{{{A couple Prince mentions in here... would like to see P sit down with some of these cats in studio. http://www.nytimes.com/20...1TOUR.html

The Hip-Hop Generation Grabs a Guitar
By TOURÉ
The New York Times
August 11, 2002

It's near midnight at Joe's Pub in the East Village and the movement is in full effect. A roomful of twentyish and thirtyish black folk for whom hip-hop has been like a religion most of their lives are cheering as Mos Def, an esteemed rapper, roars through a set of hard rock songs, singing over the crunch of heavy guitars. He launches into a song called "Ghetto Rock." The chorus goes: "Yes, we are so ghetto! Yes, we are rock 'n' roll!" The song ends, and Mos says, "Y'all want some more rock 'n' roll?" The crowd screams for more. He tells them: "It's a whole movement, like Fela with Afrobeat. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. Noah, too."}}}

There is indeed a movement under way. Rock has long been one of the sounds hip-hop used in its pastiche, but aside from groups like Outkast and GooDie Mob, who drench themselves in funked-out rock, it has consisted of a sampled riff here and there. Now the hip-hop generation is grabbing guitars and making rock 'n' roll.

"This is the sound of new America," said Martin Luther, a rising rock musician from San Francisco. "I'm coming to kill all the slave masters' memories! Hip-hop gave us that voice that allowed us to create who we were. Black rock 'n' roll is now a next something for those kids who've grown up, who still have that urban energy, but have experienced some pain to where they don't feel embarassed about showing some vulnerability."

This new black rock movement has been around a few years, and its audience is small but growing. Though blacks created the rock 'n' roll and blues music that paved the way for whites to become early rock innovators, blacks have largely shunned rock both as fans and as players for decades. In the 1960's Jimi Hendrix was dismissed by many blacks for playing what they called "white boy music."

Today's black rockers see such obstacles as challenges they gladly accept. They are moved by the sonic aggression of hip-hop, its obsession with rhythm and the way it reflects, reports on and evokes the lifestyles of black people around the country. They are also turned off by the current state of hip-hop and R & B, with their limited subject matter and emotional options.

Their sound is most often a deeply soul-inflected rock reminiscent of the mellower moments of Jimi Hendrix, Prince and Parliament Funkadelic rather than the full-on guitar assault of Fishbone or Living Colour. Much of this rock is difficult to distinguish from soul music, but the musicians use the word rock to distance themselves, they say, from the overly produced treacle that passes for modern soul.

Rock, they say, gives them the freedom to express their own ideas. Santi White of Stiffed said: "There's a Smiths song that I love that says, `Hang the D.J. because the music he constantly plays says nothing to me about my life.' And that's how I felt. So I said, `Fine, I'm going to find some music that does say something about my life.' "

The undisputed aesthetic leader of the movement is an eccentric, 33-year-old, Atlanta-born Los Angeles resident named Cody Chestnutt. He wears a royal blue velvet hat with a large gold buckle that is a cross between a fedora and a stovepipe; answers the phone by saying "Praise the Lord"; and always carries his own drinking glass, a stout bowl-like cup with curved edges that looks like something out of the film "Beetlejuice."

In October he will release his debut album, "The Headphone Masterpiece," a stunning collection of 36 mostly laid-back songs on which he sings and plays nearly every instrument. He recorded the album in his bedroom using $10,000 worth of equipment. Its lo-fi quality adds a homespun charm to what he calls "rock with a soulful edge," which recalls the Beatles, the Velvet Underground and the Strokes as well as Sly Stone, Prince and D'Angelo.

Mr. Chestnutt said he was a drummer who wrote "the typical smoothed-out R & B" until he heard Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." "I heard `Teen Spirit,' and I said that's what it's about," he said. "It's powerful, it's passionate, it's living and breathing right now. That song inspired me to pick up the guitar. And the guitar was the turning point."

That was about seven years ago. Since then Mr. Chestnutt has not held a job, but, supported by his wife and friends, he has spent his time studying the guitar and searching for a sound that moved him. "I was blessed with having soul," he said, "but I went out to see what's going with the rock 'n' roll that I'm not familiar with. Hip-hop was not speaking to me. I didn't feel like I was learning anything. I was saying, how can I get the same soul that hip-hop has, but have an intellectual stimulation about it?"

His first single, "Look Good in Leather," is a deceptively simple ditty that begins with him strumming an acoustic guitar and singing, "I can do anything I want because I look good in leather." What follows is four minutes of bodacious black male vanity and egotism of the sort often heard in hip-hop. It also extols a quintessentially American sartorial style and is thus a celebration of Americana.

