MickyDolenz said:

Scorp said:

and what I saw was our community transforming right before our eyes as if it was happening overnight. I saw young cats blasting NWA and their song DOPEMAN, throwing up gang signs, calling young girls hoochies (this was a year or two before hoes and bitches became the vernacular)...A voice inside my head asked what the f*** is going on. I felt this negative force overtake the minds and the conscious of the neighborhoods and the generation of youth that I was growing up in. the heart grew heavy and I said on that day WE ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE and God is my witness...I never forgot that day, because as we fast forward some 25-26 years, I see those feelings of unease has been justified

What's the difference in that and 1970's blaxploitation movies or blackface before that? Black people participated in blackface during vaudeville too. If you watch the Wattstax movie, there's shots of gang members in the audience. The commentary track even gave one of the gang's name. It's not like many of the the acts from back then lived clean lives either. Sly Stone was a pimp and so was Jelly Roll Morton from the ragtime and early jazz era. Bessie Smith would beat up men and women.

If you listen to old blues and 'country & western' songs, many of them had lyrics about violence, drugs, being drunk, sex, suicide, murder, etc. Some even had profanity. One of the most remade songs is Stag O'Lee/Stagger Lee (and various other spellings) which is based on a real incident from the early 1900's. Old country songs sometimes were about fighting at the "honky tonk". There were the "teen disaster" songs, which was popular in the late 1950's/early 1960's. Early rock 'n roll, juvenile delinquent movies, and even comic books were accused of "corrupting the youth". The Beatles might seem tame today, but some parents were alarmed by their "mop tops", which was considered long hair at the time, and the way girls seemed to be in a trance at their concerts. When the 3 Stooges shorts started running on television, parents complained about the violence in that, which Moe Howard responded that there's more violence in a western, and the same parents were ok with their children watching cowboy movies/TV shows.

I'm not focusing on violence as much as I am exploitation

I'm not calling out NWA as much as I am the proponents of exploitation

the 80s brought an entirely different animal....for the industry brought forth music thru the form of video, now you had a visual influence that impacted on a level never seen before

just because occurences happened in the past before our age, that doesn't mean we should just sit there and accept anything, because of that indifferent attitude, that's why we have so much crap on the airwaves today,

oh, because of the decline in music, that has directly correlated with the decline in radio as well

because once the opportunist rake the culture blind and leave behind destruction...what do they do?...they do nothing but flee and leave the community w/out the means to pick up the pieces

an entire culture has been eviscerated, and because of that, there's a stark possibility we may never experience a new genre of music to ever be created in the future

[Edited 1/10/13 21:03pm]

interesting article!

Wow! Those are his lyrics?? I knew that Drake was terrible,I just didn't realize that he was that terrible

theAudience said:

R&B is now dominated by rhythms, with song structure being secondary and lyrics an embarrassing afterthought. R&B/Hip-Hop's biggest artist of 2012 was likely Drake. And his biggest song was "The Motto." So, where does Drake place on the lyrics bar? Here is the first verse of "The Motto" (and it just gets worse from there):

I'm the f---in' man, y'all don't get it, do ya?
Type of money, everybody acting like they knew ya
Go Uptown, New York City, bitch
Them Spanish girls love me like I'm Aventura
Tell Uncle Luke I'm out in Miami, too
Clubbing hard, f---ing women, there ain't much to do

daPrettyman said:

I agree with this article 1000%. It's what I've been saying to people for the last few years. It's as if the r&b songwriter is gone and the beat makers have taken over. Nothing wrong with beat makers, but a lot of these people don't know how to write clever lyrics or tell stories. It's as if they all want to sing about "beating it up" and getting high. These themes have been present in popular music, but come on....I don't want to hear about "beating it up" in every popular song.

I agree that the writer should not have used a Drake song to make his point, but he is telling the truth. When I listen to Trey Songz's music, I just shake my head in disbelief that little girls are buying this guy's music and his whole content is how he is a "panty wetter" and he makes "love faces."

I agree.When I was growing up in the 70s,R&B songs were written by amazing songwriters like Thom Bell,Gamble and Huff,Stevie Wonder,Maurice White,Marvin Gaye and many other talented folks.I don't really hear alot of great songwriting in much of today's R&B music.

