. Growing up in Athens, Greece, it seemed like
every neighbourhood had a metal band and you would never know by looking at
billboards, or even coverage in the metal press (a lackey of the music industry,
if there ever was one). Euro kids took Rock from the Americans and ran with it
and made something new, all ours, and all working class (see the early years of
Sabbath and Priest in Manchester; remember the apocryphal story of Ozzy and Tony
having one pair of good shoes between them and wearing them on alternate days to
go out). Metal quickly became the authentic popular music of entire generations,
without ever any need of mainstream acceptance. Metal grew from below, with no
help from above and despite the disdainful snorts of mainstream music critics.
So why didn't the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene,
instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit
music that comes from black artists for the last few decades?
Why Rihana and Beyonce, rather than a new Jimi Hendrix? Female, even. Why is
Rock 'n' Roll pretty much dead to black kids, nowadays?
As a black English man who enjoys a bit of rock and metal myself I have wondered this myself. I have some theories, which I fully admit are half baked and quite possibly incorrect. However, I think that a lot of the culture around rock and metal is off-putting to a lot of black people.
If you look at something like black metal and it's sub-genres, a lot of the culture and imagery revolves around satanism and European paganism; which is popular with a certain segment of European people but would hold little to no interest to those of an Afro or Caribbean heritage. Especially since so many black people have quite strong Religious beliefs. (Less so these days possibly, but many still pay lip service at the very least.)
If you then look at the 80's hair metal and glam metal genres with the emphasis on long hair and make up and an image of sexual ambiguity. I think we can all agree that there (sadly) exists a big homophobia problem amongst many black communities; which means that the aforementioned sexual ambiguity would be very off-putting to them.
Those are obviously extreme examples, but I think I've maybe made my point.
I'm probably talking out of my ass, but those are my thoughts for what it's worth.
There are underground metal scenes in the Muslim world, in spite of disapproval from officialdom that the music is anti-religious. Those in Lebanon and Iran have been well covered, for example. Often its afficionados speak of the supposed universality of metal, and certainly don’t see it as bound to European paganism, so that alone doesn’t seem to explain its failure to connect with those of Afro and Caribbean heritage.
I would instead point to the fact that you can't really dance to metal. Music-making in West Africa and in its diaspora is strongly connected to dancing socially (and maybe getting your freak on), which has never been a priority of metal.
> There are underground metal scenes in the Muslim world, in spite of disapproval from officialdom that the music is anti-religious. Those in Lebanon and Iran have been well covered, for example. Often its afficionados speak of the supposed universality of metal, and certainly don’t see it as bound to European paganism, so that alone doesn’t seem to explain its failure to connect with those of Afro and Caribbean heritage.
That is an interesting point. I am struggling to find a good way of explaining my thinking on this but if you listen to rap music you will see here and there lip service paid to their Christian faith (liner notes thanking God, lyrics mentioning God in some form) even as they talk about "slapping bitches" and shooting rivals. So even in their rebellion they don't openly rebel against their faith.
I suspect that it could be down to differences in what people are rebelling against. If you are a kid living a comfortable middle class white existence then if you want to rebel then you will rebel against the stifling conformity. Black kids, especially in America, live under a very different reality and tend to spend their energy rebelling against being harassed by the police and against the system that keeps their communities in poverty rather than against religious faith and the like.
I so disagree. You can totally dance to metal. First, there's headbanging and moshing which are absolutely kinds of dance, as is air-guitar playing (a kind of... interpretive dance; I guess?).
These may not be what most people think of when they think of dance, but most people also don't think of growling when they think of singing, and yet growling is a form of singing - and in fact one that is connected to traditional forms of singing like the Kargyraa technique in Tuvan throat singing [1] or the Sufi zikar [2].
And if I had a penny for every time I've been told "that's not music" for any metal band I liked to listen to, I'd be a penny gazzilionaire.
I digress. You also can dance-dance to metal. Why not? It's got rythm to spare. If we don't see anyone dancing-dancing to it it's only because metalheads are ... to be kind, self-conscious.
> I so disagree. You can totally dance to metal. First, there's headbanging and moshing which are absolutely kinds of dance, as is air-guitar playing (a kind of... interpretive dance; I guess?).
I completely agree with you here. I used to dance to metal bands frequently when we were allowed to go out and dance.
Well, you got balls. My old friends would have tarred and feathered anyone who dared shake their body to the beat, unless it was from the neck up, or from the waist down.
They were good kids deep down. Don't judge them too harshly.
