what the f*ck happened to popular black music?

[slide_advantage_redoux]

Interesting thoughts

http://tinyurl.com/k4sny

[Chuck Nessa]

(Without reading the piece yet) The same thing that's happend to popular white music (only different).

[Kevin Bresnahan]

The tiny url link just goes to Comcast when I click it.

[slide_advantage_redoux]

Here it is:

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

Posted: 2006-04-06

By Kenny Drew, Jr.

I've decided to add this section to my website as a vehicle to express my views on various topics, musical and otherwise, that have been on my mind lately. You may wonder why I'm talking about popular music in this first installment, since I am generally thought of as a “jazz†musician. However, anyone who knows me knows that my tastes in music are very eclectic (as are those of most jazz musicians, quiet as it's kept). In fact when I started my career as a professional musician, I was not playing jazz. I started out playing in R&B groups and Top-40 bands. We only played jazz if the club was almost empty! The 60s - 80s was such an incredible time for all styles of popular music, but for the sake of this discussion I will concentrate specifically on black music (or rhythm-and-blues, or funk, or whatever the hell you want to call it).

Recently, I've been listening to a lot of my favorite music from that time, and to be honest, I am disgusted and sickened at how far our music has declined in the quality of the music and its message. How the hell did we get from Motown to Death Row; from Earth Wind & Fire to Ludacris; from Luther Vandross to 50Cent?

I 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?

Another issue in the decline of music today is the stupidity and negativity in the lyrics and the video images that accompany this so-called “musicâ€. I recently discovered that there is now a form of rap called “coke rapâ€, in which the lyrics deal mainly with the sale, distribution and use of cocaine and crack. 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.

“Another issue in the decline of music today is the stupidity and negativity in the lyrics and the video images that accompany this so-called 'music'.â€

There's a video by Ludacris that I've seen of a song called “Act a Foolâ€. All I can remember about the video is that there were a lot of shots of him and his boys running from the cops. Don't we have enough young black men running around acting like fools without some idiot rapper encouraging it?( But then again, Ludacris probably makes more money in one month than I'll make in my entire life as a jazz musician. So who's the idiot here? Maybe it's me!) Remember when the lyrics in our music spoke of love or the loss of love? Who can forget the uplifting messages of peace, hope and spirituality in the lyrics of Earth Wind & Fire? Or the social consciousness and protest messages in the lyrics of Gil Scott-Heron and Marvin Gaye? How the hell did we get from “Just to be Close to You Girl†to “Back That Ass Up Bitchâ€? How the hell did we get from “What's Goin' On†and “You Haven't Done Nothin' “ to “Me So Horny†and “My Humpâ€?

Last, but not least, it's time to address the musical quality of this bullshit, or more accurately, the lack of it. Way back when, when I first started studying music I was told that music had to consist of three elements: melody, harmony and rhythm. Rap music (an oxymoron similar to “military intelligence “or “jumbo shrimpâ€) has basically discarded the first two elements and is left with nothing but rhythm.

Since only one element of music is present in most of this crap it doesn't even justify being called music. 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. Playing a musical instrument at a high level is no longer a well-respected skill in our society. (I'm not 100% sure that it ever really was.) In fact, to be honest, I think that most of the students in music schools today who are studying jazz and classical music are wasting their fucking time and their parents' money! (Boy, am I gonna get in trouble for saying this!) 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. These days it seems like the only way to make any serious money in music is to produce some bullshit that doesn't even sound like music!

So what's the solution here? Damned if I know! But I did see an encouraging story on the news recently. A billboard advertising 50Cent's new movie was put up in a black neighborhood not far from a school. In the billboard 50Cent is seen with his heavily tatooed back to the camera with his arms outstretched in a crucifix-like pose with a microphone in one hand and a gun in the other. Understandably, the community was outraged. They held protests, got some media coverage, and eventually succeeded in getting the movie company to remove the billboard. I say that we use this as a model nationwide.

I propose a nationwide boycott of rap music; perhaps by picketing in front of record company offices and major record store chains. Anybody remember the “Disco Sucks†movement in the 70s? Maybe it's time for a “Rap Sucks†movement now. Who's with me here? (Actually, looking back on the disco era, that music sounds like Beethoven in comparison to the rap garbage that's poisoning our airwaves now!) Maybe we could have a big “Rap Sucks†rally somewhere. (As long as it doesn't escalate into a riot like the “Disco Sucks†one did.)

Discuss What the F**k Happened to Black Popular Music? on the AAJ Bulletin Board.