TD3 said:

Timmy84 said:

The more I read this thread, the more I get the same kind of rant. Rhythm and blues changed so much over the years that people who don't investigate its history are left to wonder where the real R&B lied. Many think R&B died a quick death, around the time Motown and Stax was created and people started going for former gospel singers who brought the church to the nightclubs. Some here think R&B died when they married "You know I love you baby" with "hip-hop you don't stop". It's an never-ending cycle.

Same with other forms of music. Like I said, country, pop music, rock, today's versions of the genres that "shaped popular music" are not the same.

Personally I think Ray Charles is somewhere in Heaven or whatever shaking his head at this article after someone gave him a Brailie copy of it.

[Edited 1/10/13 18:25pm]

I don't think anyone here said anything about R&B music dying or being died, some have questioned the quality of R&B music.

Yes ma'am!

Believe me I have walked down the "Its out there, you have to look for it" road, and many times might I add, so nobody can accuse me of being lazy & financially unsupportive. But hell, who has enough energy and motivation for that bullshit any ore? Some folks here might have a memory of a sardine, but I'd like to remind them that there was a time when listeners didn't have to look for shit, it was right there in the charts/radio for them to make up their mind on.

And no matter how folks like to dance around the issue and make it seem like everything is still A-okay, its a testimony of the time when the majority of people with actual vocal abilities and musical talent sign with indie deals(once in a blue moon with a major label) and still remain unnoticed.

Harlepolis said:

Some folks here might have a memory of a sardine, but...

PDogz said:

Harlepolis said:

Some folks here might have a memory of a sardine, but...

Tell me I'm wrong

Some interesting opinions here.
I think the author makes some valid broad points.

Compare that to R&B/hiphop's biggest acts: How many 50 year olds are listening to Wiz Khalifa or even Usher now? As we've written about before, adult fans have simply been ignored by the modern R&B establishment, including broadcast radio.

Harlepolis said:

PDogz said:

Tell me I'm wrong

Scorp said:

TD3 said:

He's absolutely right. Wherever the Black community lived, music surrounded us 24/7, in walking distance, you couldn't get away from it. I would add, integration was a factor in R&B/Soul/ Funk decline. It use to be like politics, all music was local. I look at some of these artist and you ask were did they come from? Back in the day an artist cut his or her musical teeth playing places in their region, that's where the buzz the word of mouth started. Now these artist appear to come out of nowhere. Not to speak of the access to music education which was usually free or for a nominal fee. All that is gone, never to return.

this article is 100% right, but attacks the result rather than the cause..the victim rather than the perpetrator

during the summer of 1987, during the fourth of july holiday, I was 15 years old

and during that weekend.....I was over my older cousin's house....it was late evening/early night

I sat down in the front of her porch on the steps, and took in the whole scene and I sat there by myself....

and what I saw was our community transforming right before our eyes as if it was happening overnight. I saw young cats blasting NWA and their song DOPEMAN, throwing up gang signs, calling young girls hoochies (this was a year or two before hoes and bitches became the vernacular)...A voice inside my head asked what the f*** is going on. I felt this negative force overtake the minds and the conscious of the neighborhoods and the generation of youth that I was growing up in. the heart grew heavy and I said on that day WE ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE and God is my witness...I never forgot that day, because as we fast forward some 25-26 years, I see those feelings of unease has been justified

You just described the infancy stages of shit hop. We had it too back then but it was completely underground. The only rap that was being played on the R&B stations back in the late 1980s was the danceable type rap such as LA Dream Team "Dream Team Is In The House", Freestyle "It's Automatic", Egyptian Lover "Freak-A-Holic", Afro Rican "Give It All You Got", etc. and that's the way it should have been and should have remained. Shit hop wasn't played because it didn't even sound like like an actual "song", just a beat with some talking over it. We had a public radio station that played a variety of music throughout the day. During the week, it was black gospel in the daytime, blues at night, and reggae after midnight. On the weekends, they had the same format but they had a one hour mix show and I love mixing. During this mixshow, I discovered house music for the first time around 1985 or 1986 even before I ever stepped foot into a gay club in 1990 where house dominated. The mixshow also had some fast rap that didn't make it onto R&B radio such as Gigolo Tony "Smurf Rap, Sir Mix-A-Lot "Square Dance Rap", 2 Live Crew "Throw The D" (The clean version...I bought the 12 inch to get the dirty version ), The Megatrons "Rock The Planet", etc. But every now and then, the DJ would get on this kick and play the slowest, dullest, stripped down rap that was absolutely boring as hell and sounded like nothing but a beat with some talking over it. This was shit hop.

