TV on the Radio, Oxbow, the guy from Bloc Party, and the Dirtbombs also come to mind.
This may or may not add something to the discussion:What Color is Your Music?
What is “real music” to you? Rap may not generally be melodic (although a lot of it does have melodic vocal lines interspersed with rapping), but melody hardly defines music. You’ve got melody, harmony, and rhythm as your basic building blocks for music, and music can contain any of those alone or in any combination. And I have no clue what you mean by it not being “real music” in terms of rhythm. Rap is a rhythm-based musical form. From a musical perspective, that is where the musical interest lies.
baffling that anyone would try to compare Gregorian chant and choral music to rap. Why would you expect these to have anything in common? Look at things on their own merits and as part of relevant aesthetic lineages: as a rule, it’s silly to compare contemporary work to arbitrary benchmarks established centuries ago.
(Not to mention that generalizations about the harmony or rhythm of rap as an entire genre are pretty much dead in the water, as is the case with a good many genres.)
Hey Nzinga, I certainly agree that every Black kid knew those artists… but was it “cool” to be a fan of them in your circle? Because in mine (both in the UK with American Black kids and here in the States) it wasn’t. Hell, even I kept my Wham! affinity under wraps. “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” is perhaps the Whitest song ever written. (Not that’s the reason why, but I hate that song to this day. Give me “Bad Boys,” “Freedom,” and “Young Guns” any day.
I actually remember when hip hop was this fascinating subgenre out of NYC, and a lot of British artists were getting into it - New Order, Malcolm McLaren - and I actually had a knowledge of old school hip hop rivaling a lot of kids in Texas, because New Jack Swing was so popular it crowded everything out. Peeps were into Bobby Brown, Guy, Troop, Keith Sweat, and Pebbles (which actually, I didn’t mind that much, but it wasn’t my favorite stuff. Give me INXS over any of that any day). Then around '88 or '89 NWA got huge (with Michel’le and The D.O.C.) and everyone was into gangsta rap (including me). But most of the kids I knew got really into it at the expense of everything else.
I absolutely loved the '89-'95 period in hip-hop. There was great Afrocentric rap, skillful MCs, and a sense of solidarity with other hip-hop fans. (I guess I was also on that militant Black consciousness tip too.) But I definitely had my Smiths, Living Colour, and R.E.M. going on at the same time.
We used to play this game in grad school - all of us Black-conscious critical race scholars would be at each other’s apartments, peeping CD collections and calling each other out for having super-White music. They had a field day with me, with my 80s collection and a-ha, XTC, Carpenters, Beach Boys, and wait for it - Garth Brooks CDs. But we all had it. I remember one time a friend was looking at me crazy and said, “Why do you have so much Duran Duran?” I was about to get defensive, but then she said, “I have probably the same ones in my collection.” We go around the room… and everyone confesses to having a few Duran Duran CDs. Pretty funny.
Among Black men, I’ve found there is a particular resistance to listening to non-Black, non-R&B/non-hip hop stuff. Just my observation. Black women have a lot more flexibility (or at least admit to it) in their tastes in my opinion and experience.
I’ve always been disappointed that Fefe Dobson never got really “big”:
Take Me Away
Bye Bye Boyfriend
Those are both from early in her career — here’s something more recent: Ghost
And yeah, culture vs. race - she’s Canadian, not urban USA.
My knowledge of rap ends when Run-D.M.C. became popular, but even if we accept that most black kids listen almost exclusively to rap, there are probably ten different genres within that category that the OP doesn’t recognize because he’s not familiar enough. I know that there’s East Coast and West Coast and Dirty South. Will Smith and NWA both make rap music but their styles are miles apart. That’s not very different from the differences in rock; between Jackson Browne and Black Sabbath. So while all the kids are listening to rap, it’s a wider variety of music than it first appears.
I think that most folks who rail against rap haven’t heard enough of it. I didn’t like Dr. Dre, but The Fugees, Digable Planets and Tribe Called Quest were alright with me. I didn’t care for Beastie Boys but some of Eminem’s stuff is pretty good. And there’s the “the stuff kids listen to these days isn’t music, it’s just noise”. It’s supposed to be that way. My parents disliked a lot of what I played growing up, and their parents thought that swing music was too racy. My grandparents probably got heat for listening to Steven Foster instead of Mozart.
You’re not supposed to like most of today’s music. It’s created that way to give each generation their own voice. I’d slap down any 21 year old listening to Deep Purple. That’s MY music, and I certainly wasn’t listening to Glenn Miller at that age. Now I do, but I’ve matured and like a great many different types of music now. I remember people looked at me strangely for playing doo-wop in 1973 (American Graffiti). The music wasn’t fifteen years old and it was already obsolete. Deep Purple’s Machine Head is forty years old. That’s like listening to your grandparent’s music!
First off, you have excellent taste. 
Second, I’d look at not just performers but also producers. Nile Rodgers basically owned the 80s regarding pop - producing David Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, INXS. He was an artist firmly in the rock/pop/disco/R&B mold. I think there was, and still is, a lot of racism in the music industry, and Nile discusses this in his brilliant autobiography. But white artists were clamoring to have his production in their work.
