Who do you think is the biggest sell out black artist of all time and why. I know everyone here is going to immediately say Michael Jackson but I'm talking about that one black artist that just pisses you off because all they have ever done their whole career is try to cross over.

My pick is Whitney Houston. From her very first SINGLE....not to mention, album, she went from day one for a crossover artist. She doesn't have one ounce of rhythm in her little drug infested body and never has. All she knows is ballads and they are not even sensous ballads, they are watered down for mass appeal. Even when she tries to do an uptempo song, it is so watered down and poppy it just makes me sick.

I remembered when she first met Bobby Brown at the Soul Train Music Awards that year and was booed by some people. If I was there, I would have been the head booer!! Anyway, I read that's where she met Bobby Brown.

She started out trying to be so damned wholesome, goody two shoes, and lilly white and when black people finally boo her.....all of a sudden she's black. She does a tune in the 90s with a little reggae feel to it.

Anyway, that little goody two shoes get my FIRST VOTE!

OMG!!!!!

we still have a long way to go in America when everyone is nit picking everyone. My God can't you just let someone do their thing. does it matter if they are black enough white enough gay enough straight enough. get out of your box

define "sell out".

As George Clinton used to say when referring to Lionel Richie "He done crossed over so far he can't get black".

I like Lionel Richie though. He has done ballads and the whole crossover thing but he has some real funk in his bones.

Whitney Houston on the other hand doesn't have a funky bone in her body. She opened the door for all these other rhythmless balladeers with not an ounce of funk. Yeah, Michael and Prince crossed over but they still had hard jams. She never had an ounce a funk in her from day one.

After Whitney Houston came Freddy Jackson and Anita Baker. Not a jam from any of them. Next thing you know EVERYBODY on the radio is so slow it puts me to sleep!

what about the hootie and the blowfish guy? do you consider him a sell-out?

vainandy said:

Why does crossever equate sellout? And if she's been that way since the beginning, it can't really be a sellout. I dunno...this is a tricky thread and one that'll just lead to meanness. And I'm against that.

vainandy said:

You sure you wanna put Anita Baker in that category?

Supernova said:

i wasn't gonna say anything, but i know a lot of people who'd be awfully pissed off at the anita statement.

No, he went after a rock audience from the very beginning. I don't like his music but he did go after a different audience. Now I love Lenny Kravitz. He went after a rock audience and got it. Lenny has some funk too but it doesn't get played on black radio because he is considered a rock artist, now that's wrong.

As far as Whitney, she wanted the best of both worlds and if it means sacrificing the quality of the R&B side, she was willing to do it. Meanwhile, influencing a whole new crop of R&B artists to do the same. Next thing you know...funk is dead.

[quote]

Supernova said:

Well, Anita is a little more jazz and if she crossed over I don't think she was that successful. My problem is with major success artists like Whitney that influence others and water down the whole R&B genre.

Anxiety said:

Hell yeah.

I mean, does he know that she's sold millions of albums that had songs on the charts for consecutive weeks at a time?

Hmph!

No one can tell me that Same Ole Love, Rapture and Just Because ain't jams!

depends about your meaning of Sold Out
the way i take selling out
is giving into comercialism and losing freedom of expression
and with that its in the mix between MJ and Prince
they both sold out
Prince Redeemed himself, Mj partially redeemed himself with history but he sold out again with invincible
then again Prince sold out with Rave!
so i believe its a tie between them

but i still feel taht Grammy performance with Beyounce
was a Sell-out in the highest order
Prince selling out now?
i'll have to get back to you on that...

Anxiety said:

I was gonna post a quote about Whitney Houston's music by Nelson George that I wholeheartedly agree with, but ... with Anita's name coming up, I'm not sure the context is right for that....

[quote]

kiss85 said:

My point about Anita is she doesn't have any funk under her belt, she is more into jazz. I mentioned Anita and Freddy because they are artists with albums with mostly slow songs. I don't care for their music but it is not posing a threat to the music I like which is funk.

There have always been slow artists like Grover Washington, Luther Vandross, or James Ingram. Their albums had sold moderately well but nothing phenomenal.

The only reason I even mentioned Anita or Freddy is because they came along AFTER Whitney Houston. And yes I do realize the millions that Anita has sold. But I don't think she would have sold that well if Whitney had not done so well and influenced so many other artists to do exclusively slow albums. Before Whitney came along, Anita would have been competing with hardcore funk bands like Zapp, Cameo, Midnight Star, Gap Band, Lakeside, etc. She would have done well with people that like her genre but she would not have been as successful as she is.

Anita may not be my thing but she does not pose a threat to the music I love which is funk. Whitney went after both worlds and watered down the R&B side.

i don't think you can fault an artist for making smooth jazz music (and YES, i think it's boring as hell too) if that's where their talents lie. i think anita baker would look awfully silly funkin' it up when that's just not her thing.

vainandy said:

Whitney and Freddy Jackson came about around the same time, and both of them found success a few years after Anita Baker. There are a lot of reasons why funk mostly died out, but I don't think it was due to the the watering down of some R&B. Yeah Whitney has always been just as much pop as she was R&B, but pure R&B was still going strong with other artists. Yeah, she influenced a lot of artists, some good, the majority bad, but I think the issue of funk was separate from her.