See, as for all the "searching to find good music" arguements, I've been there and done that as far back as 1985, years before the internet. I did so because, even though there were still plenty of jams on R&B radio, with each month and year that went by back then, they were becoming fewer and further between because more and more adult contemporary was being played on R&B radio, much more than ever before. I found that public radio station where I discovered house music, I used to search for out of town AM stations that would only come in at night and they would be full of static, and I also spent tons of money buying 12 Inch singles I had never heard before, basically just taking a chance that it was going to be good and back then, you could do that because a lot of the hardcore jams were released on 12 Inch singles only until shit hop came along and it being rap, was also released on 12 Inch singles also so sometimes I would end up throwing records away and just losing my money because record stores don't give refunds. That's one of the main reasons it pisses me off when some internet searching person tells me "there's good music out there but you have to search for it" because they've had it easy. I've been there and done that long before the internet existed when it was not easy to search and wasted a lot of money doing it by taking chances on what I bought. Then you finally get to the point that you shouldn't have to search. Having to search for good music didn't just start recently, it started in the late 1980s and I'm getting damn tired of searching for it and shouldn't have to. And I wasn't older either, I was 18. Enough is enough already. I'm tired of the "live and let live" attitude because the dead dull asses haven't let the party people live. They've shut them completely out and have taken over. I'm at the point now that if you're an artist and you can't throwdown, you need to sit your fucking ass down. If it sounds mean, I don't care because I've had enough.

You're right about the shit hop influencing people for the worst also. When I was under 18, the way underage people partied was in the skating rinks. I graduated high school in 1985 so that means I was underage in the early 1980s. The skating rinks were packed every weekend back then. Me loving R&B and having black friends, naturally I went skating on the nights that were called the "Super Soul Skate Night", in other words "black night". I was the only white person in there except for one white girl that had a black boyfriend that we all used to call "Teena Marie" and where my head was at back then, if another white person came in there, I would get jealous. I gave "Teena" a pass. Hey, you live and you learn and as I got older, I changed. Anyway, the skating rink would be literally elbow to elbow with black people, I'm talking like 2000 of them. I'm not exaggerating either, I remember the fire marshall came in one night and shut the place down for being over capacity. Cars were parked up and down the street on both sides of the road. My mother used to drop me off and then come back and pick me up. One night, her car broke down and my grandmother ended up having to pick me up at one o'clock in the morning right as it closed. She pulls up and when I get in the car she says..."Get in this car! I'm scared for my life! Ain't no black folks on the street because they're all up in here! What the hell is wrong with your mother dropping you off here!". However, she couldn't have been further from the truth. It was completely safe. The worst thing that happened back then was someone smoking weed in the restroom or an occassional fight between two people but fights didn't happen often, everyone was too busy having a good time.

Skating went on until around 1991 or 1992 or so but I was grown and partying as an adult in clubs by then. I went skating once right before it ended just for old times sake and it was a completely different scene that it had been before. It was downright dull. Shit hop, which had previously been underground, was above ground then and blaring from the speakers. The welcoming attitude of the people who had previously been in there was replaced by people with hard looks on their faces like "What the fuck are you doing in here". There must have been four or five fights that night also. It just wasn't a friendly or party scene whatsoever anymore. I was partying in the black gay clubs by then and they played house music and there was none of that bullshit except for the gay bashers driving by and shooting (which is a total different story). Back to the skating rink though, I turned on the news one day, and a gang have driven by and shot the outside of the place up. They caught one of the gang members and his name was "Papa Smurf". The idiots couldn't even come up with original names of their own and the gang was the "Vice Lords". Well hell, those fools just got that name off an old rerun of "Good Times", they couldn't even come up with an original name for their gang either. Then, the place got shot up again a few months later, and again about a year later. Finally, they just closed the place down. They tried to revive it at another skating rink around 1996 and it ended up with a shooting where two people died and they closed up right after that. To my surprise, I see there is still one skating rink open to this very day and it has been open all this time. However, it never had an all R&B night, or "black night", and it's also in a suburb town where I now live and those police out here don't put up with no shit. Hell, I got a seatbelt ticket for $75 and in Jackson, it would have only costed me $25. From what I hear though, that skating rink consists of mainly smaller kids who aren't even teenagers yet.

