Selling out to going along with the program...playing by the rules. All the other old school artists on the program did duets with a new artist. So did Prince. Besides, I just don't like her ass!

psykosoul said:

I think the real sellout moment for Hammer was taking a dangerous leap off of the Taco Bell with a burrito in one hand. Did he risk serious injury? No, his Hammer pants puffed up and parachuted him to safety. EmBARRassing! That was a sad damn commercial. Too bad really, cuz his first 2 albums were good.

CalhounSq said:

"The music is just not as gutsy or spirited or tuned into the needs of its core audience as it once was. Compare the early Aretha Franklin to Whitney Houston. Franklin's music always relied heavily on the Black inner-city experience, and especially on the Black church. When she forgets that, she stumbles. Houston is extremely talented, but most of her music is so 'color-blind,' such a product of '80s crossover marketing, that in her commercial triumph is a hollowness of spirit that mocks her own gospel roots." ~ Nelson George from his book The Death of Rhythm & Blues.


Agreed.

Are we to consider Nat King Cole a sellout because he wasn't singing Blues? Is Leontyne Price a sellout because she sings opera? Blacks are not a monolithic people.

Now, having said that, Lionel Richie IS the Black Barry Manilow. But for some reason I never thought of him as a sellout...coming out of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama with the Commodores, Richie has an authentic love of Country music - a music associated with southern Whites, but has a discernable southern Black influence to be perfectly honest. The blues underpins its structure, but I digress...I dig "Sail On" a lot more than the overrated, overplayed, run-into-the-ground "Brick House"...and his solo, more pop oriented material leaves me cold, songs like "Dancing On The Ceiling" and "Hello"...GTFOOHWTS!

Supernova said:

But Oh What A Feelin' C'mon Supernova, put on your best "Carlton" face and feel it?

to me,the definition of a sellout is a person who compromises their personal and artistic integrity.regardless of their race.it's when your "spirit" says to do "THIS" and external forces and people say do"THAT".

vainandy said:

I was actually there at the Soul Train Awards that year 8 rows from the front.
I remember when Whitney walked out, one of my buddies started the booing.
It was alot louder there then what you heard on T.V. I wanted to crawl
underneath the seat. That wasn't cool booing poor Whitney!

I fully agree, more so than Whitney-- who I like. Brian McKnight sold out to me. His first album was soulful, then he just got bland to me.

CalhounSq said:

[/quote]

I would have been on Cloud 9!

TheOrgerFormerlyKnownAs said:

I know that's right! I'm gonna listen to the best of Kashif and the Whitney Houston cd.

vainandy said:

While I would have liked the performance better had he done it alone (Beyonce really added no value musically, but the papers loved it) I don't consider Prince a "sellout" b/c he did this performance. As Brian Fellows would say, "THAT SOUNDS CRAZY!"

RipHer2Shreds said:

ROFL!!

vainandy said:

While I don't really care about the path Whitney has taken & that its strayed from her gospel roots (I guess I might care if I liked her but I don't), I do think that this statement is just really fucking narrow! Basically, you're saying a Black artist cannot be wholesome. That to be "wholesome" (whatever you define that as) is to try to be "lilly white" - what the fuck are you saying? I mean really? If being "White" is "wholesome", what is being Black???That's some BOOL... the box is far too small


.
[This message was edited Fri Jul 16 1:37:46 2004 by CalhounSq]

TheOrgerFormerlyKnownAs said:

I think Whitney's debut album is VERY soulful.The first single "You Give Good Love" is one of the finest R&B slow jams of the 80s,and the same also applies to "Saving All My Love".The aforementioned track with Kashif "Thinkin About You" is also R&B.

Freddy Jackson didn't sell out. I can't recall any of his music being played on pop radio as much as it was played on urban radio.

estelle1981: I guess everyone defines "Sell-out" in a different way than this, because I think a sell out is an artist who gives into commercialism, ie. selling other things besides just their music. This basically means that almost every black artist has sold out.

blackguitaristz: U should add Outkast to the pop list. "Ms.Jackson" and "Hey Ya" were HUGE pop hits and yes, "Hey Ya" was on TRL for awhile. Which is nothing wrong with that, but umm, Outkast is pop like Jay-Z is pop, because why? They're {popular}.

Those are two good jumping off points. Here's how I see this:

1. Every artist, and I mean every one, who alters their artistic vision to target commercial success -- pop, top-40, jazz, hip-hop, whatever -- sells out. I can't think of many black artists, even the ones I love dearly, who have not done so.

2. I only have disrespect for artists who:

a. Are dishonest with their fanbase or themselves about selling out; or

b. Compromise their integrity by resorting to stereotypes or negative imagery in
the process.

