StoneCrib said:

Yup, same mogul. I imagine there will be other Angie Stones' on Clive Davis's radar. Artists who fall short of sales expectations. Everybody's not going to be a huge success. But this is the same Clive Davis who took on brown-skinned Whitney Houston and made her a bigger star than Alicia could ever hope to be. Lauryn Hill didn't seem to have trouble blowing up being a dark skinned sista. Look, there are a lot of reasons why some folks have more success than others in the music business. India.Arie has the #1 album in the country despite pushing an image that isn't exactly Billboard friendly. Skin color is always going to be an issue in life, I'm afraid. But in this case, to examine the successes of these two artists strictly on that basis is a little too simplistic for my taste.

violator said:

Exactly. That's why I said it isn't JUST Clive's guidance in Alicia's case as you hinted to earlier, her being lighter complected with European features has defnitely helped her along.
[Edited 7/7/06 17:12pm]

StoneCrib said:

Well, I have a question for you then. How much will Susan Cagle and Corinne Bailey Rae's "being lighter complected with European features" help them? I submit to you that India.Arie will, at the end of the day, be a bigger success than both of them. Contemplate that and then tell me how much Davis' involvement in Alicia Keys' career has helped.

violator said:

Right, but I never said being light was the DEFINITIVE factor to being successful, just that it obviously helps an artist out. There's NO denying that.

violator said:

U are correct 2 simple. That said, take 2 artist with same talent and same material, one dark, one light.....which one is more successful?

Graycap23 said:

Well it's obvious what you think. But it's too slippery a slope for me to tread because the inference ultimately becomes that the light-skinned artist isn't as talented. Or didn't have to work as hard. It reduces everything in life to that house-nigga/field-nigga perspective. I have to look a little deeper than that. Black entertainers biggest successes have always been dominated by brown skinned or dark complected faces whether you're talking about Paul Robeson to Denzel Washington. Aretha Franklin to Whitney Houston. Bill Cosby to Eddie Murphy. I'm sorry but I just can't buy the idea that any dark complected entertainer who doesn't become hugely successful is hampered by their skin color.

StoneCrib said:

Maybe not now, but he did in the 80s. The prime example would be...



...Aretha Franklin (not "light-skinded" or a "classic" beauty)


And I can almost hear your retort already, "But she had the 3-Ts going for her."


Talent
Track record
Time frame

Btw, i'm not saying that Aretha was unattractive, just not a classic beauty.
However, there are those amongst us who would.

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

violator said:

For every Aretha I can show you a Billie Holiday or a Lena Horn.
For every Whitney I can show you a Mariah Carey or a Beyonce.
For every Robeson I can show you a James Earl Jones or Harry Belefante
For every Denzel I can show you a Will Smith or a Cuba Gooding Jr.

Oddly enough, ONLY as comedians are most people comfortable with seeing JUST brown to dark brown Black comedians and that goes back to the days where as long as we're buffoons and jokesters, being a brown or dark brown is ok - Just keep 'em laughin'.

theAudience said:

Well you just answered it - She was already an icon by the time Clive got to her, so that was a bad example.

StoneCrib said:

For every Billie Holiday or Lena Horne I can show you a Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey.
For every James Earl Jones I can show you a Sidney Potier or Ossie Davis.
For every Will Smith or Cuba Gooding Jr. I can show you a Wesley Snipes or Morgan Freeman

Or Jimi Hendrix.
Ray Charles.
Chuck Berry.
Nat King Cole.
Oprah Winfrey
Count Basie.
Etc.

I understand the point you're trying to make but ultimately, I feel, it's an argument that undermines the issue of talent with respect to light-skinned Black artists. And talent has been the crux of the discussion in this thread. I just ain't buyin' it at that basic level.

violator said:

Jimi? Dark?

StoneCrib said:

Not really.

The icon's recording career was a train wreck before making the jump to Arista.
Her last successfully charting Pop albums on Atlantic were back in 1972 (Amazing Grace) and 1976 (Sparkle).
Starting in 1980, she released 6 consecutive albums on Arista that cracked the Top 50.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Why are we comparing the '50's, '60's and '70's to 2006?

The game has changed folks. People like Stephanie Mills, Gladys Knight, Natalie Cole, etc probably could not get a record deal in 2006. Their careers started before the video era, when your looks didn't matter. The only thing that mattered then was that you could sing.

Of course it's not always black and white, there are gray areas...other factors that can be taken into consideration.

Again, I want someone to name a current day dark-skinned, female R&B artist, not neo-soul or urban adult contemporary, that's has the same level of talent and success as Ashanti, Ciara, Beyonce, Alicia, or Rhianna.

PurpleCharm said:

Ok you just took the words out of my mouth.