Visit Kenny Drew on the web.

[JSngry]

what the f*ck happened to the link?

Lose the tiny-thing, dude. It ain't worth it!

On a general level, though, I'll say up fron that popular music is like popular government - "the people" will ultimately get the quality of product that they desire and/or deserve. When they don't, it's no longer "popular" anything, it's fascistic or some such. But to even get to that point, people have to acquiesce.

[JSngry]

Ok, just read the article.

Cat's right on the sentiment, but his argument per se is full of shit. Life goes on and the world changes. so does music.

I can accept (and share) outrage about " moral content/intent", but not about the new forms of expression or the techniques thereof.

Let's face it - linearity is on the way out (just because). The challenge is not how to "save" it, but rahter how to deal responsibly and positively with the new, emerging, inevitable omniverity.

(and if "omniverity" is not a word, let's make it one!)

[Chuck Nessa]

Let's face it - linearity is on the way out (just because). The challenge is not how to "save" it, but rahter how to deal responsibly and positively with the new, emerging, inevitable omniverity.

(and if "omniverity" is not a word, let's make it one!)

There IS a difference between "Everything is Possible" and "Anything is Possible".

[JSngry]

Exactly.

[Chad.mundt]

Please don't get me wrong here; I think that rap is the death of an art form. I think (above all, in fact) that the lyrics' subject matter is damaging our society. There is definitely a loss of respect for people who put their lives into the musical art form. But, I also believe that there is something else here or, at least, potentially.

Rap is just the latest incarnation in the split of musicality. What I'm talking about is the split between folk and "serious" music (I hate the term "classical"). Once, the popular music of the time was opera. In the late 1800s, it hit it's climax with Wagner and Verdi. But, in the early 1900s, serious music became too serious. Can you really expect the masses to enjoy serialism and atonality? People want to get away from life with music, not think about it. Jazz was music that was played for dancing. So, that became popular, even as the serious music continued to evolve. As we all know, soon bebop came round, and I bet none of us loved bebop from the first Parker solo we heard. So, people look for something else...Rock & Roll. But, jazz continues to evolve. Look where we are now? We have Lovano, Corea, Brecker *get better Mike*. But, the masses want to dance and cry, not think or study. This leads to Marvin Gaye, EWaF, James Brown, etc. But, look at the 80s. We had heavy metal/hard rock/80s stuff. That is another drop in dancibility. And, thus Hip-hop gets it's chance.

Look at how this progresses: Opera => 20th Century ||Break|| Jazz => Bebop ||Break|| Rock => Metal ||Break|| Rap...

Complexity

|.........(serious)....../.........................................................................................................

|.._____________ /.................(bebop)....../......................................................................

|./.........................................__________/........................................................................

|/........................................ /.............................................80s (metal, etc............................

|............(jazz)......_______/..................................................... __________/.........................

|.............. _______/..........................(rock).....____________/............................................

|...................................................________/................................(rap)........___..............

|...............................................................................................__________/...................

|____________________________________________________________________ Time

So, the music gets less easy to dance to, and so people get bored and find something else. Strange though why it gets progressively less complex. But, even hiphop is an art form, too. It has spawned Break Dancing, Beatboxing, Rapping, Djism, etc. What I'm waiting for is a rapper who raps usuing bebop-rhythms...That'll be cool. Maybe some better lyrics....

Please excuse me for possibly being narrowminded and for not taking into account other types of music, among other things, but this is my view. I would love feedback...

Edited April 7, 2006 by Chad Mundt

[rostasi]

what the f*ck happened to the link?

Lose the tiny-thing, dude. It ain't worth it!

It's not a "tiny" problem...it's just an embedded link.

These things happen - easily - with some of these supersized sites.

[Shawn]

You need to add "Grunge" to your chart. Nirvana managed to destroy 20+ years of changes in the rock scene (some good, some awful) by killing it off entirely. There now seems to be either whiny "emo" rock...or over the top "nu metal/rap metal"...nothing in between. Both ends of the spectrum are shit and the middleground has been completely removed from public view (no place to play songs/videos).

[rostasi]

Cat's right on the sentiment, but his argument per se is full of shit. Life goes on and the world changes. so does music.

I can accept (and share) outrage about " moral content/intent", but not about the new forms of expression or the techniques thereof.

Let's face it - linearity is on the way out (just because). The challenge is not how to "save" it, but rahter how to deal responsibly and positively with the new, emerging, inevitable omniverity.

I agree totally!!