3. I have no quarrel with those artists who come clean about selling out. Supernova nailed it, Lionel Richie IS the black Barry Manilow, but at least you could hear the obvious difference. Whitney Houston has ALWAYS been a pop artist.

4. Most hip-hop artists on the radio today sell out worse than MC Hammer DREAMED of doing. Because they pass off garbage as "real" hip-hop. Minstrelsy ain't hip-hop. At least Hammer was honest with himself and with us.

POOK said:

It's not an act, Pook. Not an act.

I think it is an act. She has never had a mind of her own. Four things have controlled her mind:

Her Record Company
Her Producers
Bobby Brown
Drugs

She allowed her record company and producers to water her down for mass appeal.

When black people start to talk about her, she gets with Bobby Brown. All of sudden she is so black now. She starts talking big bold shit. If she was so bold, she wouldn't have been afraid to go up against popular opinion when people starting to call her a sell out. I think this is what got her with Bobby Brown in the first place. As you can see from this thread, I don't back down from a fight against popular opinion. She should have been the same way.

As far as all the bold shit she started talking when she got with Bobby, that was Bobby controlling her mind. She was still the same little weak ass she was from the beginning, just someone else a little more bold was controlling her mind. When people starting talking about him she said "my baby is not afraid to kick ass", that reminds me of the old song "My boyfriend's back and you're going to be in trouble". That's the sign of a weak woman expecting someone else to fight her battles. When he was released from jail, she ran and jumped up on him and threw her legs around his waist. That is something an immature ass teenager would do.

In the interview when she was asked if she does drugs and she replied "I like to party", she wasn't making a bold statement by defending her drug usage. Drugs are an addiction, she can't help but to try to defend them, she needs them. She doesn't have a bold bone in her body. The drugs are controlling her mind now.

As much as I have disliked her through the years, I do feel sorry for her.

vainandy said:

You hate Whitney Houston. We get it.

namepeace said:


Very good points. I personally don't feel that OutKast sold out, because they said that they like to experiment with different sounds and beats in their music. They never had a set formula from the older albums I heard. They all have different feels to them. Some of their songs were just more accepted by the general public than others. I mean, look at this latest album. Sure, "Sorry Ms. Jackson" was very popular, but "Hey Ya" blows it out of the water, because they are actually getting Grammy nods for this album as opposed to the previous one. This latest album is really good and deserves some praise. After I read the interview that they did in an old issue of Entertainment Weekly (before they had released their album), I knew that these guys weren't about trying to please the general public. They just want to make music that they think sounds good to them. In that article, they shared the interview table with Dave Matthews and Pink and they said that hip-hop music nowadays was complete shit. They weren't lying. Unlike 50 Cent, Diddy, and Jay-Z, OutKast don't spend 100% of their time worrying about whether their latest album is going to go plantinum or if they are going to win this award or that award. Plus, they don't constantly talk about designer shit or expensive cars and then refer constantly to being hard, yet are surrounded by bodyguards 24/7. Nor, do they have the need to sport millions of dollars worth of ice from Jacob the Jeweler, so I know that it's more about the music than the fame and popularity for them.

estelle1981 said:

I won't disagree. Other than De La, ATCQ, and The Roots, they have been unafraid to grow (or grow apart, as the case may be) with each successive album, and their songs have appeal because they're good. They don't stress about bein' "real" (whatever that is) or gangsta, gully, or whatever. I don't dig all of their stuff, but they've been consistently good for over a decade now.



Like Cee-Lo said in an interview, I get tired of hearing about how rappers go to better clubs, get better women, have more guns and cars, manage criminal enterprises, and can kill or maim me at will. I don't want to hear that all the time, especially when most of it isn't true.
Give me MF Doom, JayLib, Talib, De La, Common et al.

They don't see it, but they're setting us back.

namepeace said:

The thing that upsets me about half of these rappers is that they don't seem to be giving much back to the ghettos where they were raised and which they constantly talk about. They are living rich, while their old neighborhoods and fellow brethren are struggling to make ends meet. They could help change the things that they rap about in their music, ie the poverty, the drug dealing and killing for money, but they choose not to. I have no respect for half of them...in fact, most of them really disgust me. And, you're 100% correct, they are setting us back, which is also why I get upset when I see women walking around half-naked in videos and commercials. That's like telling girls that it doesn't matter if you're smart, just be thin and show lots of tits & ass and you'll be fine. Forget using your brain and just use your body to make money. Thanks for setting us women back 50 years. Hey, why don't we just give up our right to vote while we're at it, since women apparently should only be looked at like cattle at an auction.