"That is the Fonz's theme song," Mr. Chestnutt said, referring to the character in the 1970's television show "Happy Days." "This is what `Happy Days' taught us. What defines cool? Black leather jacket and jeans."

Such a song would not be possible in hip-hop because of its largely contentious relationship with America and Americanness. Even hip-hop's embrace of the American designer Tommy Hilfiger carries a certain ironic sneer. "Hip-hop brought the whole thing to the next level," Mr. Chestnutt said. "Now it's time to evolve into the future."

The 32-year-old Martin Luther is another major voice. His 1999 debut album, "The Calling," and its followup, "Funk Soul Rebel," to be released in the fall, evoke the rock-meets-swinging-funk of Bootsy Collins and Parliament-Funkadelic. Last year Res (pronounced Reese), a singer from Philadelphia, released "How I Do," a collection of seductive post-punk that recalled the Pretenders, with lyrics about self-empowerment that harked back to the roaring female singer-songwriters of the 70's. Most of her songs were written by Santi White, whose band Stiffed has toured with the seminal black punk-hardcore rock band Bad Brains and is releasing a seven-song EP this fall.

A number of hip-hop luminaries are also moving into rock territory: the rapper Mos Def, who is starring in "Topdog/Underdog" on Broadway, has been performing and recording with his band Black Jack Johnson, which, filled out by members of Living Colour, Bad Brains and P-Funk, has a hard-edged rock sound reminiscent of Bad Brains or Fishbone. Kamaal, the silky-voiced rapper once known as Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, has recorded an unreleased album of rock-slash-soul on which he sings. And the top hip-hop producers the Neptunes, calling themselves N.E.R.D., recently released "In Search Of," a critically acclaimed album that features live instruments and singing. It's music that can be classified only as rock 'n' roll.

"I could do my thing over a hip-hop beat," Mr. Luther said, seeming to speak for the movement. "But when I do it my way, with these guitars and solos and breakdowns, you actually feel the gospel spirit from which I'm speaking, and the music talks to you in a different place."

Mr. Chestnutt said he was dismayed by rappers' and R & B singers' obsession with money, crime, sex, love and their own anger. "Music today doesn't inspire a dialogue," he said. "And if it does, the dialogue is quite hollow. What good does it do me and you to talk about how much you spent on jewelry? It doesn't edify."

Rock, he and the others maintain, allows a greater range of musical, lyrical and emotional expression. "In rock you could write a song about a dog and it makes sense," he said. On "The Headphone Masterpiece," Mr. Chestnutt offers songs about how nicotine and caffeine can make it hard to behave like a civilized human being, delivers a lullaby to a baby in which he tells the baby how lucky it is to not have to work and even mentions that he sometimes cries.

"Vulnerability doesn't work at all in hip-hop," Mr. Luther said. "You don't want to expose a weakness in that arena. Rock 'n' roll has no boundaries. You can talk about your dreams, fears, all kinds of things."

The new black rockers are closeknit: they play songs for each other over the phone and collaborate with one another in the studio. Most of them are friends.

"It's so important to have that," Ms. White said, "because you think you're crazy sometimes. Because everyone's like, `What are you doing?' And labels are like, `That won't sell.' And having the others is like having a mirror that talks back. They're saying what you're doing is dope. Then someone will call and say I'm going to quit music. And we're there for each other because you need somebody when you're doing something that a lot of people aren't doing, just to know that you're not lost."

But the barriers for the new black rock are high. Consider the the all-black hard-rock band Living Colour. With an endorsement from Mick Jagger and a 1988 hit single, "Cult of Personality," it gained prominence, touring with the Rolling Stones and reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart. But three subsequent albums sold sluggishly, and in 1995 the quartet disbanded.

Its failure to make a lasting impact was partly because of its inability to reach an audience. Perhaps America was unprepared for blacks performing rock 'n' roll, or perhaps the recording industry was unsure of whether to play the group's music on urban radio and BET or on rock radio and MTV. And as unaccustomed as whites might have been to seeing blacks play guitars, blacks were unwilling to see rock as an acceptable form of self-expression for black musicians. To many blacks, rock was still "some old white mess."

The new black rockers have already been embraced by MTV: Res's video is played regularly, Mr. Chestnutt was featured on "MTV News" and the Neptunes are ubiquitous on the channel. Still, there's no reason to expect that the movement won't encounter the old stigmas.

"Black people in this country are told that they are just a few things," Kamaal said. "The minute that you start to wander and go outside of that you're not black."

Corey Glover, the lead singer of Living Colour, added to the thought: "There are some things you're not allowed to express as a black person. You got to be in your b-boy stance. You've got to wear the uniform. If you're out of the uniform, something's wrong with you. My whole life it's been like, `He's cool, he speaks the language, but something's wrong with that boy.' But the freak contingent in the house is bigger than you think it is."

