Shango said:

Exactly. Thanks namepeace.

Dang, I don't think that's it though. The lyric said something about a "bitch-made n***a singing love songs and shit." I can't remember exactly but it was something to that effect. Basically a rapper putting a singer down as "soft".
[Edited 3/12/09 17:37pm]
[Edited 3/13/09 10:08am]

dannyd5050 said:

oh no he swore!
**paging luv2u**

Q: Did Rap Kill The Black Male Singer?

A: Yes, to the point that rappers want to be singers themselves.

TonyVanDam said:

so is lauryn one of those?

viciuzurban said:

I'm quoting a lyric! Just can't remember who's...

Shango said:

I don't think you got me. I was thinking of a slang term but I was wrong. Snoop Dogg calls Luke a BeeGee in "Doggystyle" obviously Luke is not a singer. But I do like Anthony Hamilton. This one is my favorite. And, yes, you do have a point. Anthony Hamilton is one true soul singer today!

Stay cool and quit your at me.

theAudience said:

If you'd just convince Bilal, Maxwell and D'Angelo to put out albums every 3 years we wouldn't BE in this situation, tA. A weary nation casts its eyes towards you!

Rap also killed Joaquin Phoenix's movie career. Damn that rap.
[Edited 3/12/09 21:51pm]

spacedolphin said:

pfffft you see how shit he was in two lovers. wow talk about a pathetic movie. no chemistry with paltrow whatsoever who walks all over him, oblvious to her manipulations and user ways. Phoenix comes off as a self-referential pervert and a loser - "i understand you michelle, im fucked up too. I take care of you" - how can he take care of somebody elese when he’s so tragic and messed in the head himself. what is so pathetic is that the dude is always living in false hope, nothing is certain - booking flights, purchasing a ring.

c/s the article. but i cant beleive someone in the thread was shitting on anthony hamilton. like damn. he's one of the very few still doing it, as in putting out that real soulful shit, and he's catching some hate. SMH....

junebug18 said:

I like Anthony.

namepeace said:

Well that certainly takes the pressure off.


(Or does it just shift it?)





tA

Tribal Disorder

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

I think a larger point (and it might have been in the original post. It's late, and I couldn't wade through the entire thing) is that society as a whole has a knack for pigeonholing black men. Acting roles, political roles (yes, I know about B.O., but he's an anomaly), economic roles, academic roles, corporate roles.

Is it any wonder that the prevailing successful music role has shifted from balladeers more associated with love and commitment to thug-type rappers who represent baser elements?

I think as a whole (and here's where I acknowledge the prez), things are improving broadly. But, the music scene is depressing.

ThreadBare said:

It is improving but very slowly. Too slow. But I'm confident one of these days we WILL return to a time when R&B male and female singers and black bands ruled the R&B roost. Hip-hop in a commercial sense gotta take another route.

junebug18 said:

No one is shittin' on Anthony Hamilton. In fact I was agreeing to Shango's post that Anthony Hamilton is one of the "quality soul" singers today.

Graycap23 said:

Show did.....

Edgar Yipsel Harburg (lyricist "Brotha Can You Spare A Dime", "It's Only a Paper Moon", "April in Paris" and "Wizard of OZ" , "Over the Rainbow") was once asked what he thought of Rock & Roll? Mr. Harburg said, "It's the music of death" That how I think about rap music.....
[Edited 3/13/09 6:22am]

dannyd5050 said:

Thanks again for explaining. Namepeace hipped me also to it. My bad. Cool & peace.

daPrettyman said:

---
"I despise Anthony Hamilton. His voice annoys me. "

Then you really don't like RnB music. Dude's voice is incredible, soulful and masculine which if you really take a look and a listen to dirty south rap you sure are not going to find any of those qualities.

extreme feminist

BlaqueKnight said:

-----
You are so wrong on so many points that I am only going to address this comment.

“Its no wonder sales are down. Perhaps if women would support more real music and stop buying into these stereotypes, labels would have to concede in favor of making money (and they would).”

Perhaps woman buy that crappy shitty rap music because black radio works in league with the record companies to keep stereotypes going. Several record labels have label heads who are black men they are sell-outs as they are the ones looking to pull any non-talented, non-rapping, butt-faced, and cooning moron off the street corner.

Do not blame that fact that this chick is a feminist for her point of view on this subject. A lot of what she has to say on this subject is on point.

You have to blame the music industry .....they did it but it backfired on them ...now they have to go back to the old vaule's and give artist a fair share they had it coming...

Not all rap music is bad ...not all soul music is good ...the balance comes from the industry ...they tried to control the culture...bang out pop Amy Winehouse ...damn we need to get Amy clones ... but the sales are not coming ....they tried it with Duffy but will her album keep selling no ...they have hyped it as much as they can that cost money ...second CD will be a flop ...they need real artist back it's cheaper..

laurarichardson said:

Both of U having valid points and I'd think the true essense lies somewhere in the middle of your points. Lucky 4 me, I stopped listening 2 the radio in 1982 and started finding the music that I love on my own terms.

viciuzurban said:

Lauryn Hill, Akon, Ja Rule, Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Eminem, 50 Cent, Missy, Queen Latifah, Kanye West.....hell yeah, all of these MFs are guilty as charge!!!