POOK said:

I got props from POOK, that's all that matters!

Lamey Kravits. That's just me. he's lame.

Edit: The guy from Cameo. After Word Up and Alligator Woman, he discovered the cracker audience and started to cater to them MUCH more, never putting out another good jam.

And there's Jimi Hendrix. He played the chitlin circuit with Little Richard, but when Chaz Chandler showed him that the white teens had lots of money to spend on a good guitar player, he went ROCK and never looked back.

So, I'd have to say, Jimi Hendrix.

sell out sellout sell OUT.
[This message was edited Fri Jul 16 14:30:41 2004 by otan]

otan said:

If you're serious, wow, do you ever have it unbelievably twisted. Most of the pre-Elvis Rock pioneers are Black. And how the freakin hell can someone who played with Little Richard go Rock after leaving his band when Richard was one of those Rock pioneers??? To call Hendrix a sellout is completely ignorant. He was carrying on a tradition in its infancy that began in the Black community, and was later co-opted by the White mainstream...so, are Whites selling out because they've co-opted the genre and dominate it?

Just to add to discussion
Somebody here (about 70 posts ago or so claimed that to sell-out is to start making records targeted at different audience or in different music style. But what about TINA TURNER - this legendary singer stared off as a blues/r&b performer. But her true idols were white 80's rock stars eg. the Rolling Stones and David Bowie. SO In the 80's she relaunched her career and started making rock music that filled the stadiums mostly with white audience. So is she a sell out or is she person being brave enough to do what she loves even if against social pression/stereotypes? In my opinion she is the latter.

otan said:

So by your reasoning,Hendrix should never have tried to have his own career?He should have just stayed in L.R.'s employ ?

Get your facts straight dude.Hendrix not only went Rock, He changed it for the better...and by all accounts , never stopped trying to reach a black audience.Had he lived thru the 70s, he would have probably done so as he was already moving in a funkier,more R & B direction at the time of his death.And Im not convinced at this point, that He wasnt popular with black audiences.

As for Lenny Kravitz, I already said earlier he loved rock music, went after a rock audience, and got it. He didn't start out doing R&B to get a black audience and then water it down once whites discovered him. He came out from the beginning doing rock and his funk is as bad as any of the other funk out there. R&B stations would not play his funk because he was considered a rock artist.

As for Cameo, I didn't care for most of their late 1980s work except for "Word Up" and "You Make Me Work". I didn't like most of their late 1980s stuff because it was more mellow and laid back. Some of it was even jazzy. But that's just why I personally didn't like it...it's not my taste.

I don't remember Cameo EVER crossing over except for "Word Up" and they came back just as strong with a funk jam called "You Make Me Work". There's nothing crossover about that.

In 1990, they did a nice funk album called "Emotional Violence" which didn't get much airplay because R&B radio at that time was starting to be dominated by house and hip hop.

In the mid 1990s they did a decent funk album called "In The Face Of Funk". This album got practically NO airplay because by this time, the house music had gone underground R&B radio was completed infested with hip hop. Also major corporations were beginning to own a lot of the radio stations and could dictate what is shoved down our throats.

As for Jimi Hendrix, contrary to popular belief, I DO KNOW to keep my damn shut when I don't know what I'm talking about. I would say the same thing about him that I said about Lenny Kravitz but I don't know enough about Jimi's history to argue with you.

I only started listening to Jimi in the mid 1990s after my first love, funk, was already dead and hip hop had already taken over. Instead of going with the flow with a so called musical genre like hip hop which not only do I think is horrible but also consider it a bunch of overpaid DJs rather than musicians (when your main form of an instrument is a turntable, you are a DJ), I started branching out into other forms of music that I had never explored before. I can thank Prince for that.

Like I said, I don't know enough about Jimi's history to argue with you but I have a feeling you are wrong. I hope someone else can come to my rescue on this one.

rushing07 said:

In spirit, there's not much difference between a song like "Proud Mary" and a song like "Better Be Good To Me". Tina is equally adept at belting out rock and belting out R&B, especially when she's portraying a strong, fierce woman. I agree with you, that definitely isn't selling out.

Now if she had started singing weak MOR love ballads to corner the Diana Ross/Lionel Richie market, I'd have to rethink things.

Tina may have started out as an R&B artist but when she returned doing rock, it was good rock. It was not watered down to appeal to a black audience...it was straight rock. Black people continued to listen to her because they remembered her from the past and some of them even liked her rock. So all she is guilty of is broadening their minds. Whitney, on the other hand, watered down her R&B., Tina didn't water down her rock. It's not heavy metal by no means but heavy metal is just one form of rock.