Living Colour needed not simply to move the crowd, but also to get the crowd to accept the band's validity, and that demanded changing the perception of blackness for countless listeners, a burden that neither U2 nor Jay-Z ever had to shoulder.

The persistent message of hip-hop and R & B is that working-class life is the most relevant of black American experiences: "keep it real" is often code for validating one set of mores to the exclusion of all others. Expanding the nature of music means expanding the definition of what it means to be black in America. The new black rock movement has talent, ambition, guitars and minds it has to change.

"I would love for some little black kid to look at me and be like, `If she's doing it then I can do it and still be black,' " Ms. White said. "Black people limit ourselves. We're like, `Oh, if you do that you're not black.' But I'm black and I'm going to do anything I want to do. Then it'll be black because I did it."


Touré, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine, is the author of ''The Portable Promised Land,'' a collection of short stories (Little Brown).

This has been a long time coming. We cannot afford to let ourselves become irrelevant. We have always set the standard that others have followed in "Amerikkkan" popular music. Who says brothers can't rock out? We invented this ish and people act like we're from another planet when we decide to turn our guitars up loud! I learned to play guitar listening to Van halen and Prince from 1978 on. I'm
fully aware many other frustrated "black rock" musicians from east to west, who are not recognized by anyone outside of their own city. I just don't buy the idea that there's no market for us. If the record industry doesn't want to hear us that's too bad. They're so willing to pump all of these no soul, unfunky wannabe rapper rock bands into our radio and MTV. I have yet to see a band of brothers get some attention that are doing some hip hop rock ish. There are plenty of us out here doing it. For all of you who need a dose check out :
www.funkguitar.org/phonkbutt

"chocolate invasion starts here"

To back up what Sunlite said; GOTTDAMN SKIPPY!!! It's time for mofo's to recognise!!! Brothas have been putting in work with this rock "ish" for years and they still don't wanna give a brotha his props. Sistas too!!! I mean, you got Betty Davis, Me'shell ndege ocello, Band of Gypsys(the trio that consisted of Jimi, Buddy Miles and Billy Cox - Brothas!!!) Fishbone, Bad Brains, 24-7 Spy, Follow For Now, and many, many others that have not been able to get the respect they so rightfully deserve. Plus, many seem to forget (or overlook - which "they" actually do) about the foundation that Prince has laid down with the guitar! I mean, go back and listen to cuts like "I'm Yours" (off of the "For You" album), "Bambi", "Da Bang", and The Cross and tell me he ain't killing cats like Creed, Bon Jovi, Motely Crue, and others that have had MTV and american rock radio on lock! And before any self righteous "Amerikkkan" orgers begin to say some ish like "what about Lenny"(y'all know what Lenny I'm talking about!) I got an answer for that! Lenny ain't held us down since "Are You Gonna Go My Way"!! Wanna debate? Bring it!!! Peace to all those who feel me(you know who you are!) Holla!!!~

You know why? because instead of record companies signing these kind of acts, they sign these watered down Uncle Toms! And that says what? The industry doesn't want to see anymore of Hendrix and Prince influenced musicians, they figure Lenny Kravitz is enough! It's just like everything else, they don't want to see the advancement of our people doing these kind of things. Jazz has died down as far as popularity because of the same thing blacks were becoming way too innovative. They would have killed rap if it weren't slowly killing us anyway, by the majority of it being negative and disrespectful and violent. Wake up black musicians! Let's move ahead and make our way! Enough of this meaningless music we have been doing for the past years (with the exception of a few of us). Let's get on the ball! Isn't that what Prince has been trying to tell
us for however long now anyway?

I love the whole article, but I think this sums it up and is my fav line:

"I would love for some little black kid to look at me and be like, `If she's doing it then I can do it and still be black,' " Ms. White said. "Black people limit ourselves. We're like, `Oh, if you do that you're not black.' But I'm black and I'm going to do anything I want to do. Then it'll be black because I did it."

I myself am mixed and have never really fell into one catagory, if that one catagory actually exists. This is the kind of viewpoint I have always had to take. I had to make my own Identity, I didn't have one premade that I could use. I guess that's why I like Prince so much, he did that a lot when he was younger, lesser now though.

Black this, black that.

Interesting article...now that hip-hop formula is getting tired, it would be cool to see maybe a good mix of hip hop, guitar and rock...
BTW, I would love to hear a new Living Colour album...