(Also, I think he needs to update his references some...

and there's always the old tired "back in my day" sentiment that still lingers).

[rostasi]

What I'm waiting for is a rapper who raps usuing bebop-rhythms...That'll be cool. Maybe some better lyrics....

Well, Jon Hendricks did a pretty good job at this.

I want more rap without regular rhythms...and none of that rhyming either!

[Kreilly]

Please don't get me wrong here; I think that rap is the death of an art form. I think (above all, in fact) that the lyrics' subject matter is damaging our society. There is definitely a loss of respect for people who put their lives into the musical art form. But, I also believe that there is something else here or, at least, potentially.

Rap is just the latest incarnation in the split of musicality. What I'm talking about is the split between folk and "serious" music (I hate the term "classical"). Once, the popular music of the time was opera. In the late 1800s, it hit it's climax with Wagner and Verdi. But, in the early 1900s, serious music became too serious. Can you really expect the masses to enjoy serialism and atonality? People want to get away from life with music, not think about it. Jazz was music that was played for dancing. So, that became popular, even as the serious music continued to evolve. As we all know, soon bebop came round, and I bet none of us loved bebop from the first Parker solo we heard. So, people look for something else...Rock & Roll. But, jazz continues to evolve. Look where we are now? We have Lovano, Corea, Brecker *get better Mike*. But, the masses want to dance and cry, not think or study. This leads to Marvin Gaye, EWaF, James Brown, etc. But, look at the 80s. We had heavy metal/hard rock/80s stuff. That is another drop in dancibility. And, thus Hip-hop gets it's chance.

Look at how this progresses: Opera => 20th Century ||Break|| Jazz => Bebop ||Break|| Rock => Metal ||Break|| Rap...

Complexity __

| (serious) /| __

| _____________ / (bebop) /|

| / __________/

|/ / 80s (metal, etc__

| (jazz) _______/ __________/|

| _______/ (rock) ____________/

| ________/ (rap) ___\

| __________/ /

|____________________________________________________________________ Time

So, the music gets less easy to dance to, and so people get bored and find something else. Strange though why it gets progressively less complex. But, even hiphop is an art form, too. It has spawned Break Dancing, Beatboxing, Rapping, Djism, etc. What I'm waiting for is a rapper who raps usuing bebop-rhythms...That'll be cool. Maybe some better lyrics....

Please excuse me for possibly being narrowminded and for not taking into account other types of music, among other things, but this is my view. I would love feedback...

This is thoughtful and interesting though I'm not in agreement.

I love atonal music. And believe me, I don't intellectualize it. I find it completely a-rational. It is soothing. I listen to it and I escape.

My take on what's happening now is that with diy artists selling their own cds and music downloadable directly from indy artists' websites, it is not the death of an art form but the death of marketable demographics. There are so many different "types" and styles of music to satisfy everyone's tastes but fewer that appeal to large targetable masses. It's a marketing problem and the record companies are not prepared or perhaps not designed to deal with it. Artistically there is a renaissance going on but not many of the emerging art forms have mass appeal.

As to your negative evaluation of rap lyrics and their damage to our society, look at the pervasive misogyny, violence, and sex in traditional blues music. I remember reading one critic who condemned the "soothing sounds of the saxophone" because they led youth into illicit sexual behavior. The major rap marketing demographic is teenage white suburbia. Where is the damage? There are no reputable studies linking rap or heavy metal to an increase in real life violence though there are plenty of studies linking extreme poverty to violence and crime. In fact, inner city crime was much higher during the hey day of the Motown era.

[Dan Gould]

I really liked Kenny Drew Sr., but I LOVE Kenny Drew Jr.

Everything he says is completely spot on, IMO.

[Chad.mundt]

This is thoughtful and interesting though I'm not in agreement.

I love atonal music. And believe me, I don't intellectualize it. I find it completely a-rational. It is soothing. I listen to it and I escape.

My take on what's happening now is that with diy artists selling their own cds and music downloadable directly from indy artists' websites, it is not the death of an art form but the death of marketable demographics. There are so many different "types" and styles of music to satisfy everyone's tastes but fewer that appeal to large targetable masses. It's a marketing problem and the record companies are not prepared or perhaps not designed to deal with it. Artistically there is a renaissance going on but not many of the emerging art forms have mass appeal.

