http://www.afropunk.com/

Here's another Afropunk artist:

http://www.afropunk.com/p...-about-his

[Edited 2/24/11 16:41pm]

J*Davey at Afropunk festival in Brooklyn, NY last year.

(This is a duo group whose show Prince attended in LA, and he has been a mentor to the duo group as well.)

There's a lot of good Afropunk and alternative black artists out there, but are mostly known underground, with a dedicated following. It's too bad many of them are not by the music industry and in the media at a mainstream level.

http://vimeo.com/12956967

[Edited 2/24/11 16:53pm]

2freaky4church1 said:

What always bugs me is the fact that black people don't have an alternative scene like white people do.

Yes we do, its one of the best kept secrets though, obviously.

[img:$uid]http://www.electricpurgatory.com/tpeople/wwwElectricPurgatory4.1/ray/photos/156/ep_dvd%20coverfront-m.jpg[/img:$uid]

The reason why that sub-culture doesn't get showcased, because the media is only interested to see black people in a one-deminsional image.

Harlepolis said:

The reason why that sub-culture doesn't get showcased, because the media is only interested to see black people in a one-deminsional image.

But alternative music in general doesn't get much visibility or airtime in the media either. I'm not talking about shit like Green Day, but any artist / band that doesn't sell as many records as pretty much any major label artist / band is going to sell simply by shipping those copies to stores. Each time they have some sort of a newsbit on an alternative music / art music festival on TV it's always made to look like it's just some event that interests only the weirdos - it's always portrayed in a sort of laughing kind of way ("look at those freaks").

I've always considered the fusion genres that are closely associated with jazz as pretty much the alternative scene for black music, as well as alternative hiphop. Of course, those genres have people with different ethnic backgrounds involved in them. I would say though that alternative hiphop / fusion jazz / etc. is more visible in the media than many genres that consist of predominantly "caucasian males" being involved in them.

Since I don't live in the States it's hard for me to tell what's going on in the minds of young musicians, but there might be also some sort of peer pressure involved in that thing too. When a only a certain percentage of the population can be said to belong to a certain group and it's still possible to become relatively successful when you stay within the expectations given to you and don't veer off too much - that can function as a bottleneck.

... or is this just the same argument that you made in different words?

[Edited 2/25/11 0:08am]

novabrkr said:

Harlepolis said:

The reason why that sub-culture doesn't get showcased, because the media is only interested to see black people in a one-deminsional image.

But alternative music in general doesn't get much visibility or airtime in the media either.

True.

But when and if it ever get to be the subject of a discussion, black artists associated with it rarely ever get mentioned, for some reason.

You should watch that film btw, I was exposed to a whole spectrum of artists that I wasn't familiar with.