But I'm a blithering idiot and a senile old fool even. I wonder what will happen when I'm actually old and losing my mind.
African heavy metal refers to the heavy metal music scene in Africa, particularly in East African countries such as Kenya and Uganda, and Southern African countries including Namibia, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
I spent some time digging through youtube videos of those folks, when I discovered them. Crazy, crazy people who go around in full leather attire in Kenya! I remember interviews with some who had found a very Christian like message of love and brother/sisterhood in metal, gods know where. Or maybe they're in a more pure, young phase of metal, like I was in high school, when I felt a connection with every other metalhead in the entire world (which went away after I actually met a few near at home ha ha).
The fans in that scene I believe go out and dance-dance, not just headbang and mosh, if they do that at all. I vaguely remember a video in a night club with people dancing and a black metal band (see what I did there) playing on stage. I'll see if I can dig it out.
Anyway, yeah, black people can totally dig metal en masse. There is no incompatibility. It's just the culture in some places in the world that stops it, I guess, places where black folk are not the majority. But where they are, they have no reason not to embrace metal.
Edit: also, that supports what I said above, that metal is the true music of the people. Take that, pop.
Edit 2: Actually, the scene I had seen before, with the black-leather clad fans, is the one in Botswana not Kenya. Here's some pics:
Thanks for sharing. I had no idea about the African heavy metal scene. Some very cool pictures. It's nice to see people who look a bit more like me enjoying metal.
I am not the biggest heavy metal fan I have to admit. There is some metal I absolutely love and then a lot that I can't stand.
Last year, bored during lockdown, I was reading a Rolling Stone 100 greatest metal albums article and decided I would try to listen to every album in the list and write a short review of what I thought of it. It was a long, and sometimes tough, journey but I managed to make it. I definitely had a better idea of what I do and don't like in metal after that lol
I have been going to blues, rock, and metal gigs around London (plus some festivals) for about 20 years now and it's fairly rare to see anything other than white faces.
Obviously, when I said "you can't dance to metal", I was referring to dancing as traditionally pursued by those populations. They probably don't want to switch from the dancing they are used to to headbanging and moshing.
I get it, but I think the only reason why you don't see people dancing-dancing to metal, rather than heabanging and moshing, is tradition, not the music itself. The music itself has eminently danceable components, particularly oodles of rythm.
To give a few examples, I can imagine, in my head, wild rock 'n' roll dancing, of the kind you'd see young folks of the '60s dancing to Great Balls of Fire and the like, but this time under the sweet sounds of Motorhead or ACDC and it doesn't look out of place at all.
Anyway, I don't think modern dance is much closer to traditional dances either.
No, I agree. I listen to black bands but sometimes I'm happy that a few of them choose to sing (ish) in their native Scandinavian languages that I don't understand. I think I'd be very disturbed if I knew what they're singing about. Brrr.
And indeed casual racism, sexism, hooliganism, homophobia, and general assholeness was common among my metalhead friends growing up (and for some it wasn't just poseuring). So I can see why black kids wouldn't feel welcome in today's metal scene at least. At times I didn't either.
(My friends were equally dismissive of hair metal as "faggots" also, of course. Goes hand in hand with the rest. Oh, I did mention homophobia).
But, why not raise a middle finger to today's metal scene (or the rock scene back in the day) and go do their own thing- their own rock thing, like they did their own rap thing etc? That's what I wonder about.
Although, I guess I might as well ask why white kids don't all dig classical music, or their respective folk musics. Tastes change across generations.
Edit: having thought about it a bit more I think what you say is simply: any kind of rock was tainted by its association with attitudes that were offputting to black kids, one way or the other. So they didn't want to do their own rock thing because the idea of any kind of rock thing felt wrong and as if it couldn't really be "theirs". If I think of it that way, that answers my question actually.
I feel like the satanism should give it more appeal, not less. The satanism in metal came from an anti-authoritarian place, and now that the west has become less Christian, metal has become noticeably less satanist. In particular I've noticed that bands that do still invoke this imagery tend to come from more religious places (e.g. Behemoth comes from catholic Poland).
I didn't know metal was so big in Athens, Greece. Thanks.
> So why didn't the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that comes from black artists for the last few decades?
For me, that's like asking, 'why didn't Van Gogh ever develop something innovative, like the abstract artists, instead of painting in his popular impressionist style?'.
