Black People and Rock: The Struggle Continues

bloodymadness 
Mar 21 '07

The Bottom Line Write, write, write

I wrote this on my facebook page and decided to share it with all of you:

Usually I don't write notes unless I really feel I have to
vent something. Most of the time I consider notes pointless and a wate of time as most people don't give a damn what your outlook on life is or how upset you are because your significant other dumped you for your cousin... anyways here we go.

MY TAKE

For the past months it seems every rap radio station in the country has been playing The Shop Boyz ode to rock debauchery "Party Like a Rock Star". It's not a very complex song and the lyrics mainly deal with the group members living it up with the Osbournes and being a tanned Marilyn Manson. Stupid? You bet it is. Popular? Absolutely. Now, most rap songs don't bother me and there are a few rap band ahem excuse me 'groups' I like but this song really got to me both personally and as a Black man.

It's no surprise to the people that know me that I have a huge everlasting love for Heavy Metal/Punk/ Hard Rock etc. It speaks to me in a way that country speaks to a country fan or jazz speaks to a saxophone player. It also goes without saying that because I am Black and I listen to Heavy Metal that I have had my balls busted numerous times over the years to the point of sterility by both Blacks and Whites, but mainly Blacks. "Why you listen to dis sh-i-t music dawg?" "You ain't black dis White Boy sh-i-t." and my favorite, "Shouldn't you listen to rap?" Ahh the joys of tolerance. This has lasted from middle school through high school and I finally though it would die in college. How wrong I was.

I won't say that college is like high school because it's not people (for the most part) are pretty accepting of people and at GSU it's all about the diversity flag. But still I get criticized here and there for what I listen too. No bother. Now before you quit reading this and see my as some angry black man with a chip on his shoulder I'm going to dive into the bottom of the matter. Why has "Party Like a Rock Star" struck a chord with young Black audiences?

BLACKS IN ROCK HISTORY

Blacks invented rock n roll. End of discussion. The first rock record was recorded March 5 1951 and was titled Rocket 88. It was performed by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats". Besides that Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino have all earned a place in rock history yet it seems that when these artists are mentioned, they come from white mouths as opposed to black mouths. Why is this? I don't know but what I do know is that Blacks never stay in one place when it comes to music and always come up with some genre or other. To quote Lenny Kravitz on the Band of Gypsies documentary "Sometimes it takes Blacks a little longer to appreciate rock." The man is right. It seems that young blacks these days have kind of knocked off rock as a "white thing" when that is not the case, which makes Party Like a Rock Star such a fascinating song.

2 POSSIBLE THEORIES

Party Like a Rock Star in my opinion appeals to Blacks because of curiosity. They look at the rock thing as "white" and have embraced out of curiosity rather than taking back the music that Blacks created. After years of songs about struggles and hardships in the Black community finally there is a song that says live like a rock star, party dude. I'm not saying that there will be a trend of rappers adopting the rocker image and leaving 'hard rap' behind, but what I am saying is that this song could be the first at an attempt to cross Blacks BACK into rock music. Rap is a very limited genre in that unlike other genres of music (Blues, Jazz, Heavy Metal) which can divide into sub genres, rap is more a long eternal trend of music. Let's face it the rap of 1987 doesn't sound like rap in 2007. Even rap albums from 1999 don't sound like rap today. So it's a one way stream. With Party like a Rock Stars rappers are now open to sampling classic albums from the Hard Rock persuasion. While this may seem like a bad idea (I'll talk about this is in a minute) it shows that one can experiment without sacrificing one's blackness if that makes any sense.

2. Here is the shorter cynical theory. It's a fad As stated earlier Blacks move from place to place with music (soul, R& B, funk, disco etc) and maybe this is nothing different. In a few months rock star will be out and goth or prep or Ghetto Cowboy will be the new thing ( Yeehawww Beeyotch)

A PURIST CONCLUSION

Here we go.. what will the purists think? As a long time fan of Metal I will be very narrow minded about this rap/ rock star image as will many other metalheads/ rockers. Why? Because we are hard! LOL seriously, people that take a love to a type of music often feel threatened when that music is being pimped in the name of the almighty dollar. Sure it maybe cool to sample rock albums, but people should know the albums themselves and come to appreciate them. For example Lil Jon sampled Ozzy's Crazy Train for the 2004 track Let's Go. Metal fans heard it and were ticked off. Rap fans heard it thought it was tight heard it was an Ozzy Osbourne song dissed metal and kept right listening to Let's Go. What would be nice is if fans of sampled tunes went back checked out the original artists of the song and opened themselves up to a whole new style of music. Now that's progress.

THE END.

10 Albums that should get one started Metal/Rock/Punk/ Classic Hard Rock

1. Black Sabbath- Paranoid (1970)
2. Jimi Hendrix- Band of Gypsies (1970)
3. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin 1 (1969)
4. Mountain- Climbing (1970)
5. Funkadelic- Maggot Brain (1971)
6. Metallica- Ride the Lightning (1984)
7. Deep Purple- In Rock (1970)
8. Alice in Chains- Dirt (1992)
9. Misfits- Walk Among Us (1982)
10. Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon (1973)