A lot of people keep saying that the reason younger people keep getting into trouble these days is because there is nowhere for them to go like we used to have somewhere to go. Well, we've been there and done that with them. There was even talk a few years ago of building a skating rink so they will have a place to go. Have they forgotten about the skating rink shootings of the 1990s? Well, it's even worse now then it was then. Unlike us, their music is too damn slow to skate to and also unlike us, their music has continuously promoted violence, not only though it's lyrics, but also from the thugged out look of the artists that make the music. Our music consisted of "Shake shake it baby...shake shake it....shake shake it mama....shake it for me.....let me see you do it on the dance floor baby". In other words, the majority of it was about partying and having a good time which are things that are needed for a party atmosphere, not a bunch of violent attitude. Yes, that's their rebellion, and all young people rebelled. But our rebellion was the music itself, moreso than the lyrics or the image of the artist. Nothing was cooler back then than to hear old folks bitch about that "bumpitty bump" music whose rhythm came straight from the devil himself. The sound of the music itself was our rebellion, it had nothing to do with violence or negativity. Sure, there were exceptions like negative artists like Prince who sang about sex and Rick James who sang about drugs, but the majority of them just sang about shaking ass on the dance floor. And when a whole lot of adult contemporary artists such as little miss goodie two shoes, Anita Baker, Freddie Jackson, Miki Howard, etc. started flooding the airwaves, more and more music became "parent friendly". Those aren't the type of artists that would make your grandmother holler..."Turn down that infernal heatherness bumbitty bump shit"....Hell, those are the type that she would say...."Oh, what purty music"....Hell, that's not "cool". So what replaced the rebellion void after the adult contemporary artists eventually killed off funk? Shit hop replaced the void with it's not only violent lyrics, but violent look and attitude also.

And you're also right about the crossover aspect of it. It was bad enough when R&B artists would water down their funk in attempts to get white listeners and get onto white radio because the quality of the music suffered because of it. But when young white boys discovered shit hop, shit hop became another way for them to get onto white radio. And while these young black kids were shooting up the places where they hung out and killing each other, the little white boys were listening to it from the safety of their nice suburban homes and neighborhoods with their white friends. Someone here on the org described it perfectly, I can't remember who it was though. White kids saw shit hop as like an angry lion but it's in a cage at the zoo so they can watch it, enjoy it, and still be safe. While black kids were inside the cage with the angry lion at the angy lion's mercy.

Harlepolis said:

TD3 said:

I don't think anyone here said anything about R&B music dying or being died, some have questioned the quality of R&B music.

Yes ma'am!

Believe me I have walked down the "Its out there, you have to look for it" road, and many times might I add, so nobody can accuse me of being lazy & financially unsupportive. But hell, who has enough energy and motivation for that bullshit any ore? Some folks here might have a memory of a sardine, but I'd like to remind them that there was a time when listeners didn't have to look for shit, it was right there in the charts/radio for them to make up their mind on.

And no matter how folks like to dance around the issue and make it seem like everything is still A-okay, its a testimony of the time when the majority of people with actual vocal abilities and musical talent sign with indie deals(once in a blue moon with a major label) and still remain unnoticed.

Damn right. I see you totally get it. You shouldn't HAVE to search for something. And true enough, if you search hard enough, you can find it. But when you do find it, you're the only damn person that's ever heard it before so you'll be listening to it alone. What are you gonna do once you find it? Listen to it alone and jack off? Good music needs to be in the mainstream so everyone is aware of it and you can listen to it in an elbow to elbow room and have someone else jack you off.

Wow... I stayed up way too late reading this thread but it was so intrigueing I couldn't stop.

Good choice of subject matter, tA and Scorp... dayam, you got a best seller book in ya; I hope to read it some day. Your points are very insightful and well presented. I feel ya. Deep man, deep.