Is there any subculture in the world that has invented more music on the grassroots level than African-Americans? There's jazz, blues, gospel, turntableism (i.e., two turntables and a microphone), rap, techno (yes, created by African-Americans in Detroit), and all their derivatives: R&B, soul, hip-hop, etc. etc.
All of that began at the grassroots. Just because people aren't inventing rock genres, doesn't mean they aren't inventing musical genres - does that need to be said? Just because you hear it now on the big stage doesn't mean it was born there, or that there isn't grassroots innovation still going on that you don't see.
> The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears.
White people's skepticism of racism, every time it's mentioned, is tired and old - as old as racism, I suppose.
> techno (yes, created by African-Americans in Detroit)
if you define "techno" in a very particular way, that's true.
if you define "techno" in the broader sense in which it is typically used, it was created by Germans in Dusseldorf, whose music is acknowledged by the Detroit scene makers as pivotal in their own evolution.
That would be another perspective, and if you took it literally it'd be just as wrong.
As near as I can tell, the earliest electronic stuff such as Kraftwerk was NOT itself techno as we know it, but did indeed spark what was happening in Detroit. The minimalism and atonality of techno caught on simultaneously in Detroit and Germany, and developed in both places. I'm not sure how influential post-Kraftwerk German techno was in Detroit, but the Detroit techno guys toured Europe and were hugely popular, so the reverse is most definitely true.
It would be wrong to say that German techno was CREATED in Detroit what with the earlier precursors coming out of Germany itself, but the use as a heavy beat dance music owes a great deal to black American dance genres.
In the very particular way techno ended up being defined, the Detroit and, can I say Berlin? techno styles ended up very similar but with slightly different flavors, with Berlin going for heightened aggressiveness, abstraction and minimalism.
Sorry, this is something that's long bugged me. Kraftwerk is not techno as we know it. That said, German techno is awesome as hell, even if it couldn't have happened without the cross-pollination of the Detroit folks coming to Europe and being celebrated well before they were accepted in their own country.
Early Kraftwerk doesn't have much to do with techno (other than the historical lineage). The 3 albums up to and including Ralf & Florian are only incidentally part of the musical pathway that starts with Autobahn, and are influential only in as much as the band (Ralf & Florian in particular) became familiar with electronics over those 4 years.
Autobahn is absolutely not atonal, and Trans Europe Express which was arguably the critical album in defining their connection to Detroit Techno was an extremely melodic album for the most part.
It is not true that anything about techno caught on "simultaneously in Detroit and Germany". Most people would date the origins of Detroit techno in the early 1980s. The "scene" that gave rise to it arguably originated in the late 1970s, but in 1977 that scene, like house in Chicago, was defined by the music various DJ's played, not by records being made. It was only in the 1980s that Detroit techno (and Juan Atkins in particular) actually started making records. By that time, Kraftwerk had been a band for a decade, and had already released "The Man Machine" and "Computerworld", two absolutely seminal albums.
I think you are correct to say "the use as a heavy beat dance music owes a great deal to black American dance genres." It seems fairly certain that Kraftwerk did not regard their music as dance music, or rather, they did not create it as dance music. On the other hand, Moroder had already produced "I Feel Love" in 1977 also, so the idea of electronic dance music was not in itself a Detroit innovation. HiNRG was a scene very contemporaneous with the setting up of the Detroit techno scene, and also represented the use of electronics to make dance music, and like Detroit techno, was very strong connected to existing black American dance genres.
The particular sound that Atkins et al. pioneered was very much their own, and its this sound that is what makes Detroit techno unique. And we can recognize that innovation without ignoring its origins, just as one might celebrate what the Rolling Stones did without obscuring its very clear origins in delta blues.
The wikipedia section on the history of Detroit techno makes it clear just how much the originators felt they were influenced by Kraftwerk (i.e. a LOT):
Contemporary German techno is hugely influenced by Detroit techno, much more so than a direct line to Kraftwerk. But that's a much, much later development, and doesn't have much to do with the origins of techno itself.
We should also note that Kraftwerk were also hugely inspirational to the origins of hip-hop too. What is arguably the first hip-hop record, "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaata, is just a mix of Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers", topped with NY rap.
Personally, I view almost all music as evolutionary. There are very few examples of musicans or composers who truly have no precursors. I don't know how useful it is to try to talk about the origins of any particular style of music (or even just one piece of music) when it is almost always a tangled web spanning decades if not centuries in time, and often whole continents in space. And for me, most of the best music humanity has made also generally comes from a hybridization between cultures.