As to your negative evaluation of rap lyrics and their damage to our society, look at the pervasive misogyny, violence, and sex in traditional blues music. I remember reading one critic who condemned the "soothing sounds of the saxophone" because they led youth into illicit sexual behavior. The major rap marketing demographic is teenage white suburbia. Where is the damage? There are no reputable studies linking rap or heavy metal to an increase in real life violence though there are plenty of studies linking extreme poverty to violence and crime. In fact, inner city crime was much higher during the hey day of the Motown era.

I love atonal music, myself. I don't intellicualize it, either (well, not all the time). But, we are the exception. Most people don't care for it. I'm talking about the masses.

The lyrics thing...hmm...Well, I cannot believe that these lyrics can do anything but harm. Look at the feminist movement. Feminism is not unshaven armpits and burning bras. It is about equality for women AND Men. But, Rap lyrics, IN GENERAL (DMX has made exceptions in his music), objectify women into body parts. I have never heard a rap song profess the rapper's love and respect for his woman. Rap basically undermines everything that the feminist revolution tried to accomplish. Also, lyrics talking about drugs make it seem cool to do them. You can't tell me that this is a positive influence. Again, there are exceptions, but the most popular brand of rap does says these things.

I do respect hip-hop in general, though. I think my musical are quite eclectic. There are artists who are concerned with more than pimpin' hoes and the such. Eminem, for example, uses a lot of political and sociological themes in his work (underneath the whole "rape my momma" thing...). I enjoy getting drunk and dancing (quite badly, IMNSHO) to Jay-Z as much as anyone. It is music that you don't think about. It wouldn't make sense to do that. That is it's merit and one of it's problems.

Summarily, it's not the technique or music that I disapprove of. It is the message. You have to admit it. There are definitely dangerous messages in there.

Edited April 8, 2006 by Chad Mundt

[Chad.mundt]

But, I DO NOT BELIEVB THAT CENSORSHIP IS EVER NECESSARY. It is an affront to the Right to Free Speech

....As is the Patriot Act...Spying on Americans...

[Guy Berger]

Last, but not least, it's time to address the musical quality of this bullshit, or more accurately, the lack of it. Way back when, when I first started studying music I was told that music had to consist of three elements: melody, harmony and rhythm. Rap music (an oxymoron similar to “military intelligence “or “jumbo shrimpâ€) has basically discarded the first two elements and is left with nothing but rhythm.

This is where he lost me.

Guy

[JSngry]

Anybody heard Ursula Rucker? Poetry w/"techno-jazz" backing. Her stuff's got an overall positive (if often "angry" and extremely graphic) message, and none of the "linear" musical qualities that Mr. Drew bemoans the alleged loss of. Yet I find it both intellectually stimulating and sensually attractive. So what am I, stupid or a dupe? Maybe, sometimes, but not always, and not here. I don't think so.

Or what about Monday Michiru? Her new album has a bunch of stuff that's structured like "club mixes" in terms of both arrangements and grooves, hell, it often feels and sounds like a club mix, yet it's played in real time by real people on real instruments. And there's room for some excellent, creative instrumental improvisation along the way. Her stuff moves and breathes and lets you do the same right along with it. If you want to. IF you want to. And if you don't fine, that's your choice. But it ain't the music's fault, dig?

So this whole "shit ain't happening 'cause it's mundane machine music made by thugs to destroy our society" is just so much "life's passing me by and I don't like it" if it's delivered w/o an awareness of alternate currents in the same general stream. There's something happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Drew? Never, ever blame a "style" or the "technology". "Style" is just a marketing tool, and tecnology is just a tool, period. Both are going to be as good or as fucked up as the people using them.

Edited April 8, 2006 by JSngry

[Kreilly]

The lyrics thing...hmm...Well, I cannot believe that these lyrics can do anything but harm. Look at the feminist movement. Feminism is not unshaven armpits and burning bras. It is about equality for women AND Men. But, Rap lyrics, IN GENERAL (DMX has made exceptions in his music), objectify women into body parts. I have never heard a rap song profess the rapper's love and respect for his woman. Rap basically undermines everything that the feminist revolution tried to accomplish. Also, lyrics talking about drugs make it seem cool to do them. You can't tell me that this is a positive influence. Again, there are exceptions, but the most popular brand of rap does says these things.

[snip]

Summarily, it's not the technique or music that I disapprove of. It is the message. You have to admit it. There are definitely dangerous messages in there.

Have you listened to old blues lyrics? Stagger Lee? Murder ballads? Metal lyrics? Lots of objectification of women, lots of violence. Watch a boxing match or a UFC match. People cheer for two men to pound each other into submission then hoot as scantily clad women strut around between rounds. Sex and violence are everywhere in this culture. Why single out rap for something that permeates the culture as a whole? Doesn't it make much more interpretive sense to see rap as yet another symptom rather than the cause?