Neneh Cherry is THE only artist that gets a pass, but only because Buffalo Stance is a uptempo dance-pop classic.

That's what trips me out, is how ass-backwards those damn thugs are. It would take me to get them straight and tell them what time it really is.

They have the nerve to call someone soft when every single thing that their sissified asses make is slow. When I was growing up, there were plenty of girls that liked only slow music and no fast music, but do you know what people used to call a guy that only liked slow music and no fast music whatsoever? They called him a nerd, a dork, a sissy, a fag, a faggot, and any other name pertaining to "weak" that they could think of.

Who do they think was making the "hard" music. It was folks like Rick James, Prince, Cameo, The Barkays, etc. They were singers and their music was hard. A piece of shit hop thug trash may think that shit hop is hard but it is really soft. The drum machines they use beat softly and the damn tempo is a soft ass slow to midtempo. The way I see it, these damn thugs are past closet gay (because gay people like to party hard). These thugs are closet weak ass "fags".

BlaqueKnight said:

I think alot has to do with the missing soul singers.....the D'Angelo's and Maxwells...where are they? Black women miss THESE types of artists...not people like Akon or T-Pain. People that sing and make their own music...a mascualine man who is is equally feminine. That what this topic is referring to. It almost brought me to tears...I am so saddened and embarassed because people do look at me and just think I am supposed to love embarrasing music like Plies, Akon and all them weak lame ass people that do not represent anything that is real about Black Music.

Graycap23 said:

Yup.

- The writer has issues with black males.

- The writer correctly points out that the tone of black music has changed as hip-hop has become the defining sound (of black music and music in general).

- Where I disagree with Blaque: there'd be no black music without the "baby i'm sorry" canon, which includes tons of classics dating back to Louis Armstrong. Satchmo, Jackie Wilson, The Temptations, Al Green, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, D'Angelo, Maxwell, all of these brothers have made great songs catering to females. Rock and roll is nothing if not courtin' music. Hip-hop has changed the tone, but these themes are nothing new. They're just the exception to the rule.

- laurarichardson: you're right; black women are just as susceptible to the trends in marketing and exposure of music as black men. but if it weren't for black women, the black male singer would have NO audience today. older black women in general (30-40somethings), in my experience, have VERY eclectic tastes in music. they'll buy lil' wayne and beyonce records, but also rahsaan patterson, coldplay, etta james and faith hill records too.

- Anthony Hamilton was so closely asssociated with Jermaine Dupri when he dropped that he may not have been taken as seriously. More power to AH, get in where you fit in. But he doesn't have to take a backseat to any other black male singer of his generation, and has a better voice than most.
[Edited 3/13/09 8:41am]

laurarichardson said:

Oh, I'm not blaming her being a feminist on her point of view, I'm blaming her being a feminist on her BIASED SLANT in this article. Of course there are black male sellouts pushing the crap that's flooding the airwaves. I'm not denying that. The fact still remains that women buy more music than men so women in effect, have more power to change things than men do. Things like who artists are dating and mess like that have nothing to do with those artist's music. She speaks from a "blame the black man" perspective when in truth, the music is out there; people just aren't buying it. There are a lot of factors - the economy, marketing by the labels (a much, much bigger factor), the downloading trend, etc. Yet she somehow swings it back to her favorite issue - black men and who they date.

paisleypark4 said:

Amp Fiddler, Martin Luther, Dwele, Glen Lewis, Kem, Omar, Raphael Saadiq, Cody Chestnutt, Lyfe Jennings, Musiq, Eric Benet, Anthony David Wade O. Brown...I could go on and on. There are lots of good R&B cats out there. Labels aren't pushing them and they pre-condition them with a CD full of ballads instead of up-tempo jams. That's all I was saying. The problem is not the existence of rap, its labels deliberately and agressively pushing rap to the forefront.
I just wanna smack Plies. He's such a fraud. College boy.

namepeace said:

I don't think it should not be there; I just think there should be more of a balance. That was my point. Sorry if I wasn't clearer. The Temps that dropped "Just My Imagination" also dropped "Shakey Ground", The Isleys that dropped "Voyage To Atlantis" also dropped "Fight The Power". Prince. MJ. Need I say more? They kept balance. The balance is gone because the old white men running record labels don't know shit about the music they are selling. I bet if you told those old bastards you couldn't tell the difference between Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, they'd flip their fuckin' wigs, though.
Right now, they seem to think balance is pushing rap as a substitute for good up-tempo R&B when its not. I can understand why they would think like that since half the R&B producers out there are also producing hip-hop artists as well. (Timbo, Nep2unes, Polow Da Don, etc.)
[Edited 3/13/09 9:27am]

BlaqueKnight said:

4 some strange reason, I feel insulted when I hear that set called "producers".