Itunes, Billboard, and the marginalization of black music and black audiences in America

the article gets at it, but country has long been super-appropriative of pop at the crossover level (two of Kenny Rogers' biggest hits were by Lionel Richie and Barry Gibb). in a sense i'm surprised it's taken country so long to have an overt hip-hop element. My suspicion is it has to do with Eminem hitting that 10-15 anniversary stretch.

fyi this song is 11 years old: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_and_Over_%28Nelly_song%29

so's "save a horse (ride a cowboy)," almost!

to be clear, not saying country HASN'T acknowledged hip-hop until now, just that its getting kinda omnipresent rather than a novelty

also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_%28Kid_Rock_song%29

hell, if you want to be cute about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Went_Down_to_Georgia

not being entirely serious obv

i was gonna say, i couldn't tell what you thought i was saying where any of this would be contradicting it

one hope is that with 2000 back in fashion kid rock will be inspired to relax his "boring son of ted nugent & bob seger" shtick and maybe write some funny raps again

Toby Keith's "I Wanna Talk About Me" came out in 2001 and is pretty much a rap song

and McGraw worked with Nelly again in 2012.

(at that point I wasn't sure who was doing whom a favor)

to be clear, not saying country HASN'T acknowledged hip-hop until now, just that its getting kinda omnipresent rather than a novelty

but if we're playing the "who remembers a country song with a hip-hop element in it" game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtQJ9fqdV28

http://www.spin.com/2013/04/rap-country-uncomfortable-history-accidental-racist/

okay "We got a funky new tune with a fly banjo" made me lol

also what the hell: 1997: Spearhead feat. Joan Osbourne - "Wayfaring Stranger"

spoken-word country songs have been a thing since the dawn of country music

My head spun when I saw the words "Imani Coppola"

http://www.imanicoppola.com/

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsqWUtzI_dw

^^ defines "check out my fly banjo"

was putting "i poop in a clam" on her website her own decision?

that DJ Quik sounds more like a santur than a banjo

the top three songs in america -- and five of the top six -- are led by black men. if you count kendrick's verse on the "bad blood" remix then there is a black man on each of the top six songs on this week's chart

he has two verses doesn't he? it's basically kendrick lamar feat. taylor swift

http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 1 through 6

I think only two of those songs get airplay on urban stations, though?

Oh, three I guess. I thought rap stations weren't playing that Wiz Khalifa song

the wiz khalifa song is a pop-to-urban crossover radio-wise. it even went top 10 on the hot adult contemporary format before urban lol.

i stumbled across this article yesterday mentioning an emerging radio audience measurement device that would be competing w/ nielsen's ppm. ppm is the device that is mainly used now -- when it started getting put into use in the late 00s, ratings at many latin and urban stations were basically decimated immediately, which was obv controversial and delayed its rollout into many markets significantly. anyways i don't know much about the nitty-gritty of radio analytics so i have no idea how much is just hype/hot air, but the article makes it seem as tho the new competitor (voltair) may do a better job of measuring the audience for several stations that had been hurt by ppm in the past, at least well enough to convince some of the higher-ups at the stations. (the example they use is the smooth jazz format.)

idk here's the link http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/did-nielsen-kill-the-radio-star/

Now 1 through 7. http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

It would be cool if this extended to black women at all.

Sidenote: does radio play the Kendrick version of "Bad Blood" or the original?

I've heard the Kendrick version a lot on radio. I imagine it depends on the format.

Yeah, I haven't heard it on the radio at all but I haven't listened to top 40 in quite a while.

here the adult contemporary stations play the sans-kendrick version and all the other stations that play it play the one with kendrick

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6649605/jill-scott-second-no-1-album-billboard-200-chart

that was a bit of a shock.

Compare her streams (1.6 million) with Future at #2 (23 million)

She has a considerable fan base -- adult R&B is for Jill Scott fans.

sure, but zero currently charting singles!

Her audience doesn't care for singles though.

well clearly! it's just an interesting outlier.

for a min there it looked like fifth harmony might get into the top 10. alas...

Purse too heavy.

