In the past few days theres been a couple of memes being passed around. One shows Iggy Azeala and Macklemore with the caption Queen and King of Rap. The other is a video of rapper Young Thug being interviewed at the BET Awards where he is asked about his thoughts on Ferguson and he responds that hes not into politics and that rappers and Black entertainers should NOT be commenting on social justice issues. Both memes have generated a lot of discussion with many asking how did we get to this point in 2014? In 1972, Columbia Records, then headed by Clive Davis commissioned Harvard Business school to do a white paper which among its many strategies laid out ways to integrate and whiten up the Black Music and how to take over Black indy record labels and depoliticize that space. It was called The Study of the Soul Music Environment . Now some have tried to claim it was merely a marketing strategy designed to show major record executive how to capitalize on a growing and profitable Black audience and the music being produced. Perhaps that was the original attempt of the authors of that paper.. However, when its juxtaposed with all that was going on in the music and entertainment industry at that time a more troubling pattern is seen.. Coupled with Cointel-pro where agents readily admitted that the FBI was feverishly studying Black culture so that it can control folks, there was an all out attempt to remove Black Thought from public discourse with Black radio and music being main targets for this dilution and removal. For folks who are shaking their heads in disbelief can look up an online ABC News documentary The FBIs War on Black America to see and hear the FBI speaking about Black culture and thought and the lengths they went to control and destroy it.. When we say Black Thought we are talking an ideology that was strident, highly politicized and about liberation..It was thought that challenged the system and status quo and demanded justice on all fronts.. Professor Rickey Vincent in his groundbreaking book Party Music details how the Black Panthers were really destroyed.. It wasnt buy the police but by Hollywood and the ways they started releasing Black movies that ridiculed and marginalized this organization. Vincent in his book details the way Hollywood would marginalize and make buffoons of the Black Militant panther character from Superfly to Shaft on down. The other day we sat down with long time radio legend and freedom fighter Bob Law who walks us through the Harvard Report and shows its edicts are connected to what we are seeing and hearing on urban radio and TV today.. As law points out the strategy wasnt to remove Black voices, but replace them with apolitical , Hip sounding non-substantive type of individuals. The replacement would be voices that would stress comedy over politics.. or as we see and hear today, More Music, Less Talk.. Bob Law points out that the Harvard Report puts forth a strategy of gradual change so that the audience does not realize its been taken over.. This change in Black music and radio was pointed out by Minister Farrakhan in 1979 when he addressed a body of Black music executives at the Jack the Rapper Convention in Atlanta. He released that speech on vinyl and in it he explains how the industry had shifted and was recruiting a different kind of individual to get on the air waves. He stated industry bosses want a down home dirty funky -N--- who would talk down to the people, be undignified and dumb down the audience. He described it as a strategy to do mind control over the Black masses. Its an incredible speech and one that stands in sharp contrast to a speech given by Dr Martin Luther King 12 years earlier to a similar body of Black radio and music executives where he praised Black radio and Soul Music. In this speech given to NATRA, King explains there would be no Civil Rights Movement had it not been for the political-ness of Black radio deejays and the music they played.. Bob Law in our interview explains that a year after King gave that speech, moves were made to break and disband NATRA as white executives, the mob and other powerful entities feared its growing political clout and influence... By the time Farrakhan addresses Jack The Rapper, Black strident, militant voices had for the most part been removed from the airwaves... Check out this interview we did with Bob Law who many consider one of the Godfathers in Black radio who walks us through this sordid history and shows how its impacting us and manifested today in 2014.. More music, less talk, 15 songs in a row, on air clowning, gossiping and yucking it up by non confrontational Negroes is not by mistake its by design, a well thought out far reaching design with goal to ultimately de-fang Black music and culture, integrate it and eventually take it over in terms of how the industry is concerned> Check out our convo w/ Bob Law on Black radio and the Harvard Report HERE---> bit.ly/1rbMFV5
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 23:40:48 +0000