June is Black Music Month.. It was first put forth in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter but wasnt signed into law until 2000 under Bill Clinton with the African American Music Bill... That in itself is ironic considering that it was the same Bill Clinton who signed the 1996 telecommunications act that led to massive media consolidation which in turn led to music, Black music in particular that was being played on the airwaves being a commodity that needed to appeal to the lowest common denominator..(dumbed down) to have wide spread mass appeal.. (translation be acceptable to white consumers) The dilution and dumbing down of music didnt first happen in the aftermath of Bill Clinton and telecommunication act.. There have always been periods where our music has gone through that.. Pick an era/ decade and you can find robust discussions about the state of Black music and where its headed and why, with many claiming the music was real and more authentic in a bygone era.. The two most notable periods in which this discussion unfolded was back in the late 80s/ early 90s when Miami Bass and West Coast rap started to blow up with groups like NWA, 2 Live Crew, Ice-T Too Short and MC Hammer leading the charge.. Media purist claimed the music created by such artists were a set back with a lot of this coming to a head at the New Music Seminar when a fight almost broke out during a panel discussion where Luke and folks from Miami were accused by New York panelists of ruining Hip Hop. He maintained his music was enjoyed by the hood and reflected who they were and where they were at.. Bam who was at that panel backed Luke and said they were indeed part of the family.. Prior to that era, we had discussions around the declining state of Black music when disco became commercialized and watered down ala John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever..where u had all sorts of hard core rock acts and even the Godfather of Soul cashing in to do slick sounding uninspired disco songs. Today we see that discussion about the state of Black music unfolding when Chuck D of Public Enemy and Ebro the program director of Hot 97 got into a back and forth after Chuck noted their Summer Jam was a crime to Hip Hop.. Ebro said he was pushing what the audience likes and delivering ratings that his bosses demand... After all this time its obvious that capitalistic goals of a corporation are always going to clash with creativity and artistic agendas. The question for us and one of the reasons we had the establishment of Black Music Month is to dig deep and go beyond what at this point should be expected fare... Yes we know the state of Black music commercially speaking may not be where many of us want it.. and yes we know that capitalism will want to de-Blacken some of that music to make it more appealing to a mainstream audience.. That Pat Booning of Black music has been going on over 60 years now.. but are we as Black folks doing our part by checking for groups, artists and emerging styles outside of commercial spheres? Are we listening to House music out of South Africa or the funk laden House coming out of France? Are we listening to emerging soul artists like Aloe Blacc? Martin Luther? Maimouna Youssef? to name a few.. Are we aggressively checking for Hip Hop that comes from other countries in particular throughout Africa? Are we checking the interesting jazzy styles put forth by artists like Flying Lotus?? Whats the state of Black music in 2014? is it really as bad as we say? Who are we checking for in 2014? Are we waiting to be spoon fed from corporate outlets or are we checking, discovering and setting trends vs following them?
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 15:52:08 +0000
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