Fetty Wap The rapper's first three hits rank at Nos. 8, 9 & 11, equaling an honor previously earned only by the Fab Four.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6677761/hot-100-chart-moves-fetty-wap-beatles

The Weeknd retains the #1 spot on the Billboard Top 200 for a second week based entirely on streaming and "album equivalent units." He sold 77,000 CDs, while the metal band Five Finger Death Punch sold 114,000 CDs (which puts them at the top of the separate Top Album Sales chart, with The Weeknd at #2). But because of "album equivalent units," his total was adjusted to 145,000, while theirs only climbed to 119,000.

Chart News ‏@chartnews 55s55 seconds ago
Billboard On-Demand Songs: #1(=) What Do You Mean?, @justinbieber [9.5 million on-demand US streams]. *2 weeks at #1*

what is an on demand stream

it just means Spotify, Tidal, etc. stuff where you pick the song you're listening to. i think they specify 'on demand' to differentiate from internet radio stuff like Pandora that picks songs for you.

The entire top five on the Billboard 200 are R&B/hip-hop albums -- the first time the region has been dominated as such since the Jan. 13, 2007-dated chart. That week, Omarion’s 21 led the list, followed by Akon’s Konvicted, the Dreamgirls film soundtrack, Nas’ Hip Hop Is Dead and Young Jeezy’s The Inspiration.

2 interesting paragraphs from Chris Molanphy's contribution to the Slate critics roundtable on 2015 music

Back to R&B crossover: When we convened for the Music Club two years ago, I marveled that no black artists fronted a No. 1 hit in all of 2013—a historic Hot 100 first. In 2015, we appear to have already flipped that script: Except for a single week when the Hot 100 was commanded by the Biebs’ “What Do You Mean?” and for the past seven weeks by Adele’s “Hello,” every chart-topping hit this year was fronted or prominently supported by an artist of color: Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” (a hit truly powered by Mars), Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s “See You Again,” Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar’s “Bad Blood” (without Lamar’s injection of B12 into the remix, the song might not have topped the chart), OMI’s “Cheerleader,” and the two big hits by the Weeknd, “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills.”

The thing is, except for that latter Weeknd hit—the creepy “Hills,” not the MJ-esque “Can’t Feel My Face”—none of these songs was a chart-topper at black radio. Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay list—a radio-only chart that is now the only real way get a sense of what core R&B and hip-hop fans actually listen to—was topped all year by the likes of Big Sean and Rae Sremmurd and Jeremih and Meek Mill and Nicki Minaj (with the thumping “Truffle Butter,” not one of her pop-aimed tracks). None of these songs was a Top 10 pop hit; Jeremih’s “Planes” missed the pop Top 40 entirely. Whereas “Uptown Funk”—a 14-week Hot 100 chart-topper and a song so indebted to black-music history the Gap Band managed to shake it loose for some change—never came close to topping black radio playlists.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_music_club/features/2015/music_club_2015/in_2015_black_artists_took_back_the_hot_100_pop_charts.html

interesting perspective as molanphy's writing often is. kinda getting mixed evidence on his point about how crossover as we knew it "no longer exists" for black artists tho? like, he points out two songs that charted highly on the hot 100 and one that stalled as evidence for this, but in reality this is because the former two DID cross over while the other's airplay remained limited overwhelmingly to urban radio. songs succeeded or failed at crossing over before 2015 as well obv, and it still does take "weeks or months" for songs to migrate from urban to pop radio. he rightly acknowledges that streaming gives many r&b and rap acts an early boost on the charts now that they wouldn't have a few years ago, but that's across the board for all urban-radio hits, which tend to be heavily streamed compared to, say, adult contemporary ones. it's not like soundscan's accurate measurement of piece-counts allowing "tha crossroads" and such to zoom up the charts before pop radio got on board in the mid-90s meant that crossover stopped existing then either.

(also, pedantry alert, but he links to "all around the world" by lisa stansfield as an example of something migrating from pop radio to r&b, but the charts from the time show that it was actually one of rare examples of songs by white artists crossing in the other direction, from r&b radio to pop.)

this also overlooks the whiteness of singers working in r&b modes whose music gets played on pop radio. puth is the worst example, but there's also adele and meghan trainor...

The only contemporary rap/r&b radio station in Seattle just got demoted to a Tacoma signal so its existing Seattle signal can be turned over to top 40. :(

ugh