That's why whoever wrote the post that started this thread thinks that Prince (unknowingly) may have contributed a lot to the decline of black music....because he came before shit hop. Prince could do everything all by himself without the help of anyone else. Shit hoppers can do the same thing. The difference is, Prince did everything himself with instruments and the shit hoppers can do everything by themselves by punching buttons on a computer.

I think a lot of folks around here get bent out of shape because they think it's a personal attack on Prince. I don't see it that way at all but see it simply as the poster's observation. For instance, if you come to work and one of your co-workers quits, their work is going to be thrown on you until the boss hires someone else. The smart thing to do would be to do some of the work but purposely let some of it remain unfinished. If you complete all the work, the boss is going to notice that and he's not going to reward you with two salaries. Instead, he's not going to hire someone else and expect you to do the work of two people on the salary of one person. Then, all those tasks that you are doing are going to be considered the norm in your job and if you ever quit, the person they hire in your place will be expected to do all those duties also. Then the person that comes after you may complete all those duties but may cut corners and take shortcuts to complete them by using cheaper supplies or things needed to complete them. This will eventually lead to a shitty product but as long as the customers don't complain, the boss is happy because he has got all the work he can get out of someone at the cheapest cost possible for the biggest profit.

The technology was already being invented so even if Prince had never done everything himself, some shit hopper would still have found a way to do their little thing all by themselves so the decline still would have happened.

That's why whoever wrote the post that started this thread thinks that Prince (unknowingly) may have contributed a lot to the decline of black music....because he came before shit hop. Prince could do everything all by himself without the help of anyone else. Shit hoppers can do the same thing. The difference is, Prince did everything himself with instruments and the shit hoppers can do everything by themselves by punching buttons on a computer.

vainandy said:

You're making an apples and oranges comparison. Yes, Prince may have pushed the technology - but that has nothing to do with the art.

I work as a writer. The fact that someone else knows how to type and use InDesign doesn't mean they can write on my level or that they can do my job. They can try - but the results won't be the same.

If I quit my current job and leave behind samples of my writing and my sheet of InDesign keyboard shortcuts, does that mean I'm responsible for the quality of the work of anyone who comes after me?

I think not.

2elijah said:

Preach !

The rap music destroyed Black music not Prince.

"Agree/Disagree" what the hell am I thinking?

Anyway I found this post to be very intersting, it was shared to me by a fellow org pal(who posts in Okayplayer, where he found it).

Disregard it if its a repost.

First off most people on here know I think Prince is one of the greatest artists of the past 50 years. I can't think of anyone that has made as many songs that I have enjoyed as much as I have his. If I listed my top 10 concerts ever, the 6 Prince shows I've seen would all be there. That said ..... Prince was NOT good for black music people.

I think a lot of what made him great also made him destructive. His creativity and confidence turned him into a sort of musical demigod. He didn't need a band to create and record with because in his mind nobody could play his music as well as he could. He didn't use background singers for the most part for the same reason. Prince was the show, standing above all others and he wanted to make sure you didn't forget that. Now of course Prince wasn't the first artist to feel this way. But he was the first that had the technology to isolate himself creatively the way he did. When you have the talent and ideas Prince did at the time, this isn't a bad thing in and of itself. The problem is, it inspired less creative and original people to follow in his footsteps. The end result was a parade of mediocre singer/songwriter/producer wannabes that would have been much better severed (creatively) being part of a larger collective. Just because you can make music by yourself doesn't mean you should. Of course existing bands also took note of what Prince was doing. They started cutting the "fat" and in doing so, knocked over the first domino in death of the black band.

As I said, Prince wasn't the first artist to have an ego. But he was the first to go to the lengths he did to keep from being shown up. One need to look no further than his first two side projects ... The Time and Vanity 6.... for prove of his obsessive narcissism.

Flyte Tyme by everyone's account was the baddest band in Minneapolis. So what did Prince do when he signed them? Fired their lead singer (Alexander O'Neal) and replaced them with his drummer friend Morris Day. The fact Morris couldn't sing meant nothing to Prince. As a matter of fact in his mind this was a good thing. This meant one less threat to Prince. But even this wasn't enough for him. Prince went into the studio and recorded almost all (if not all, there are various opinions on this) the music and background vocals for the first Time album. Think about this for a minute. You sign a band and then record an album under their name with your friend who you made lead singer. But that didn't matter to P. He was selling an alternate image of himself with the group. He wasn't producing in a way that would bring out the creativity in his artist, he was acting as a puppet master with his hand guiding every sight and sound associate with them. They weren't artist, they were props. Never was this truer than with his next project Vanity 6. Never before in black music history had there been a group that had this much style over substance. None of the girls could sing ...not even in a serviceable way really ... play any instruments or even dance. With Vanity Prince created the video chick before the video era even really kicked off. Once again, Prince was the star and his project was his window dressing. With Vanity 6 Prince proved you could market and sell records even though the "artist" had little to no talent. It would be foolish to think the industry didn't take note of this. This knowledge along with the emergence of the music video formed a powerful one two punch that marginalized vocal talent.

