"What the F**k Happened to Black Popular Music?" Article

[jazz_man]

Hey, has anyone read this by Kenny Drew, Jr.? What the F**k Happened to Black Popular Music?


It caught my attention earlier today, and I'll have it admit, I got a few chuckles out of some of his lines:

remember a time in our music when songs had great melodies and chord changes, you actually had to be able to sing or play an instument to become a musician, and Michael Jackson was black! It's a sad commentary on our culture and society when the biggest thing in popular music is an ex-crack dealer whose claim to fame is being shot nine times, and one of the greatest entertainers in the world was on trial for child molestation. If that's not a sign of the coming Apocalypse, I don't know what is! And if 50Cent was really shot nine times, why couldn't one of those bullets have hit a vital organ? Who the fuck was shooting at him: Stevie Wonder? And as far as all these black rappers getting shot, how about a little equal opportunity violence here? Can't somebody pop a cap in Eminem's white ass?

I'll freely admit, I have very mixed feelings on these sort of topics. On one hand, people like Herbie Hancock have openly embraced rap and have incorporated the latest electronics and other devices into their own recordings. Also, from what I know, when be-bop was in its early stages in the 1940's, many of the established jazz musicians, Louie Armstrong included, dismissed be-bop as noise.

On the other hand, I have to agree with Kenny's comments re 50Cent. Anyone else read this article? BTW, I have a great deal of respect for Kenny Drew's music and consider him a musician of a very high order.

Just curious as to others opinions.

[jazzofonik]

Just finished reading it before coming onto the board. His "rap sucks" stance is in some ways typical of people coming atthe music from a "Golden Age of Black Music" perspective.

I have little time for most of today's rap music as well as its sonic parent, dancehall/dub but there are, as has been pointed out elsewhere on this board , several instances of creativity (in lyrics) and musicality among hip-hop bands and solo artists.
Still, you have to love the factthat he pulls no punches and makes no apologies for his own opinions

[clave]

I'm with jazzofonik on this. I think there's great potential in rap and other hip-hop, but relatively few people seem to be taking the music to interesting places. Ditto for dancehall reggae.

I do appreciate hearing KD Jr.'s POV, though I have to disagree (as jazzofonik has already said) on the Golden Age of Jazz/Black Music stuff - if for no other reason than that there was a TON of forgettable stuff made back in the day. Nobody ever mentions that when they start taking this line, it seems...

[kenny weir]

I enjoyed the freewhelling humour, vitriol and wit of the article - but it makes feel kinda queasy.

On the one hand, I agree with just about all if it, generally.

On the other, THAT makes me feel like a Crouch fan.

[clave]

(from article)
"Our culture has been dumbed down to the point where your average dumb-ass American can't tell the difference between a truly great musician and somebody who's been studying their instrument for a week..."

(Bolding mine.)

This (and subsequent comments) make me very uneasy. If this is what he thinks about most people, he's not going to win anyone over to his side...

I wish KD Jr. had mentioned some artists who are doing good work. They're out there, and I don't think you have to look that hard to find them. To me, some of this seems to be about telling the younger folks that they're not all that smart. NOT a good idea!

[artmaus]

Originally Posted by clave

(Bolding mine.)

This (and subsequent comments) make me very uneasy. If this is what he thinks about most people, he's not going to win anyone over to his side...

I wish KD Jr. had mentioned some artists who are doing good work. They're out there, and I don't think you have to look that hard to find them. To me, some of this seems to be about telling the younger folks that they're not all that smart. NOT a good idea!

As an American I think his comment about "dumb-ass Americans" is right on when it comes to things cultural. Americans buy into all kinds of media hype and that's why they support the kinds of cultural things they do. It's about money and nothing else in this country. The media pushes things like violence and sex and that's what ends up being popular here.

I'm sick of people defending rap. It sucks and aside from some obsure artists who the general public never has and never will hear of it will continue to suck. Music is supposed to be made up of melody, rhythm and harmony. Like KD Jr. says there is only rhythm in rap. Sure, when people like Jason Moran or Vijay Iyer get a hold of rhythms from certain obsure rappers they make something of it. But that is no long rap but rather jazz.

50 cent, snoop dogg and all the others of their ilk use sex and violence to get teenaged boys to buy their cds. This is having a terrible effect on children. As a teacher I see it everyday in school. The way children behave when they are trying to be like these rappers. I know someone out there is saying that thats what they have said about other kinds of music but never has a music (and I don't really believe it's music) focused and praised crime and the demeaning of women in the way that rap has. For this reason and nothing more it should be boycotted.

[stopbobby]

I find it rather ridiculous when people say rap sucks. There are a lot of hip-hop artists making great music (K-OS, Aesop Rock, The Roots, Hieroglyphics, etc.)---and yes they tend to be less popular, but it's generally true of all music styles (including jazz) that mediocre work tends to reach the widest audience. Of course, there are exceptions, but that's true with hip-hop as well (e.g. Outkast).