However, if there really are any examples of revolutionary bands or composers, then I'd nominate Kraftwerk for the category. Although albums like Autobahn, Trans Europe Express and Computerworld fit firmly into western 12 tone conventions, and use relatively conventional rhythmic structure, the music was almost without any precedent at all. Early Detroit techno sounds a lot like Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk didn't sound like anybody else at all, not even the other electronic music being made in Germany at that time.
That depends. The original house DJs didn't define "house" as a particular style of music at all, but rather the combination of all the different styles and the vibe of the club(s) or parties it was played in. Kraftwerk were definitely a part of the typical house DJ sets, but so were a lot of other bands whose music was of several very different styles.
House didn't really come to mean what we think of as "house" today until Detroit had already started the "techno" thing, at which point "house" became a somewhat smoother form of dance music that also used mostly electronic instruments.
To clarify, I'm skeptical of the article's attempt to point at racism, not of the existence of racism in general, neither even in the context that the article places it in. I'm criticising the article.
I must say I don't appreciate your attempt to connect my comment with racist views you may have encountered in the past. I invite you to consider your comment in the context of the HN guidelines about responding to the strongest interpretation of others' comments, which I believe you ommitted to do in this case.
(And I edited this and deleted other comments to make the whole exchange less combative, also in the spirit of HN guidelines).
I'm sorry you feel that way. To be clear, I am not calling you racist (whatever that means exactly) and I am not calling that sentence racist, etc. But I have said racist things and held racist perspectives in my life; I'm human; I probably still do, unwittingly. I take that seriously - it hurts people, maybe more than anything else in humanity. (To make clear my position: I'll be damned if the scourge continues, on anything like its current scale, past my generation.) Also, sometimes I say things that unwittingly contribute to racism. If you did one of those things - I'm not saying you did - it wouldn't make you the devil. It's not about judging you; I assume you don't want to do these things either.
This is my personal point of view in more detail. From the GGP:
> The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears.
IMHO that sentence makes a joke of the article's points about racism, and calls them "boring and trite". Also, importantly it's an expression of feelings, not facts and reasoning.
I'm saying it fits a general pattern: Very often IME, when racism is mentioned, people express skepticism in the same manner. The manner is an essential factor: It implies (and the GGP sentence says almost explicitly), 'these people can be ignored; I won't give them the time of day'. The power imbalance, that the vulnerable can be ignored, is at the core of racism; it allows racism to continue and be perpetuated; it puts the vulnerable under constant threat. Whether intended or not, I think the sentence repeats and reinforces that.
To dramatize it, imagine a city council hearing: Someone says they are the victim of ongoing violence and threats from their neighbors, and gives a reasoned, factual account. The city council member doesn't ask detailed questions and explore the issue and possible solutions, they say, 'something something threats - how boring and trite'. It's a clear message that nobody need care and the attacks can continue.
>> IMHO that sentence makes a joke of the article's points about racism, and calls them "boring and trite". Also, importantly it's an expression of feelings, not facts and reasoning.
I understand what you are saying but I think it's an overgeneralisation. My comment said that the way the article frames the subject is boring and trite, not that the racism it is trying to point to doesn't really exist. I agree it does.
I don't want to have to give ideological credentials here because I don't think that's healthy in any situation, but of course I think that the existence of racism in the music industry, as anywhere is a problem. But everyone who tries to point out the problem doesn't do an equally good job and I've sure seen people do it very clumsily. I think the article is all over the place and doesn't quite hit the spot when it comes to sensitising the reader to the issue.
Edit: to clarify, in the following sentence:
>> The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears
The phrase: "that sounds a bit boring and trite" has "a very strenuous effort" as a subject, not "a point about something something racism". I find the effort boring and trite, not the point.
I admit that this is not the only interpretation of my comment, but, again, I think it is the strongest interpretation - and it's certainly my intended interpretation.
Edit again: And the "something something racism" is meant to express my frustration at the author's inability to pin down the subject they're trying to discuss, not to deny racism exists. I mean, I read a huge article that kept meandering and never really getting to the point. I wanted to read more about what Dylan said and why, what were his experiences that formed his opinions. But I read a bloated piece stitching together bits and pieces of rock and roll history that may have been related, or not. I just didn't like the article.
Thanks for a reasonable discussion - about racism! on the Internet!
I'm not sure the interpretation of one sentence bears more examination (as I imagine you might agree). I think we would agree that there are various reasonable interpretations, which may be more or less apparent to different people, and that of course a comment on HN isn't scripture or a $100 million contract where every nuance is carefully authored and then reviewed by the counter-party; it's something written and read in a minute at most.