This was a very confused and distorted article by a writer who understands nothing about Hip-Hop or "Black Rock". I will copy paste a response I posted elsewhere:

1. First of all I always have questions about a writer who takes a couple of artists that nobody really cares about yet except some critics and industry people (and web nerds like us), lumps them together and tries this hard to hype them up as a "movement", then starts appointing leaders and spokesmen for this "movement" he discovered.

2. Toure is pushing this notion that there is a "movement" to shift from Hip-Hop to Rock, this is obviously the "angle" he used to convince the times the piece was worthwhile. But he does a lousy job of backing up and exploring that premise because none of the people he interviews were ever a part of hip-hop to begin with, and never would have been (except a brief quote from kamaal which did nothing to backup the premise).

He starts out by referencing Mos Def, Goodie Mob and Outkast, why are none of them quoted? If you want to illustrate how and why artists have become alienated from hip-hop, but you only interview artists who never were hip-hop in the first place, this is self-serving and specious.

3. I'm gonna give these artists the benefit of the doubt on the quotes in here, cuz it's quite likely Toure was asking leading questions to elicit quotes that would bolster his premise. BUT, When Toure claims that Rock has more emotional range than Hip-Hop the reasoning he offers to back up is weak as hell.

First he tells us Cody "even mentions that he sometimes cries". Wow, no rapper has ever talked about crying, Right? I can go to OHHLA.com right now and grab a dozen lyrics to prove this wrong, but I'm sure that's not necessary.

Then he tells us via Martin Luther that "Vulnerability doesn't work at all in hip-hop, You don't want to expose a weakness in that arena." Nobody shows vulnerability in hip-hop? Negro, PLEASE.

Have you ever listened to Will Smith tenderly doting on his child, or Tupac fondly reminiscing about his mother? Heard Puffy or CL or Ice Cube mourning their dead homiez? Heard Ghostface weeping aloud or watched DMX cry onstage in mid-song? Heard Ja Rule asking his girl "what would I be without you"? Heard Eminem admitting all types of emotional problems, just like Bushwick Bill admitted to his suicidal depression ten years before?

I could keep this going all night, without even reaching for any "underground" or "conscious" emcees.

(and I'm not even gonna MENTION anticon.)

Please.

Also how could you do an entire piece on this topic without mentioning the Black Rock Coalition? Or even acknowledging the existence of Lenny Kravitz who, love him or hate him, is by far today's most visible Black rocker.

The more I think about this piece, the less I like it. He offers a half-baked premise, pads it with quotes that don't really apply, then pulls it all together by peddling antiquated stereotypes. I respect all the new artists he interviewed here, and it would do them a terrible disservice if the media keeps steering them towards using hip-hop as the reference point for defining themselves and validating their expression. There was no reason for hip-hop to mentioned in this piece at all.

As a friend and fellow writer pointed out, it's a shame because this could have been an excellent piece had it been written by someone like Greg Tate who actually knows this topic.

Being a Blackrock Coalition Member I see Your Point J smooth, but any press or light we can shed on musicians, and music that has been over looked because of racsist policies overt and covert in the music Business is a good thing! Her Facts Might not be straight, but you can add to them and support! That's what the whole black rock scene needs is support No Alieanation From blacks or whites Mexicans etc!

Once upon a time in the mid 80s there was a gifted guitarist who loved r&b Jazz and Rock.He was so good that he toured with and got hired by several r&b acts that toured, and performed on television. He was making a decent living as a musician but he felt constricted by the trappings of an R&b side Man.So He began to Rock.He Rocked not traditionaly but with hip hop jazz and funk and Rap before any of the rap metal bands ie limp bisquit or Kid Rock. He had Great songs and melody that were conscience, and aggressive, so he called the band Civil Rite.HE hung out and played with fishbone and The Spies even a guy named Romeo Blue who was rocking, and alot of the other black underground artist that were stuggling for some love at the time. He would Not be discouraged, struggling for years playing in clubs for love of the music, and the ability, and possibility to create something differnt.90s rolled around and he hooked up with actress Cree Summer. Started a band called subject to change, wrote songs, landed a deal on a Major. Toured and was shelved.Fighting On they wrote more songs Got another deal with the Help Of romeo Blue, I mean Lenny Kravitz and put out another rock record Toured, but was Foiled Again By the Forces Of evil.He would not be stopped so he began working on second cd and while Touring and writing his2nd cd he recieved a call from his R&b past MORRIS DAY.Morris remebered him from his solo effort and ask him to rock with the Time. Having Been A Fan Of PRince and The Time He excitedly agreed . Morris Listened to what he was working on Loved It and Has been pumping up the cd at all the Shows His Name Is Tori Ruffin The Cd Is Freak Juice at cdbaby.com Support ONE of the Silent Heroes I did and the cd is Steller We Have a dream