The interesting thing in all of this is how Prince slowly reverted back to more "traditional" ways as his creative tank started to run dry. Now days he loves to talk about "real music" and sing the praises of the funk and jazz stars of the past. He basks in the spotlight as the symbol of a by gone era. The last of his kind. And once again Prince is the show. And once again, Prince got exactly what he wanted.

Well?
[Edited 12/25/09 16:10pm]

hollywooddove said:

No, not at all. Rap and Hip-hop does not define "black music". It's just one form that was born out of the black community. Black musicians have been playing many forms of music for years, from blues, jazz, gospel, boogie-woogie, swing, rock, rhythm and blues, etc. Most of the mainstream black bands, were visible in the 60s/70s era. R&B is usually associated with Black Artists,especially from the 60s and 70s; The Delfonics, Smokey Robinson, Temptations, The Ohio Players, Stylistics, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, just to name a few, had their own styles and were usually classified as R&B artists. In the late part of the 70s and 80s, you had artists like Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Boys to Men, etc., moving more towards a crossover audience, and their music was pretty much typed as R&B/pop. In the late 60s plus the Jackson 5, and then MJ with his solo career, was pretty much "Pop or mainstream. But then again, people tend to forget that the "Last Poets" were the first rappers, but at least they did it with dignity. Some also say "Gil Scott Heron" was the first rapper, because of his social/political messages in his songs during the early 70s. Anyway, today, I don't even think I can name one group of all black band, promoted by the record industry.

You can check out this link of a thread I did on some artists of the past. You'll get an idea of some forms of music played by some early black artists.
http://prince.org/msg/8/325472
[Edited 12/26/09 8:50am]

Harlepolis said:

2elijah said:

Oh yes, I know and love all these artist, even up to death of what seemed to me to be the black bands in the late 80's with Kool and the Gang, The Gap Band, Jeffery Osborne, Ray Parker Jr., etc.
I was speaking of how sad it is that hip hop has completely dominated popular culture, or at least seemingly, for black performers.
I will repeat myself by saying that the white, static blast guitar groups now with NO, and I repeat, NO unique voices coming out is sad also.

There was a day when someone had to have either great vocal or musical talent to make it in that business. Now someone can just get lucky on American idol. Of course reality entertainment is the bastard child of the internet, and it lets people become famous simply on the honor of being born and still breathing.

It's almost like really crappy no talented people who have simply never been told "No, you suck" are everywhere.

The industry has been assimulated by piss poor networking and incredibly tastless promoters.

People seem to forget how segregated radio was after the death of disco. Yes, there was "black music" and Prince was a big part of that scene also. White artists were played on white radio and black artists were played on black radio. People can sugarcoat it and try to say the artists were played on stations that played their genre but that wouldn't explain why "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad", which is a straight up rock song, was played on black radio only. I mean, black radio was "R&B" and "funk" right? So why was this rock song being played on there? And white radio was "rock" right? Then why wasn't "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad" played on white radio?

Very few black artists made it to white radio except the ones that had made an impact during previous decades that white people were already familiar with such as Donna Summer, Lionel Richie, The Pointer Sisters, and Kool and The Gang. And the others that made it watered their music down so they could crossover. Yes, radio was very segregated and the fact that a lot of the older white Prince fans had never heard of Prince until "Little Red Corvette" is proof of that. Disco had been a genre that brought whites and blacks together and a lot of people couldn't stand that. The early 1980s was full of the "disco sucks" movement. A little simple thing like whites and blacks dancing and having a good time was so horrible but shit hop brought whites and blacks together years later and people were perfectly fine with it. But I guess it's OK to bring the races together as long as the black artists act like thugs, idiots, and jokes.

That's why whoever wrote the post that started this thread thinks that Prince (unknowingly) may have contributed a lot to the decline of black music....because he came before shit hop. Prince could do everything all by himself without the help of anyone else. Shit hoppers can do the same thing. The difference is, Prince did everything himself with instruments and the shit hoppers can do everything by themselves by punching buttons on a computer.