Ain't got much to add myself cuz I avoid country music like the plague and have no idea what's happening out there in the world today. Last time I heard a country song was on an airplane where one of the channels was pop songs.

Shania Twain's Forever and For Always came on and being a captive audience I had to listen to it. I must admit it won me over and for a brief minute I thought I oughta be more open minded and listen to some more of this stuff but that sentiment that didn't last long.

In fact that was 2002 and I've been happily free of that twangy sound ever since.

And now you guys have gone and shaken me out of my long slumber, darn it.

Can anyone suggest something to get me reacquainted with what the fuss is all about? But please be kind to an old funkster and shoot me something not too twangy and with some positive and thoughtful lyrics.

theAudience said:

Songwriting

Every great era of music has been led by songwriting, and R&B's greatest times boasted not only fine tunes but also insightful lyrics that reached their listeners. For Motown, the basis was clever wordplay about love, for Philly the messages mixed romance with social and political statements. Similarly, Country music has a long legacy of being "storytelling music," and strong, established songwriting teams still drive the genre. Country lyrics may vary from spiritual to R-rated, but they continue to set the bar for the entire industry and make an firm, emotional connection with audiences. Unfortunately, R&B can't make that same claim. With some notable exceptions -- mostly on the indie circuit -- R&B is now dominated by rhythms, with song structure being secondary and lyrics an embarrassing afterthought.

I very much agree with this and in fact have a vague memory of making a very similar point on this site some years ago. Country music places an emphasis on song structure that I think is glaringly absent in most other forms of pop these days, and it's been that way for quite some time. Most pop music is all about beats, and I can appreciate beats but ultimately what usually makes music last for me is melody and structure.

vainandy said:

Scorp said:

this article is 100% right, but attacks the result rather than the cause..the victim rather than the perpetrator

during the summer of 1987, during the fourth of july holiday, I was 15 years old

and during that weekend.....I was over my older cousin's house....it was late evening/early night

I sat down in the front of her porch on the steps, and took in the whole scene and I sat there by myself....

and what I saw was our community transforming right before our eyes as if it was happening overnight. I saw young cats blasting NWA and their song DOPEMAN, throwing up gang signs, calling young girls hoochies (this was a year or two before hoes and bitches became the vernacular)...A voice inside my head asked what the f*** is going on. I felt this negative force overtake the minds and the conscious of the neighborhoods and the generation of youth that I was growing up in. the heart grew heavy and I said on that day WE ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE and God is my witness...I never forgot that day, because as we fast forward some 25-26 years, I see those feelings of unease has been justified

You just described the infancy stages of shit hop. We had it too back then but it was completely underground. The only rap that was being played on the R&B stations back in the late 1980s was the danceable type rap such as LA Dream Team "Dream Team Is In The House", Freestyle "It's Automatic", Egyptian Lover "Freak-A-Holic", Afro Rican "Give It All You Got", etc. and that's the way it should have been and should have remained. Shit hop wasn't played because it didn't even sound like like an actual "song", just a beat with some talking over it. We had a public radio station that played a variety of music throughout the day. During the week, it was black gospel in the daytime, blues at night, and reggae after midnight. On the weekends, they had the same format but they had a one hour mix show and I love mixing. During this mixshow, I discovered house music for the first time around 1985 or 1986 even before I ever stepped foot into a gay club in 1990 where house dominated. The mixshow also had some fast rap that didn't make it onto R&B radio such as Gigolo Tony "Smurf Rap, Sir Mix-A-Lot "Square Dance Rap", 2 Live Crew "Throw The D" (The clean version...I bought the 12 inch to get the dirty version ), The Megatrons "Rock The Planet", etc. But every now and then, the DJ would get on this kick and play the slowest, dullest, stripped down rap that was absolutely boring as hell and sounded like nothing but a beat with some talking over it. This was shit hop.