Also, have you considered the comic elements of the extreme cartoonish hyperbole that characterizes most rap? My 18 year old and her friends love rap and they find it hilarious. Slim Shady is a persona for Marshall Mathers much like Alice Cooper is for Vincent Furnier. I loved Alice Cooper's early seventies recordings and at 13 I found the song "I Love the Dead" to be hilarious, not enticing me towards necrophilia. There are more levels than the literal and while I'm not endorsing the misogyny or homophobia in any lyrics, I find the danger attributed to rap to be greatly exagerrated.

[Noj]

JSngry's comments speak for me better than I can for myself. :tup :tup

[RDK]

Ah, we're all just becoming old farts... -_-

[Chad.mundt]

The lyrics thing...hmm...Well, I cannot believe that these lyrics can do anything but harm. Look at the feminist movement. Feminism is not unshaven armpits and burning bras. It is about equality for women AND Men. But, Rap lyrics, IN GENERAL (DMX has made exceptions in his music), objectify women into body parts. I have never heard a rap song profess the rapper's love and respect for his woman. Rap basically undermines everything that the feminist revolution tried to accomplish. Also, lyrics talking about drugs make it seem cool to do them. You can't tell me that this is a positive influence. Again, there are exceptions, but the most popular brand of rap does says these things.

[snip]

Summarily, it's not the technique or music that I disapprove of. It is the message. You have to admit it. There are definitely dangerous messages in there.

Have you listened to old blues lyrics? Stagger Lee? Murder ballads? Metal lyrics? Lots of objectification of women, lots of violence. Watch a boxing match or a UFC match. People cheer for two men to pound each other into submission then hoot as scantily clad women strut around between rounds. Sex and violence are everywhere in this culture. Why single out rap for something that permeates the culture as a whole? Doesn't it make much more interpretive sense to see rap as yet another symptom rather than the cause?

Also, have you considered the comic elements of the extreme cartoonish hyperbole that characterizes most rap? My 18 year old and her friends love rap and they find it hilarious. Slim Shady is a persona for Marshall Mathers much like Alice Cooper is for Vincent Furnier. I loved Alice Cooper's early seventies recordings and at 13 I found the song "I Love the Dead" to be hilarious, not enticing me towards necrophilia. There are more levels than the literal and while I'm not endorsing the misogyny or homophobia in any lyrics, I find the danger attributed to rap to be greatly exagerrated.

You know...you are right. Rap is just the next logical step in our morally ambiguous society. Alright. SOCIETY is off track. Rap is a symptom. What this makes me wonder is what the next step will be...will the next symptom be the deadly one?

I don't think that many people listen to rap because it's funny. Eminem, maybe...I'm one of them.

BTW, it's not the sex so much as the drug references and the lack of a message that bothers me.

Mr. Drew, I do believe that what you have said was biased and destructive. Many, if not most jazz musicians appreciate bluegrass. Isn't that "ignorant" music? I think that the art form and society of hip-hop is just as valid as the "higher" art forms.

[Jim Alfredson]

Rap has been around almost 30 years, folks. Blaming it for the ills of society is a cop out.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There's always been good and bad in pop music, black or white. There's a lot of good black pop music out there now.

Erykah Badu to start with. Listening to "World wide underground" for the first time, I got the same feeling as the first time I liistened to Ornette Coleperson's "Free jazz" - hearing a music that was so blindingly creative, yet firmly entrenched in the culture it represented, and with an incredible groove to it.

Plenty of other neo-Soul singers around who are every bit as good as the soul singers of the '60s - Mary J Blige; Angie Stone; Alicia Keys (when she's on it); Belita Woods, who sings two great cuts on George Clinton's "How late do UF2BB4UR absent".

Wyclef Jean; Public Enemy; The Last Poets; KRS1; Gil Scott-Heron represent a political thread in Rap that can't be disregarded and lumped into an anti-social bag.

And there have always been plenty of songs about sex and violence. Try Wynonie "Mr Blues" Harris or Dinah Washington. Like many in the past, many of the modern ones include a strong dose of self parody - Redman's multiple versions of Johnny "Guitar" Watson's "Superman lover" are hilarious; as are many of Busta Rhymes' things.

I think black popular music is just as good now, and just as bad, and just as BAAAD, as it's ever been. I love it!

MG