I'd also like to point out that mainstream rap promotes violence, misogyny, and homophobia, not because it's rap but because it's mainstream. Very few people have gotten rich promoting peace, tolerance and equality to Americans (particularly in the past twenty years or so).

[cdog]

Quote: "It SUCKS"~!

I'll take my Albert Ayler, Bee Bop, O. Coleman, William Parker etc etc any day over gangster trash. Fundamentaly the backbeat is the same , over and over ad infinitum. No comparison between Bee Bop and Rap/Hip"Not". The culture, the misogynist lyrics, materialistic values ......really (to put it mildly) "Drain me".

[Noj]

Rap can be as bad as its worst criticism, so in that sense I can see why many will agree with Kenny's article. I was discussing rap with a friend recently and we agreed that rap has long since been on the decline as far as creativity goes, it used to be far more prolific. I like the sort of rap stopbobby references, but it isn't nearly as popular as the stuff Kenny hates.

Kenny notices that rap stresses rhythm--a lot of popular rap is rap for dancing. People who dance in clubs like to dance nasty with overtly sexual movements. So when the rap chorus is talking about "back that ass up" that's what is being referenced. Some of our less intelligent men tend to think music is something girlish, so the chest-thumping gangster stuff is a way for them to listen to music and feel tough. Often the gangster rap gets pressed right up against the dance club rap, the mysogyny and thug life crap go hand in hand. But that's what gets the club pumped up and dancing crazily. There seems to be a growing rift between music to listen to and music to shake your ass to.

So, I think Kenny is right about a lot, but I agree with jazzofonik and clave for the most part. Rap's greatest potential hasn't been achieved, and there isn't any indication that it will. In the end, I far prefer to listen to music created with live instruments by skilled musicians--but sometimes I'll hear some rap that bumps a nice beat and has some cool turntable work and entertaining lyrics and I dig it. Mos Def, Outkast, De La Soul, J-Live, etc etc. It ain't Parliament, but it isn't that there isn't anything to it at all.

[Jazz Purist]

This article really put a smile on my face. I'm still a young thirty-something myself, and everything KD, Jr. says is right on point.

Especially when he says....

Why spend all that time mastering an instrument when you can just get a drum machine and a microphone, write some asinine lyrics about bitches, ho's and pimps and make a ton of money? Sometimes I wonder whether I'm wasting my time in this cesspool called the music industry.

And....

I find it offensive that any record company would try to make a profit from glorifying something that has decimated the black community the way that crack has. I hope that one day while 50Cent is lounging by the pool in his humongous mansion surrounded by beautiful groupies, he might consider how many lives were ruined by the poison he used to sell, and how many more lives will be potentially damaged by the musical poison he's selling now.

This type of "music" is having a deleterious effect on the African-American community, and is helping to reshape the value system of many young African-Americans. Not to mention how it glamorizes of the "thug-life", which encompasses the selling of drugs, grotesque violence, and the pimping and debasement of black women.

Go into the inner-city schools and see for yourself exactly what these young, impressionable 10 and 12 year old students are listening to. They certainly aren't listening to John Coltrane or Max Roach. Instead, they are listening to the insubstantial beats and "lyrics" put forth by Fifty-cent, R-Kelly, among others.

To me, music is to the human mind and spirit what food is to the human body. Either it's healthy and nutritious, or it's not. I think we all know where the so-called "music" of Fifty-cent fits in here.

Yes, there are probably some good ones out there, but for every well-meaning artist, you have 10 of the bad ones, which seems to give the entire industry a bad name.

Thanks for posting this, jazz man, and thanks to Kenny Drew, Jr. for speaking his mind on this subject.

[Jakeweiser]

I am torn on this subject.

Firstly because I don't think anyone has the right to tell anyone what music is good or what music is bad. We have our own desires musically and to tell me that my musical tastes are lesser then someone elses or greater then someone elses really gets me upset. Music is music, and there is so much music out there in so many genres that there is no one 'genre' that can encompass music listeners.

People come to music at different stages of listening development. People who listen to rap listen to it for the same purpose anyone else listens to anything else. For some sort of emotional fullfillement. Weither it's sexual, agression, fantasy, love of dance, cultural, controversy etc. Do people listen to Jazz music with different goals? Because Jazz music has more sophisticated rhythms or harmonies make it 'better' then Rap, or Pop rock or other forms of popular music of our time? I don't think that it does.

That being said.

I do not agree with a lot of the messages of Rap music. Not being Black I can't speak on how it truly effects the culture but being white I know how Black culture effects white culture and like said above, it rubs off on our youth in a lot of wrong ways. this, I do not like. However, blaiming the music industry on the status of our children's development is unfortunate. Sure, the medium is out there, but parents and other figures of authority need to teach their children or those whom they influence that refering to women as Bitches or Ho's is not right, as a responsible parent or adult you must correctly tell your children, students or whomever that such conduct is not right. Will it fix the problem, I do not know and I don't think that I'll ever know if that theory will work because I doubt that enough people are going to try it.