Beyond what I said, I think another instinct of mine is that people often find something to criticize, changing the subject, rather than addressing the racism. For example, person X asserts something about racism, and the response is 'X has two illegitimate kids and said something mean to their neighbor!' But that is too broad a pattern to say it describes this one specific comment.
...
Any Athens metal recommendations? The most creative, eccentric, Athens-in-particular-and-ignore-every-other-tradition musician?
I’m more in favor of Septic Flesh over Rotting Christ these days when it comes to Greek metal outside the innumerable power metal bands that dominate mainstream European metal. Not sure if they’ll ever top Sumerian Daemons as a metal album but given Christos is also a very serious orchestral musician it’s a driving force behind the band today despite the even more orchestral side projects.
>> Thanks for a reasonable discussion - about racism! on the Internet!
You're welcome. I'm happy you see it this way too.
>> Any Athens metal recommendations? The most creative, eccentric, Athens-in-particular-and-ignore-every-other-tradition musician?
Unfortunately, it's been ages since the time I was in a band and knew the scene and much of that time was spent abroad. I don't even know what happens back home anymore.
The standard recommendation is Rotting Christ, who have never been my cup of tea yet I did listen a lot to one of their recent ish records:
I even remember playing gigs with some of them back in the day, but I won't say which so as not to age myself :) Anyway Necromantia are probably the best known (other than Rotting Christ). I seem to remember really liking Varathron myself.
But remember it's black metal. Knowing the scene from inside, many took all the pagan and ancient-Greek stuff way too seriously from whence it's an easy leap to nationalism ...though I never understood how Greek nationalists could then become neo-nazis as some did. The nazis fucked Greece bad in WWII. How could a Greek nationalist admire them? Anyway, for example, Naer Mataron are the band of Giorgos Germenis, an MP of neo-nazi Golden Dawn (now outlawed). There's a lot of that in Greek black.
Yes, early on the article made me think about a division in the music industry I didn’t think about specifically before. So far so good. ~50 pages later I had no more to show for it than a number of interesting tangents.
I mean, it's important to remember that the racist segmenting of the industry (again, mostly the fault of the sellers not the artists) never really went away, it just changed in a lot of ways. So there's the difference between "Rock n Roll" the sound, and "Rock n Roll," the product.
As a sound, it pretty consistently stays there, though perhaps not as crisply defined. Prince, Michael Jackson, and later Run DMC et al. But for a very long time, those artists are explicitly not given space on Rock n Roll stations. Later on, these same stations would go on to explicitly and openly denounce hip-hop, but the play Beastie Boys, and even EMINEM.
What's really interesting is early Hip-Hop on this; how it very consistently both sampled Rock-n-Roll, but also frequently explicitly "hated" it. Not too hard to see why this division happens, given the disparate treatment (i.e. hip-hop comes out a little after most of the Satanic Panic has died down. Rappers get treated as "scary" for basically just being black, RIGHT AFTER and in the face of rumored blood rituals etc etc.)
> hip-hop comes out a little after most of the Satanic Panic has died down
That's not the way I remember it. For example, the McMartin trial started the same year as 'Paid in Full' dropped, and the West Memphis Three the same year as 'Enter the Wu-Tang'.
> Rappers get treated as "scary" for basically just being black, RIGHT AFTER
Young men 'get[ting] treated as "scary" for basically just being black' has a history way longer than rap music.
That's not true. Afropunk was a response to the question you pose. White people stole the rock from Black kids the way Ancient Greece stole the Hippocratic Oath from African culture. It is almost the same. Today, it's almost impossible to know Bo Diddley, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and other Black pioneers created rock in almost it's complete form. "History is written by the winners", they say, and our cultural memory is like a hard drive which has been written over. Show the typical rock fan footage of Black women going hard at a rock guitar in 1955, and they will profess shock. The re-writing of history has been successful. The "analogous new rock scene" you are searching for is called rap. It is rock music without guitars and for years in the early days, without white people. Think about Run-DMC in 1982, and how "punk-rock" they were with the stripped down sound and hard lyrics. Black artists were hounded out of rock music by racist promoters and a hostile music industry, and their answer to it was hip-hop. The history of Black music has been of flight, an attempt to escape white cultural aggression stealing their music and style without accreditation or compensation. Promoters defunded and starved out Black performers, and the answer to that is two turntables and a mic on the underground, sound systems plugged into street lights - where they can't get defunded, have control, and have no white people. The Beatles up until 1964 were almost identical to the Isley Brothers but racism in the US was so entrenched that Americans had to re-import the music on their doorstep being made at home through 4 white kids from Liverpool. How ironic is that?
