I'm so glad U started this subject. It has been eating at me for years as a young Black Guitarist. I remember onetime I was playing some Jimi Hendrix & 1 of my black friends said to me "..Man why are U listening to that white boy shit?.."

I don't think there is a way that I can describe how bad that hurts me to hear. What has happened to our culture? Why is 'Shit Hop' become the only music that is considered "Black". Why can't a black guitarist or Rack band be on a "Black Station"? Is it because they also feel that "Rock" isn't Black enough for the average Black listener.

Sad but true..

vainandy said:

Yes, I feel U man. But tell that to the average black kid. If you were to play a Rock song in the Ghetto they would look at U like U have lost your mind!

vainandy said:

Thanx! As a kid I just got off more on Funky Bass Lines & Guitar solos. And who better to introduce me to the Funk than Prince?! So thats why it makes me sick to hear people say that Rock Music is White Music. Our boy Prince is only played on Black Radio stations when he writes songs like Future Baby Mama. Makes U wonder how many black folks would listen to Balck radio if they started playing Black Rock groups.

I think the backlash would be crazy as hell.

Quamirozsaz said:

I do think it's ingrained especially for black kids. I am child of the 70s/80s, so I grew up on Soul, R&B and Disco. Back then what was called "black music" was more varied than what it is today, fortunately we didn't have to put up with hip-hop or a so-called R&B which had to have a little Rap in the middle to make it "Hip". However, even back then when I was a teen in the late 70s/ early 80s you wouldn't get me admitting to liking anything that was classed as "white music" unless it was Teena Marie, who my friends saw as white woman who sang black! At the time one of my favourite groups were Abba but I dare not tell my friends, because they would have looked at me as if I was insane.,

As I have grown however, I have embraced all kinds of music, my music collection is still overwhemingly black, but I embrace music by non-black artists, such as The Carpenters, R.E.M and Coldplay and I don't care who knows it. I am still not much of a fan of a hard rock music, but that's just a personal thing. So I believe as children, black kids especially, grow and mature their outlook will change and they will grow to appreciate all kinds of music.

STUPID STEREOTIPE SHIT

whatsgoingon said:

I had to keep some of my "unique" musical tastes under wraps for a long time(until I graduated high school). I got enough crap from some brothas for getting good grades - I didn't need any more sh!t.

Explain to me how liking the electric guitar makes one "less black", because I can't figure it out.

See I don't get that. Any guitarist can tell that solo was Blues influenced. And since Blues is an African-American art form, you'd think that the brothers and sisters would dig it. But no, they were like "TURN THAT SHIT OFF!!!!" Instead they were digging ?uestlove on the drums playing a Hip-Hop beat. Then they were all dancing and freestyling and shit. It's sad how even the Blues-y kind of Rock is lost on some young Black folks. Not all, but some.

Quamirozsaz said:

I do think it's ingrained especially for black kids. I am child of the 70s/80s, so I grew up on Soul, R&B and Disco. Back then what was called "black music" was more varied than what it is today, fortunately we didn't have to put up with hip-hop or a so-called R&B which had to have a little Rap in the middle to make it "Hip". However, even back then when I was a teen in the late 70s/ early 80s you wouldn't get me admitting to liking anything that was classed as "white music" unless it was Teena Marie, who my friends saw as white woman who sang black! At the time one of my favourite groups were Abba but I dare not tell my friends, because they would have looked at me as if I was insane.,

As I have grown however, I have embraced all kinds of music, my music collection is still overwhemingly black, but I embrace music by non-black artists, such as The Carpenters, R.E.M and Coldplay and I don't care who knows it. I am still not much of a fan of a hard rock music, but that's just a personal thing. So I believe as children, black kids especially, grow and mature their outlook will change and they will grow to appreciate all kinds of music.

thebanishedone said:

I hate the fact young people..i.e. 23 and younger think that rock never exsisted in black music at all.

But I've always believe white kids are more open to different musical influences. One of the reasons why rap and Hip hop have become so big and never ending is that the music is being pick up in droves by white, middle class kids. I doubt rock music, played mainly by white artists can have that kind of impact on black kids in urban areas, they probably either dismiss it altogeher and the ones who do like it, will probably like it in secret .

NWF said:

i know exactly what you mean. i was heavy into "hair metal" for a while and people took the piss out of me really badly for it because i'm a black female. i don't see why music should have a color. now i'm more into new wave and electro which is still considred "white music" but whatever. i like what i like and whoever doesn't like it can piss off!

whatsgoingon said:

My dad goes to blues concerts, and he says there are as many white folks as there are black folks. I couldn't believe it.

I don't even consider it black considering that it was white people that made it so huge. If you notice, the tempo of it is just as slow as music that is traditionally considered "white" such as classical music. That's what I love to throw in shit hop lovers faces the most because, when I was growing up in the 1980s, the harder and faster the song was, the "blacker" it was considered.

uPtoWnNY said:

Probably more ! As I said in another thread somewhere, blacks are ahistorical musically- once something is considered "old", it's put on the slag heap and forgotten. So older styles of mainly black influenced music such as blues and jazz now have a predominately white (and in many cases Asian) audience, and those artists woul starve if they had to rely on black folks now !

meow85 said:

I don't know. I don't listen to classical music and never have. I just know it was a type of music we always used to make fun of growing up when we heard it and it always seemed to be extremely slow, dull, and boring.

Most folks don't listen to classical and especially not these kids today. However, classical music is still stereotyped as the slowest most nerdy and dorky music that most people don't want people to think they listen to. That's why I use it as an insult for these folks that like today's music because it's damn rediculous that the little dull asses making music these days refuse to make something fast. I'm for real, it's fucking rediculous. I've never seen such boring times in my life.

EmbattledWarrior said:

I've said this once and I'll say it again I'm sure.

Educate yourself in music. When someone says something this fucking stupid, give them a dollar towards a clue.

Music reflects social, economical, historical and cultural change. When you look at it from this perspective you have no choice but to understand it's developement within this context. American culture is American music and as it changes, so does the music.
[Edited 8/22/07 7:13am]

Slave2daGroove said:

So how does American music today reflect American culture ?

whatsgoingon said:

How doesn't it? Do you watch MTV?

Bishop31 said:

ironically, back in the days of elvis and the early beatles, didn't some of the less enlightened of the older generations call rock'n'roll "race music"?

Najee said:

Orlando jones? Hee, hee, hee! Sorry, I couldn't resist. They do look alike, though.

If you played some funk, they would look at you crazy also. That's because shit hop has dominated R&B radio for so long that those kids were born into it and know nothing else. I had lived through various style changes that lasted about five years in R&B music in my lifetime such as The Motown Sound when I was born, the early 70s soulful sound, the late 70s disco sound, the early 80s funk sound, the late 80s crossover sound (that's when things first started fucking up), the house music sound of the late 80s/very early 90s, and finally the shit hop sound of the early 90s to the present. If a child was born in the early 90s, he or she was born into the shit hop sound and has never seen a style change in his entire lifetime. By the time I was 15, I had seen probably about four style changes.

It's the white owned record labels merging and radio stations monopolized that have kept this shit hop alive by keeping every thing else out.
.
.
[Edited 8/20/07 23:30pm]

jjhunsecker said:

See, that's the thing I noticed too. More older forms of music created by Blacks have more of a white audience now. Blues, Jazz, Classic Rock, hell even Ska now!