Why does black people never want to rock?

But there is still a tendency, that while there have always (well, after 1955 anyway) been a lot of white people getting into musical genres that are normally stereotyped as "black", the percentage of black people getting into musical genres that are normally stereotyped as "white" is considerably smaller.

And I don't really buy the comparision between indie and Christian country here. Country music, not at least the Christian kind, is usually connected with a culture that black people have a good reason to distance themselves from. I mean, you've got the rednecks, the Christian right, the Ku Klux Klan etc. All of them part of a culture that is deeply rooted in the American South. Yes, I am aware that most African American music was pioneered in the same geographic areas, but country music is still very much linked with white people down there, and particularly with rascist and very much right wing ones.

As for indie, particularly in the US, indie started out in the college rock circuit, that is, among kids that were usually liberal, educated, and considerably less likely to be rascist than the Rednecks. Sure, they may be considerably more Middle class than the rednecks, so from a marxist point of view, they may be part of the oppressors while the rednecks are among the oppressed ones. But still, that kind of people are considerably more likely to have a tolerant attitude towards black people and black culture than the stereotype redneck does. And before post-50s r&r, pre-disco, these people were a lot more likely to be into R&B or early funk than the rednecks were too.

So I don't see why black Americans (as a general stereotype here, as I stated in the first paragraph, there are of course lots of exceptions to this stereotype) should see the need to distance themselves from indie (or the rock "canon", which is usually created by rather educated and tolerant people as well).

Indie is of course just an example, and it is correct that, for instance, Coldplay (a band that is loved by Timbaland btw) don't really "rock". So maybe a more natural question would be, why is is so hard for the vast majority black audiences to get into melody/song oriented "white" pop?

Oh, Anthony is so funny! How To Rock Like A Black Feminist Critic to thread. (And I actually think the jump to country is a lot less hard than the jump to indie.) Even if every black fan of let's say Arcade Fire went to a show at one time, there's still way less of them than the white fans due to sheer numbers. What are there like 10 million black people compared to 100 million (okay, exaggerating) white people?

xpost I think part of that, Geir, is social indoctrination. There's socially coded "black things" and "white things." "Black things" when I was growing up in NYC: Hot 97/Kiss FM/WBLS, Video Music Box/Yo MTV Raps/BET, Right On/Honey/Vibe magazines, Martin/Def Comedy Jam/Jamie Foxx Show. "White things": Z-100/K-Rock/WPLJ, 120 Minutes, Rolling Stone/Seventeen/People, Friends/SNL/Home Improvement. Of course because those are mass media things, people are crossing all the time. In the "black community," the general reaction to black people liking "white shit" is "you're weird" so it inhibits people that compared to white people liking black stuff where it's like "whoa, you're so cool and forward-thinking!"

Sure. I mean, I count understand that they prefer listening to Banghra or Bollywood. But why hip-hop? What is it in their cultural background that would make the particularly likely to enjoy American hip-hop? The fact that some American rappers are Muslims?

Geir, people of all colors and religions all over the world are fascinated with and enjoy hip-hop. You can hear rapping in countless different languages.

But a lot of rock listeners -- indie listeners, in particular -- actively fret about about black people in particular not being as involved in the indie scene. My question was: why do they fret about that, and not, say, the fact that just as few (or fewer) black people are interested in Christian country?

Dances around the dynamic that I think is at work.

Indie fans look around at an indie show and see only white faces and they do fret, yes. But I will submit that their fretting is exactly NOT because of nabisco's conjectures (that the indie fretter "thinks of punk-lineage indie rock as 'better' or 'smarter' than everything else" or that "non-white races in particular are 'lesser' or 'dumber'").

I think the problem is precisely the opposite: white indie fans view the monochrome audiences at their favorite band's show as an indictment of their taste. Conversely, a mixed audience would be an endorsement of their taste. Partly because everyone secretly believes that if black people like it, then it must be funky, and funky is good.

The issue is twofold: on the one hand, these corny indie fuxorz have a nagging insecurity and a sense of inferiority in this one narrow area: the authenticity of how they experience musical enjoyment. Cf. the widespread generalization that the white folks have no soul, no rhythm, cannot dance, etc. Soul, rhythm, and dancing (associated with black musical enjoyment) are signs that you are enjoying the music on a more visceral and possibly more "real" level, vs. a more cerebral form of enjoyment that is associated with whiteness and lameness and general lack of "rock" virtues, which are supposed to center on the hips more than the head.

The second part of the equation has to do with indie fans being of an age and class and temperament where diversity is presented as an undisputed value. Geir just recently mentioned the

kind of people are considerably more likely to have a tolerant attitude towards black people and black culture than the stereotype redneck does

...translation: indie fans like to think of themselves as multiculturally inclined antiracists. Progressive values, socially liberal politics, a bohemian embrace of "alternative" culture. Let us leave aside for the moment whether they're right about themselves or not; what we're talking about is self-image. If an experience is as lily-white as your average Bright Eyes concert (say) then they worry that they're implicated in the segregation somehow, which runs counter to their self-image.

Hence the anxiety: it is driven more by insecurity than by arrogance.

How if there is no segregation other than the one chosen by the opressed ones themselves?

Sure, but why doesn't the same apply to indie, powerpop or prog?

The flaw here is, indie fans tend not to like disco or mainstream R&B, not because it is "black", but because it is "corporate" and "manufactured", that is, it is a production of capitalism rather than the real thing.

When he or she looks around him or herself at a Decemberists / Long Winters / Death Cab for Cutie concert and sees a lily-white audience, the suspicion is that they've attached themselves to an unfunky and un"real" phenomenon.

The feeling doesn't necessarily extend to the liking of all music that black folks are said to like. Black folks liking indie music would reflect well on indie music--but it isn't a sufficient condition for coolness.

OFRA HAZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next up: Why is ILM predominantly right-handed?

It is a straight up Ali G send-up, or no?

I blame it on their repressive Catholic upbringing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,,1695373,00.html

the UK's black music is back with a vengeance - does this mean the death of Indie boys and their guitars scene?

Man those indie boys and guitars are becoming a rare breed eh? Where did they all go? Talk about oppression!!

/heavy sarcasm

lol UrbanDictionary

The best music on earth.

Pinkerton rocks!
by phrubee Nov 20, 2003 email it