You're right, of course, although surely anyone who isn't ignorant knows that rock n roll was black music, and in any case Elvis (and countless others all the way—I would say down, but that's mean—to Cliff Richard and Pat Boone) were busy at that before the Beatles.
By the way, if anyone is interested in this who doesn't know the incredible story of the Detroit proto-punk band Death, it's sort of a glimpse into a parallel reality in which all this didn't happen (but it did happen, so they were forgotten for 30 years). The missing black Ramones, Stooges, Clash.
To be honest it seems very unlike you (going off your usual comments) to say that someone would have to be 100% ignorant to not know the history of rock and roll. I didn't know this, and I'd like to think I'm not "100% ignorant."
I'd have thought that everyone who knew anything about rock and roll would know that it started as black music, but ok - the world is a big place with a lot of variance. I've taken "100%" out of my comment above.
The nice thing is that you have unbelievable amounts of incredible music to discover.
Those are all songs that were done later by white artists who had big hits with them. How much money the original performers got is an exercise for the reader. I could give you dozens of other examples but, alas, HN has shot my memory.
It's important to know that in most of these cases the white artists adored the black artists and were playing their songs because they loved them—as musicians do. But it doesn't change who got the raw deal.
Thanks for the links, I appreciate this. I disliked much of the article, even if it was fascinating. Here's why: I can think of no joint venture in contemporary American culture where Black and White people built together as equal partners. As such, I thought it had a whiff of wishful thinking and horseshit about it. This was the era of hardcore Jim Crow. Martin Luther King leads the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, the same year(?) Emmett Till is lynched. For instance, the appropration of Doo Wop by Italian-Americans sounds improbable. It was created by Black kids in the 40s, but Italian-Americans were (are) not exactly known for their multi-cultural spirit. You can see it depicted in Spike Lee's film "Do The Right Thing". And that infamous scene in True Romance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUJKXs6W-4
So how did this really happen? The mechanisms of cultural collaboration didn't really exist, but I would love to be corrected. I doubt it is different from hip-hop: it's built almost in it's entirety on the Black cultural underground, and some talented white people who skirt around the edges eventually learn enough to make a stab at the "mainstream".
It is worth noting that back then songwriter and performer were basically separate jobs, and it was very common for multiple artists to record the same song, sometimes even at the same time and competing on the charts. Hound Dog is written by Lieber and Stoller, the legendary songwriting duo, and recorded by multiple artists, including Thorpe and Elvis. The performer only got paid for their own performance, but the songwriters got paid for every recording (depending on the contract).
All this changed with Beatles and Bob Dylan, because they made it the expectation that "real artists" wrote their own material. This caused the idea of the "original version", and consequently the "cover version" which was a recording by any other artist than the original writer/artist.
So not to dispute that Rock n Roll was originally black music which made a lot of white artists rich and famous, it is still interesting to note how many of the songwriters at the time were Jewish. Just another aspect of the story!
I agree. Most people don't know, which makes me sad. Perhaps it's an opportunity for you to discover the secret history of the music. It's a wonderful and interesting journey.
The roots and spirit of hip hop have always struck me as the exact same as punk - out of urban poverty and exclusion resulting in anger and lack of respect for the system (although the irony is that the Norwegian black metal scene was entirely a bunch of the most affluent privileged kids on the planet but their anger was over systemic control too). Today I see artists like Big Frieda as having beats and tones hardly different from what makes up a lot of extreme electronic music. Losing a lot of the credit for popularizing twerking must be disheartening on top of it. The whole New Orleans sissy bounce scene struck me as a strange term - it’s owning the identity of the musicians as endemic to the genre. I don’t recall any other sub genre popularly labeled with the musicians’ gender identity ever.
So why didn't the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that comes from black artists for the last few decades?
I think this claim speaks more to your perception of music that isn't "rock" (there is no greater association with stadium-filling and dull commercialism than that label for some of us) than it does about what young creative people (of whichever colour) should be making.
Right. Isn't rock the most mainstream, big stage, for-profit genre in existence? Their comment just sounds like they want to criticize black people as a whole for some reason. Like...do they also criticize Indians for not being really into rock and for only being into stereotypically Indian music?
I don't understand why you say that I am criticising black people. I wondered why black kids don't, as a rule (some do) make rock anymore. How is that criticising anyone?