I think a lot of folks around here get bent out of shape because they think it's a personal attack on Prince. I don't see it that way at all but see it simply as the poster's observation. For instance, if you come to work and one of your co-workers quits, their work is going to be thrown on you until the boss hires someone else. The smart thing to do would be to do some of the work but purposely let some of it remain unfinished. If you complete all the work, the boss is going to notice that and he's not going to reward you with two salaries. Instead, he's not going to hire someone else and expect you to do the work of two people on the salary of one person. Then, all those tasks that you are doing are going to be considered the norm in your job and if you ever quit, the person they hire in your place will be expected to do all those duties also. Then the person that comes after you may complete all those duties but may cut corners and take shortcuts to complete them by using cheaper supplies or things needed to complete them. This will eventually lead to a shitty product but as long as the customers don't complain, the boss is happy because he has got all the work he can get out of someone at the cheapest cost possible for the biggest profit.

The technology was already being invented so even if Prince had never done everything himself, some shit hopper would still have found a way to do their little thing all by themselves so the decline still would have happened.
.
.
.
[Edited 12/26/09 8:53am]

Why is there such an opposition against the term "black music"? And please don't say there's no such thing

And let me just add that when we talk about black music from a CULTURAL perspective it does not start or stop with R&B and hip hop. There's blues, jazz, soul, reggae, funk, etc. The same diversity one would expect to find in any other culture.

Slightly off topic but I'm just sayin'.

there are many black artists that are far more deserving of this title.

MJ actually comes to mind. could he play an instrument/write his own stuff? (by that i mean fully produce his own recordings? - no.).

he was as much a product of the music industry as Milli Vanilli really - he was told what to do when and where - unlike prince who i believe has been in control of his own musical destiny.

Prince has also given a lot of other musical people a big helping hand up the ladder. MJ hasn't. except his own family LOL.

Conclusion - MJ destroyed black music.


....

Why is there such an opposition against the term "black music"? And please don't say there's no such thing

Harlepolis said:

I'd like to know that myself. It's taking political correctness too far IMO.

No one would question it if we were talking about the music of other cultures, Japanese, Indian, etc. and it irks me when people always gotta question when we talk about black music from a cultural perspective.

I need a definition of "Black Music", because being Black and making music doesn't qualify the result as Black Music.

Admitting Prince belongs to Black Music (to me classifying him into one category is too restrictive), I can't see how he managed to single-handedly destroy BM...

Isabell said:

How can Black music be "restrictive" when it consists of various forms of rock, jazz, gospel, swing, boogie-woogie, funk, , r&b, calypso, soca, reggae, blues, etc....everything you hear out there today lending off each other. It all depends on how its presented by the artists. The thing is, some people tend to think black music is just r&b, rap and hip-hop, when in fact all were born out of the earlier forms of music. I notice that many tend to label many black artists in those 3 categories, without researching the historical culture of black music and all it has offered and become.
[Edited 12/26/09 13:03pm]

LOL....People keep saying how rappers are the problem since they are viewed here as being such "unreal artists who can't sing," but the same can be said for a good 85% of Prince's side-project proteges.

The problem is not Hip-Hop. Rapping is spoken poetry, and that's not the cause of the actual issue of this topic, which is how certain people can be tagged and viewed as "singers" when they seriously are not vocalists. Rappers know they can't sing. That's why they rap, lol. Maybe if Vanity 6 had been rapping verses instead, over Hip-Hop style beats, they would have appeared to actually be musically talented, lol.

To say Hip-Hop is a frivolous genre of music is absurd to me. Sure, I don't like sampling either. But when rappers create their own original melodies with meaningful lyrics, the music is indeed "real art," just like James Brown's is.

2elijah said:

One word: laziness.

2elijah said:

One word: laziness.

LOL....People keep saying how rappers are the problem since they are viewed here as being such "unreal artists who can't sing," but the same can be said for a good 85% of Prince's side-project proteges.

The problem is not Hip-Hop. Rapping is spoken poetry, and that's not the cause of the actual issue of this topic, which is how certain people can be tagged and viewed as "singers" when they seriously are not vocalists. Rappers know they can't sing. That's why they rap, lol. Maybe if Vanity 6 had been rapping verses instead, over Hip-Hop style beats, they would have appeared to actually be musically talented, lol.

To say Hip-Hop is a frivolous genre of music is absurd to me. Sure, I don't like sampling either. But when rappers create their own original melodies with meaningful lyrics, the music is indeed "real art," just like James Brown's is.