Funk always co-existed with pop and R&B, and some of the best R&B ballads came from funk artists. I think it just kinda died out, because people's taste in popular music changed. Yeah, I wish it was still around like it used to be, but I also like having it to myself It's kinda fun to turn the young'uns on to something they mightn't be aware of.

Anita and Freddy are the first two artists that popped in my head with all or mostly slow songs on their albums. I don't listen to their type of music but I don't down it either. I think Anita would still have done the same style of music because Whitney did not influence her musically. I'm just saying artists like her and Freddy would have still have been successful but would not have been nearly as successful as they turned out to be without Whitney paving the way for with such a successful album full of slow songs. I'm not saying THEY sold out. Whitney is the one who sold out. She tried a few fast songs like "How Will I Know" which is a totally watered down rythmless attempt at something funky. They were true to their art form. The only comparison I was making with Whitney Houston is the fact that they had albums with the majority of it slow.

When Prince blew up with 1999. Had that tour with the Time and Vanity 6. He made some the nastiest, funkiest , rawest shit ever.

Then he came with Purple Rain. Which sounded like a pop version of 1999 to appeal more in my opinion to his newly found larger crossover audience. The tunes were slightly watered down.

I definitely thought he was selling out. Then he portrayed his mother as a white woman in Purple Rain was definitely a slap in the face to her.

Thumparello said:

Why's that? The movie was fiction based on some fact. It wasn't his life.

vainandy said:

Maybe funk just wasn't their forte.



Wrong. Anita released her first songs in '81. What put her on the map is Best Thing Yet which was released in 81'/82', while Whitney didn't come on the scene until '85. At that time, Anita was already the more popular.

I don't know much about Freddie except he was popular in the late 80's.



Not really. I think Anita was really tryin to reach more contemporary audiences, because her music was basically in the smooth jazz genre, even though she topped the R&B charts a few times. Besides, if you're gonna chunk "groups" into a category with her, I think Atlantic Starr was more her speed. Less funk, more emotion.

kiss85 said



I understand that, I have no problem with that.




I don't doubt your word that she came out that early, I heard she was in a band in the either the late 70s or early 80s. I have always been heavy into music and I never heard of her as a solo artist until the late 80. Like I said, I don't doubt she came out that early but that proves my own quote that you placed:



This is fine too, it poses no threat to what I love:

vainandy said:

How can you be a sell-out if you had no R&B/soul credibility in the first place? Whitney Houston is and always will be an AC artist, nothing more. She was not made for Soul Train, and so she was booed there, naturally.

vainandy said:

I'm sorry, but there is more to "sell-out" than "s/he can't be black again". Jeez, as if black people can only make stereotypically "black" music. If Whitney didn't have a funky bone in her body, then what the hell's wrong with that? She did her thing and although I don't particularly like it, at least she didn't try to be something she wasn't to cultivate greater commercial success, which is the REAL definition of selling out.

And my vote (or at least a glaring annoyance that comes to mind) goes to TLC for trying to replace Left Eye with some joker they'll find on a reality show. WTF is up with that?

VoicesCarry said:

[/quote]

I agree. Black people should not be limited to one music form. I love black rock artists like Lenny Kravitz. He loves rock music, went after a rock audience, and is being played on rock stations.

If Whitney wanted to be an adult contemporary artist...fine, keep her ass on adult contemporary radio. When you place her on mainstream R&B radio, she is making an influence and watering down the whole genre.

vainandy said:

Well, then that's a complaint about R&B radio. Huge amounts of shit are played on the radio -always have been, always will be, unfortunately. BUT I will say this - at least Whitney had a voice, which is more than I can say for so many artists on R&B radio today.

Also, as far as I can recall, Whitney was much bigger on the pop charts. She had some trouble gaining ground at R&B radio, especially in the 80s.
[This message was edited Wed Jul 14 22:57:51 2004 by VoicesCarry]

VoicesCarry said:[quote]vainandy said:


Well, then that's a complaint about R&B radio. Huge amounts of shit are played on the radio -always have been, always will be, unfortunately. BUT I will say this - at least Whitney had a voice, which is more than I can say for so many artists on R&B radio today.

[quote]

vainandy said:

Sorry for the double post but my damned finger keeps hitting the wrong button.

Anyway, SHE went after an R&B audience because she did "How Will I Know". Now that is one WEAK watered down attempt at being funky.

Also, I saw a documentary on her. They showed old clips of her performing before she was famous. She sang a Jackson 5 song and was doing a very nice job of it. When she went in the studio to record her first album, everyone kept telling Whitney "Tone it down, it's too black". She went along with them and the rest is history.

As far as her being better than anything on R&B radio today...I agree with you but that is not saying much. R&B now is worse than anything she could have messed up. I blame that on hip hop.....that another whole FIGHT altogether! LOL

As far as her having a voice. That's what pisses me off the most. She DOES have a voice. She has one of those powerful black female voices that would have been really great in the disco era. She would even sound great on some house music. She has made house remixes of some her songs and once again...the music is watered down for a more mass appeal. With the right music and producers I think she could go up against Martha Wash, in the house genre. As far as the time period she came out in, I would have liked to have seen her do something maybe like "Jumpstart" by Natalie Cole. I think she could have even sounded good if she had gotten with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis around the "Control" era. They could have given her a whole new image and make her funky like they did with Janet.