See, as for all the "searching to find good music" arguements, I've been there and done that as far back as 1985, years before the internet. I did so because, even though there were still plenty of jams on R&B radio, with each month and year that went by back then, they were becoming fewer and further between because more and more adult contemporary was being played on R&B radio, much more than ever before. I found that public radio station where I discovered house music, I used to search for out of town AM stations that would only come in at night and they would be full of static, and I also spent tons of money buying 12 Inch singles I had never heard before, basically just taking a chance that it was going to be good and back then, you could do that because a lot of the hardcore jams were released on 12 Inch singles only until shit hop came along and it being rap, was also released on 12 Inch singles also so sometimes I would end up throwing records away and just losing my money because record stores don't give refunds. That's one of the main reasons it pisses me off when some internet searching person tells me "there's good music out there but you have to search for it" because they've had it easy. I've been there and done that long before the internet existed when it was not easy to search and wasted a lot of money doing it by taking chances on what I bought. Then you finally get to the point that you shouldn't have to search. Having to search for good music didn't just start recently, it started in the late 1980s and I'm getting damn tired of searching for it and shouldn't have to. And I wasn't older either, I was 18. Enough is enough already. I'm tired of the "live and let live" attitude because the dead dull asses haven't let the party people live. They've shut them completely out and have taken over. I'm at the point now that if you're an artist and you can't throwdown, you need to sit your fucking ass down. If it sounds mean, I don't care because I've had enough.

You're right about the shit hop influencing people for the worst also. When I was under 18, the way underage people partied was in the skating rinks. I graduated high school in 1985 so that means I was underage in the early 1980s. The skating rinks were packed every weekend back then. Me loving R&B and having black friends, naturally I went skating on the nights that were called the "Super Soul Skate Night", in other words "black night". I was the only white person in there except for one white girl that had a black boyfriend that we all used to call "Teena Marie" and where my head was at back then, if another white person came in there, I would get jealous. I gave "Teena" a pass. Hey, you live and you learn and as I got older, I changed. Anyway, the skating rink would be literally elbow to elbow with black people, I'm talking like 2000 of them. I'm not exaggerating either, I remember the fire marshall came in one night and shut the place down for being over capacity. Cars were parked up and down the street on both sides of the road. My mother used to drop me off and then come back and pick me up. One night, her car broke down and my grandmother ended up having to pick me up at one o'clock in the morning right as it closed. She pulls up and when I get in the car she says..."Get in this car! I'm scared for my life! Ain't no black folks on the street because they're all up in here! What the hell is wrong with your mother dropping you off here!". However, she couldn't have been further from the truth. It was completely safe. The worst thing that happened back then was someone smoking weed in the restroom or an occassional fight between two people but fights didn't happen often, everyone was too busy having a good time.

Skating went on until around 1991 or 1992 or so but I was grown and partying as an adult in clubs by then. I went skating once right before it ended just for old times sake and it was a completely different scene that it had been before. It was downright dull. Shit hop, which had previously been underground, was above ground then and blaring from the speakers. The welcoming attitude of the people who had previously been in there was replaced by people with hard looks on their faces like "What the fuck are you doing in here". There must have been four or five fights that night also. It just wasn't a friendly or party scene whatsoever anymore. I was partying in the black gay clubs by then and they played house music and there was none of that bullshit except for the gay bashers driving by and shooting (which is a total different story). Back to the skating rink though, I turned on the news one day, and a gang have driven by and shot the outside of the place up. They caught one of the gang members and his name was "Papa Smurf". The idiots couldn't even come up with original names of their own and the gang was the "Vice Lords". Well hell, those fools just got that name off an old rerun of "Good Times", they couldn't even come up with an original name for their gang either. Then, the place got shot up again a few months later, and again about a year later. Finally, they just closed the place down. They tried to revive it at another skating rink around 1996 and it ended up with a shooting where two people died and they closed up right after that. To my surprise, I see there is still one skating rink open to this very day and it has been open all this time. However, it never had an all R&B night, or "black night", and it's also in a suburb town where I now live and those police out here don't put up with no shit. Hell, I got a seatbelt ticket for $75 and in Jackson, it would have only costed me $25. From what I hear though, that skating rink consists of mainly smaller kids who aren't even teenagers yet.