I think you and other posters here are jumping the gun and making associations between my comment and other comments you may have heard or read elsewhere and in a different context.
If that is the case, please consider again the HN guidelines about responding to the strongest interpretation of other users' comments. Assuming I'm criticising blacks just because I ask why they don't make rock music anymore is a very weak interpretation of my comment.
I'll speak to this bluntly: some of your comments come across as lecturing black musicians on what they should be doing, in particular how they should shape their response to the racism they experience. Your comments also make clear that you do not experience the specific sort of racism black folk experience. This is a very poor combination, one that many people fall into, where they think they're being supportive but come across as patronizing, arrogant, and dismissive if not racist.
Basically the listen more, lecture less, and make space for the voices that really need to be heard argument.
I was clear that I thought you weren't being straight up malicious, but falling into a common honest misunderstanding.
The reason I say listen more is because your responses make clear you have a somewhat superficial understanding of this topic area. You're expressing views on how other people should respond to racism you haven't experienced, and your specific advice on this point is not just unhelpful, but counterproductive. Or said more simply: try to refrain from telling black people what the best response to racism is.
Whether or not you intended that is somewhat besides the point. You have to own your speech as you spoke it.
>> Or said more simply: try to refrain from telling black people what the best response to racism is.
I'm sorry but I really don't understand what you mean by this. What black people did I tell what the best response to racism is? Can you point to my comment where I did this, please?
Also, could you please show me where in my comments I'm "lecturing", as per your previous comment?
It's not very helpful to interpret my comments without quoting my comments, so I can see what you refer to.
> The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears
This is very dismissive.
Then in thread you follow it up with stuff like:
> So why didn't the black grassroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that comes from black artists for the last few decades?
They did. You are simply ignorant of it. A large part of why you are ignorant of it is exactly because they were fenced away from the distribution channel by powerful publishers that ultimately only wanted reproducible results within predictable lanes. Because of the flaws of American society those lanes were very much racially defined.
This is what punk rock looked like in the 1970s. Note it was both racially integrated and willing to put a black woman in front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6BHh_0pX_4
How did that very sort of new rock you demanded of black musicians disappear? Not because they didn't try, but because they did, and were fenced away from the means of reaching a mass audience vs the industry allowed white folk that played the same music, and even then white punk was fenced away in similar way (though not equivalent).
> Why Rihana and Beyonce, rather than a new Jimi Hendrix? Female, even. Why is Rock 'n' Roll pretty much dead to black kids, nowadays?
This again comes across as very judgmental, and an utter failure to understand what the article was telling you. You are blaming black musicians for not prevailing in a genre that was overtly hostile to them, when the people hostile to them held all the power. Then you're just asserting your own taste about Rihana and Beyonce.
Strike the phrase "female even" from your future discussions on this topic. No matter your intent that's going to read really wrong.
And specifically about Beyonce, I don't really see how you can watch this video and then assert she ain't punk rock as fuck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDZJPJV__bQ and that has nothing to do with compositional taste of the music. This is where black American music went exactly because of all of the issues the article is describing.
Jimi is celebrated exactly because he was such a rare achievement in that era. The true tragedy is there's 10k Jimi's out there that never got a shot because of race, no matter their interest or ability.
I'm trying to be charitable here, but so far all you've done is ** on black musicians you don't like, and then criticize the history of black music for not being what you naively expect. That's what I meant with my comment.
I'd like to remind you again of HN's guidelines about trying to respond to the
strongest interpretation of others' comments. Not because it's a rule that must
be blindly followed, but because I think that it's a sensible bit of advise that
promotes reasonable and useful conversation.
Of course I'm bringing the guideline up because I don't think you're responding
to the strongest interpretation of my comments. I think you are instead
responding to a very weak interpretation that only suits very low-quality
debate where the point is to claim a moral high ground, rather than to learn
anything new.
A few examples. You say that the following sentence is "very dismissive":
> The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears
You don't say who it is dismissive against. My comment is dismissive - it is
dismissive of the article, not any other person or group. In your previous
comment you were concerned about my stance against black musicians. My comment
above says nothing about black musicians, or black folks in general.
You say that the following comment comes across as judgemental:
> Why Rihana and Beyonce, rather than a new Jimi Hendrix? Female, even. Why is Rock 'n' Roll pretty much dead to black kids, nowadays?