Or out of my fingers on the keyboard.

violator said:

I don't think anyone here is trying to say light-skinned Blacks are less talented than their darker counterparts, the argument here is that the chances of a light-skinned artist getting extra "this" or "that" is greater than their browner-skinned counterparts.

theAudience said:

C'mon, TA, Aretha's career may have stalled around that time but she was STILL an icon and you know it.

PurpleCharm said:

She nailed it right there. Great post.

PurpleCharm said:

Thank you.
TRUTH!!!! Looks matter more now than ever. By the same token, Gabrielle Union or Kenya Moore could get a record deal before Rayne Pryor under those same guidelines. Pop music is 75% image nowadays.

PurpleCharm said:

Stephanie Mills, Gladys Knight and Natalie Cole probably wouldn't have been willing to shake or show their asses enough to attain the level of success of a Beyonce or Ashanti today. Which goes precisely to what you followed up with: 'it's not always black and white, there are gray areas'. Which is pretty much what I've been saying all along.

PurpleCharm said:

Your best example would be India.Arie. I mean surely with the #1 album in the country we're not trying to pigeon-hole her with the neo-soul tag. She's clearly a 'popular' artist now.

violator said:

What do you mean by pigeon-hole?
India doesn't compete with Beyonce, Ciara, Rhianna or Ashanti...young, r&b artist that sing and dance.

So again, I would like for someone to name an artist that competes with the above, but have looks like India(dark w/broad features).

StoneCrib said:

An icon of course. She already put in work to establish that if she never hit another lick at a snake.
But she was still a recording artist that was releasing albums that the majority of folks never heard (if they even knew were out there).

However the discussion was Clive's association with a female artist that didn't have the looks of an Alicia Keys, not her icon status.
How many 80s kids would even know she existed were it not for the Arista releases?...

Jump To It
Freeway of Love
Who's Zoomin' Who?
Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves

...This re-established her as a visible and viable current (at that time) artist and not an Oldies act.

I'd say a 10 year drought is more than a stall. In the music business that's pretty much a death.

This association with Clive Davis and Arista definitely brought her back from the dead as a recording artist.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 7/7/06 20:26pm]

PurpleCharm said:

How come she doesn't? She's a young black female artist with the most popular album in the country. Not the most popular R&B album. The #1 pop album. That's precisely the same ground that folks like Beyonce and Alicia are mining.

I don't understand. It's not enough that India.Arie is a dark-skinned sista with talent. Now she has be a rump-shaking bimbo to validate the point that she'd be more popular if she were light-skinned?? Having the #1 album in the country, how much more popularity would she require?

violator said:

This is my point: a dark-skinned sister should have options. If India wants to shake her ass and sing about being Crazy In Love, she should be able to...but someone that looks like her would be less inclined to because the industry is not accepting of that.

Women that look like Heather Headly, Jill Scott, India, Angie Stone seem to be driven into niche markets and rarely marketed to the masses, so they will never have Beyonce or Alicia type of success...they will have success in their niche market. They won't have movie offers, cover of mainstream magazines or endorsements up the wazoo.

Again, I want to reiterate that there are always exceptions.

theAudience said:

I'm not the best person to use as an example, but the very first time I heard "Rock Steady" was when Sue Ann covered it on her 'Blue Velvet' album in 1988 (produced by Jesse Johnson).

PurpleCharm said:

I understand your point, very clearly. And I appreciate the fact that you seem to realize that there's more to consider than just the very base skin color argument. I only jumped into this thread now because I thought that someone would appreciate the irony of India Arie sitting at #1 just one week after this thread, more or less, suggested she'd have to be light-skinned to achieve this kind of success. I'd even be more receptive to the argument that if India.Arie were willing to show her tits and ass, she'd be more popular (whatever more popular is). As it is, I suppose to you she's a convenient 'exception'. Perhaps. I guess I just choose to look at it a little differently.

I'm happy as all get out that India is #1 this week, but let's "keep it real," as it were. It was a relatively slow week for new releases. Nelly Furtado's Loose sold a significant amount more in its first week. Topping the charts with sales of less than 200,000 is a great feat for India, but it isn't quite as impressive as some people are implying.

PurpleCharm said:

I don't know any.

And BTW, the same can be said about girl bands at the moment. The PCD don't even have a dark-skin sista in the group neither.

TonyVanDam said:

What about Missy Elliott?

I think that artists who know they can't rely on their looks tend to work a little harder on their music. Not to say that attractive people can't be talented, but I think especially in pop music, a less attractive artist is probably gonna have a better record BECAUSE they can't skate by on their looks. Just my opinion.

StoneCrib said:

TRUE... Tweet comes to mind - she's about the same talent level as Ashanti or Rhianna (maybe better, I've never heard Tweet's whole album) but nowhere near the popularity. Amerie gets blown up more than she does even before "One Thing"...

Leela James is neo-soul but still wasn't blown up even a little, I thought her album was good...

guitarslinger44 said:

Missy is very success artist/producer.

On the mic, she a rapper first, singer second.

And where is that movie deal that she so deserves?