When you say “rock” I think a lot of artists who are perhaps in another genre but indeed are playing rock. Ernie Isley’s guitar work in the 70s with the Isley Brothers is heavily influenced by Hendrix and lots of those tracks, like “Who’s That Lady” would fit in perfectly on a classic rock station. In the UK, there were lots of interracial bands. Big Country, who have one of the greatest singles ever, had Tony Butler on bass (and for a time, lead vocals). Simple Minds’ drummer Mel Gaynor is the longest serving member of the band outside of Kerr and Burchill. INXS’ initial replacement for Michael Hutchence was Terrence Trent D’Arby. Power Station featured Tony Thompson and Bernard Edwards… those two, in particular, played on damn near every massive album in the 80s. Now these aren’t exactly metal bands but they aren’t lightweight disposable pop either.
I was never a fan, but a bunch of my Living Colour fellow fans are big into Fishbone - all of those guys are Black. If you’re into ska, lots of those bands (think Mighty Mighty Bosstones) have Black guys in the band. In the '90s Local H had a couple of hits… they were a duo with a Black drummer.
I was trying to repeat information from a distant music appreciation class in college. We started with Gregorian chants and worked our way through history sampling styles as it evolved.
There’s a commonality running through all forms of music. Sometimes the boundaries are pushed like Scat in Jazz. Or the deliberate atonal qualities of Rock & Heavy metal. I listen to practically anything.
Hopefully some of the urban kids will get exposed to other forms of music and art. My college had a fine arts degree requirement and almost everybody had Music Appreciation and Art Appreciation classes. IIRC 3 FA classes met most degree requirements. Looking back I’m very thankful for those classes. Learning about the arts and culture makes me a much more well rounded person. I can quite happily pass the time in a strange city at the museum or a art gallery.
Hippy Hollow, you’ve reminded me of one of my own recent surprises — looking up older bands on YouTube and discovering for the first time that Three Dog Night had a black drummer and the Doobie Brothers had a black bass player. Both bands were a bit “before my time” and I somehow got through life without ever seeing a photo of either group.
Pretty funny. I’m sure there’s a generation of folks who’ve never seen the Doobie Brothers and are wondering, “Where’s the Black lead singer? Who’s this White guy lip-syncing?”
To speak to just the “clubs” portion - you probably won’t find much Bela Fleck, rap, or Beethoven coming out of a techno club either. People generally go to a club to hear a particular type of music. c.f. the fine music documentary The Blues Brothers -
Yeah, I do remember assuming that Michael MacDonald was black when I first heard him (I think the song was “What a Fool Believes”), but I did see a photo of him at some point.
Hahahaa. Oh, sweety.
In a hundred years, someone like you will going on about how “Music isn’t what it used to be. The blacks used to make great music. I lot of the hip hop greats were black.”
More anecdotal here:
Mister Vigilante is Mexican. He listens to Placebo and Einsturzende Neubauten (and Rammstein, Laibach, I could go on) and does not have a single latino song anywhere in his library. He was a goth kid growing up. However, when we go to the local chain Mexican place (he doesn’t insist on authenticity), he thinks it’s funny that they’re playing Puerto Rican music on the speakers. (Chepe’s, I’m talking to you.)
And I happen to like Sevendust, a metal band, whose lead singer is black. This one of my favorite songs (and videos).
I’m glad to hear that exposure to the arts has made you more well-rounded, but I’d hope that this would also have gone as far as fostering an appreciation for the potential value of rap and hip-hop.
I agree that this kind of exposure to lots of different styles can make people more capable of appreciating the eclectic, but I don’t think there’s anything inherently valuable about this. I know people who read books from the same narrow corner of literature, who listen only to show tunes or watch only romantic comedies, who are absolutely decent and wonderful (and likewise capable of entertaining themselves). I don’t see why this can’t similarly be the case for those who listen primarily to rap.
Perhaps wandering a bit afield, I’m also not sure about the idea of a “commonality” to all forms of music - it’s difficult to see, for example, what this has in common with music of the distant past - but, like rap, it has far more in common with more recent areas of music.
Actually, I have blasted classical from my car. Windows down, sunroof open wide,** Holst - Mars** crushing the speakers…or perhaps something from the soundtrack of The Last of the Mohicans or *BSG *or Firefly.
When I’ve got Breaking Benjamin or Sevendust (great black heavy rock band!) cranked up, I usually have the windows closed.
ETA: white, male, 30’s, Mercedes E350.
Why thank you.
GAH! How could I have forgotten Fishbone? I saw them in concert in college, and actually have an audio cassette of theirs in my car. Yes, that’s right, an audio cassette. Don’t ask. I also thought of Lenny Kravitz this morning, he should probably be counted as a rock act too. But the point still stands - a million white rock acts and few enough black acts that we’ve already started talking about “that one guy who played bass for that band that one time”.
I always get the feeling that most people (of any race) just have a hard time thinking for themselves when it comes to what music to listen to.
Two of my faves of the last 20+ years would be Fishbone (as mentioned above) and TV On The Radio (yes, there’s a white guy in this band I know).
Unfortunately Fishbone is a posthumous recommendation as the band imploded at the height of their popularity in the early to mid 90s. The band did carry on as a shadow of itself later but it wasn’t the same. There is a recently completed documentary on the band and their premature demise that is on my list of things to get and watch.
TV On The Radio is still active and I think they’re great although perhaps they’re not pure rock in the classic sense.