You don't say against whom my comment is judgemental. My comment is judgemental
against Beyonce and Rihana, because I don't like their music. But you are
concerned about my behaviour with respect to all black musicians. You have to
make a great big leap from Beyonce and Rihana to all black musicians, for
example Fela Kuti would probably be unhappy if you compared him to Beyonce.
Maybe not.
Finally:
>> And specifically about Beyonce, I don't really see how you can watch this video
and then assert she ain't punk rock as fuck:
I'm afraid on this, I'll have to disagree. I see a bunch of people, men and
women, shaking their asses. That's not my idea of punk. My idea of punk is young
anglo kids getting wasted and pretending to be rebellious. You pointed to the
X-Ray Spex. Punk of their era was 80% male, 99% white. I don't even begin to see
how Beyonce shaking her money maker is punk, except of course that the famous
punk rock bands of the '80s famously went for the money grab in their later
years.
Edit: to avoid further confusion, I should point out I think punk is and has always been 99% rubbish. Same as pop.
> So why didn't the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that comes from black artists for the last few decades?
When hiphop evolved, rock was the premier mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit genre. I’d argue that, insofar as rock & roll “died”, a more succinct explanation than the article’s is that: it became popular, controlled by big business, and ossified.
And because of that, it ceased to be the voice of the outsider, which hip hop became. (Of course, as often happens, the energy, diversity, and rawness that comes from being the voice of the outsider led to hiphop becoming broadly popular, so now it is thr mainstream, yadayadayada... But it became that at a time when industry gatekeeping isn’t as powerful, so maybe it won’t ossify under elite control the same way. Time will tell.)
Because culture has been weaponized against minorities:
“The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits ever since 1994. You would never learn that from most of the media. Similarly if you look at those blacks that have gone on to college or finished college, the incarceration rate is some tiny fraction of what it is among those blacks who have dropped out of high school. So it’s not being black; it’s a way of life. Unfortunately, the way of life is being celebrated not only in rap music, but among the intelligentsia, is a way of life that leads to a lot of very big problems for most people.” - Thomas Sowell
The poverty rate is still between two or three times that of white (non-Hispanic) married couples.
Allegations of poor moral character are a stock racist talking point - which ignores the reality of the poor moral character of those who lean right but are privileged enough not to have to face consequences, and also the huge differences in social and economic opportunity.
I mean, if you exclude racism and structural racism as an answer, you’ll be wondering for a long time “why black people don’t rock anymore.” But it’s not my job to educate you, I’d suggest you look into yourself.
Please don't post ideological flamewar comments to HN or cross into personal attack. Neither of those makes for interesting conversation, only dumbed-down hostility. If you have a substantive insight to offer about the topic, that of course is welcome.
It's no one's job here to educate the others, thankfully. But learning from each other is the point of this place, and that only works if we don't get stuck in ideological tropes and internet putdowns.
Give me a break. Y’all are so eager to say “it can’t be racism” to explain current situations despite explicit racism for hundreds of years in the US. Maybe take that learning attitude you’re talking about seriously.
Who is "y'all"? If you mean "some HN commenters", then sure—some HN commenters post all kinds of crap. This is the internet.
If you mean anything more than that, I'd like to know who. It doesn't describe the community as a whole. If you mean the moderators, it is deeply untrue.
Could you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? It leads to extremely poor-quality, indeed vicious discussion, which does zero good and only contributes to destroying this place. You don't need swipes, putdowns, snark, or personal attacks to make your substantive points.
What I want to know is why young black Americans, do not, in their majority, do rock anymore. I get that the music industry always tries to control what gets airtime, but who needs the music industry today, and who needed the music industry in the past? If it was for the music industry, nobody would have heard of Jimi Hendrix- a black man with a guitar? That'll never sell!
Look at metal and how it took hold. Growing up in Athens, Greece, it seemed like every neighbourhood had a metal band and you would never know by looking at billboards, or even coverage in the metal press (a lackey of the music industry, if there ever was one). Euro kids took Rock from the Americans and ran with it and made something new, all ours, and all working class (see the early years of Sabbath and Priest in Manchester; remember the apocryphal story of Ozzy and Tony having one pair of good shoes between them and wearing them on alternate days to go out). Metal quickly became the authentic popular music of entire generations, without ever any need of mainstream acceptance. Metal grew from below, with no help from above and despite the disdainful snorts of mainstream music critics.
So why didn't the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that comes from black artists for the last few decades?
Why Rihana and Beyonce, rather than a new Jimi Hendrix? Female, even. Why is Rock 'n' Roll pretty much dead to black kids, nowadays?