Some Rap music is excellent. To say Rap is devoid of anything but rhythmn is an ignorant comment. There is melody and harmony in all sorts of this genre, is it as complex as Coltrane playing Giant Steps... no. Perhaps the problem with Jazz is that it's to complex, think about it from the other point of view.

Of course, the music industry is about making money rather then making music. Music is secondary in the pop culture way that people are brought up. They discover what will make them money... ie a charismatic and controvercial figure who embodies the fantasy lifestyle that is emulated in Rap music, how can you blame youth for embrassing something. Was rock n' roll so different in the 60's, Disco in the 70's, Metal in the 80's? It's just another link in the chain. In 10 years time some new kind of music will evolve and people will throw their arms up in protest.

Anyways, just some thoughts.

My point is, don't critique people for what they listen to. It's not your place, at least in my opinion.

[clave]

I feel compelled to point out that a *lot* of popular music from the 60s and 70s (when i was growing up) was full of not-so-coded references to drug abuse. These songs were made mainly by middle-class white people, and marketed to other middle-class white people. They didn't glorify violence and degradation of women (and men, for that matter), but they sure as hell did tell us that dropping acid (and using other substances) was the measure of "cool."

That was a LOT of bs, then and now.

A lot of that music was very creative - I don't mean to imply otherwise. But the messages it sent were not a whole lot different than the kind of thing KD Jr. is talking about in. re. crack.

It also comes to mind that heroin has been "chic" amongst a white, middle-class crowd within the past 10 years. And that musicians, fashion designers and others made a pile of money from promoting what the New york Times literally referred to as "heroin chic."

it seems to me that lots of people have pushed lots of unhealthy ways of acting and thinking, in song lyrics and in associated "lifestyles" in the past. that doesn't justify it, but the problem is *not* unique to hip-hop and rap - or to this particular decade.

Another thought: look at the popularity of gangster movies - and of crime kingpins like Al Capone and John Dillinger! - in the early part of the 20th c.

I think this is a human thing, not a "black thing." And that the same themes tend to be recycled in popular culture, be they good or bad.

And finally, that the statements about rap having no musical value are foolish and short-sighted. It's not the form that's "wrong" - it's all in how it's used and in what is promoted. The form itself is neutral.

To say all rap is bad and unmusical is a bit like saying that the alphabet must be bad because Hitler used it to write Mein Kampf. Or that all rock music is bad because some white supremacists use it to try to lure kids into their way of thinking.

***

I also think that jazz artists who've worked with rappers (and/or rapped themselves) would strongly disagree with the notion that jazz + rap = jazz. And I believe they'd be right!

***

Rap and hip-hop sales are biggest among middle-class white kids.

[burning dog]

I know people said be-bop was a load of noise etc, but rap has been around for nearly 30 years and there hasn't been that much jazz that incorporates it with any success. Some jazz musicians have incorporated the "feel", that's different.

There may be some very obscure hip-hop these days which is adventurous but this is usually as unpopular as adventurous jazz . The mainstream of hip -hop seems very conservative now. It's hey day as a progressive pop music (which was actually "popular") was in the 80's with Public Enemy IMO, maybe I'm just showing my age.

There may not have been a "Golden Age" of Black pop music but at one time the soul charts were almost identical to the general pop charts. I think it's ok to say some things used to be better, just as it' s silly to say "everything" used to be.

I think we have become more of a "visual" rather than "aural" society, looks and lifestyle are more important than sound, dance records can get away with a basic beat and not much more.

It's true when I was a teenager in multi cultural London, reggae and soul were by no means solely the province of Black listeners but neither were they very popular with provincial kids or the middle classes.


Now even rural Dorset contains small gangs of "homies" in baseball caps and gold chains, who speak an odd language of local English, plus bits of half understood Jamaican patios and Black American slang. Wierd!

Re the musical merits of jazz and hip-hop, I'd say that "average" jazz has far more than "average" hip-hop, even allowing for it's simplicity, partly because the commercial pressures are not so great

[Paul of London]

Whilst I sympathise with the general tone of the article -- I find rap music unlistenable with its cement-mixer rhythm and trite rhyming couplets, and I find the celebration of the crack and gun culture most unpleasant (hmmm, 'crack and gun', another new genre in 'dance' music perhaps?) -- I could imagine somebody writing something similar, say, in the 1960s defending good old bop against these free jazz merchants: 'Where's the melody, where's the rhythm?' Indeed, I'm sure people did, and not just dreadful old fogeys like Philip Larkin. Or someone else complaining in 1968-69 how awful it is that Miles Davis has brought all these rock licks into his music.

I remember people of my dad's generation complaining in the 1960s that these young rock musicians couldn't play properly or sing in tune. And didn't we in Britain laugh in the late 1960s at that band The Love Affair when it was revealed that they couldn't actually play their instruments, and it was all done by session musicians (predating the 'boy band' phenomenon by two decades).

Finally: 'Can't somebody pop a cap in Eminem's white ass?' A lovely idea that. We could then call him 'Enema'.

[burning dog]

M&M? He's such a sweet "wrapper".

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