A lot of people keep saying that the reason younger people keep getting into trouble these days is because there is nowhere for them to go like we used to have somewhere to go. Well, we've been there and done that with them. There was even talk a few years ago of building a skating rink so they will have a place to go. Have they forgotten about the skating rink shootings of the 1990s? Well, it's even worse now then it was then. Unlike us, their music is too damn slow to skate to and also unlike us, their music has continuously promoted violence, not only though it's lyrics, but also from the thugged out look of the artists that make the music. Our music consisted of "Shake shake it baby...shake shake it....shake shake it mama....shake it for me.....let me see you do it on the dance floor baby". In other words, the majority of it was about partying and having a good time which are things that are needed for a party atmosphere, not a bunch of violent attitude. Yes, that's their rebellion, and all young people rebelled. But our rebellion was the music itself, moreso than the lyrics or the image of the artist. Nothing was cooler back then than to hear old folks bitch about that "bumpitty bump" music whose rhythm came straight from the devil himself. The sound of the music itself was our rebellion, it had nothing to do with violence or negativity. Sure, there were exceptions like negative artists like Prince who sang about sex and Rick James who sang about drugs, but the majority of them just sang about shaking ass on the dance floor. And when a whole lot of adult contemporary artists such as little miss goodie two shoes, Anita Baker, Freddie Jackson, Miki Howard, etc. started flooding the airwaves, more and more music became "parent friendly". Those aren't the type of artists that would make your grandmother holler..."Turn down that infernal heatherness bumbitty bump shit"....Hell, those are the type that she would say...."Oh, what purty music"....Hell, that's not "cool". So what replaced the rebellion void after the adult contemporary artists eventually killed off funk? Shit hop replaced the void with it's not only violent lyrics, but violent look and attitude also.

And you're also right about the crossover aspect of it. It was bad enough when R&B artists would water down their funk in attempts to get white listeners and get onto white radio because the quality of the music suffered because of it. But when young white boys discovered shit hop, shit hop became another way for them to get onto white radio. And while these young black kids were shooting up the places where they hung out and killing each other, the little white boys were listening to it from the safety of their nice suburban homes and neighborhoods with their white friends. Someone here on the org described it perfectly, I can't remember who it was though. White kids saw shit hop as like an angry lion but it's in a cage at the zoo so they can watch it, enjoy it, and still be safe. While black kids were inside the cage with the angry lion at the angy lion's mercy.

awesome, awesome, awesome....and more awesome

I loved everything you shared and appreciate how you pointed to the void in our music that has expanded to every facet of cultural expression.....because there is a huuuuuuge void left from the exploitation that took place during that time

music is shaped by the degree of its culture

the richer the culture, the richer the music, when culture becomes exploited and misrepresented, it creates a great deal of hostility, which reflects in today's music w/the lyrical content being expressed.....

the forefathers who crafted hip-hop in the NYC city burroughs during the mid 70s, in 1977-1978, those grandmasters issued a stark warning.....they said if this music was ever commercialized, not only would it be destroyed, but create much damage along the way....

they knew they had crafted something special. it was no meant for commercial consumption but provide a voice for the people who's voice was neglected for so long

as you shared, when you have to start "searching for good music", we're already in trouble

there's so much I want to respond to.....once I get my computer fixed by early next week, I definitely will...great stuff

vainandy said:

You just described the infancy stages of shit hop. We had it too back then but it was completely underground. The only rap that was being played on the R&B stations back in the late 1980s was the danceable type rap such as LA Dream Team "Dream Team Is In The House", Freestyle "It's Automatic", Egyptian Lover "Freak-A-Holic", Afro Rican "Give It All You Got", etc. and that's the way it should have been and should have remained. Shit hop wasn't played because it didn't even sound like like an actual "song", just a beat with some talking over it. We had a public radio station that played a variety of music throughout the day. During the week, it was black gospel in the daytime, blues at night, and reggae after midnight. On the weekends, they had the same format but they had a one hour mix show and I love mixing. During this mixshow, I discovered house music for the first time around 1985 or 1986 even before I ever stepped foot into a gay club in 1990 where house dominated. The mixshow also had some fast rap that didn't make it onto R&B radio such as Gigolo Tony "Smurf Rap, Sir Mix-A-Lot "Square Dance Rap", 2 Live Crew "Throw The D" (The clean version...I bought the 12 inch to get the dirty version ), The Megatrons "Rock The Planet", etc. But every now and then, the DJ would get on this kick and play the slowest, dullest, stripped down rap that was absolutely boring as hell and sounded like nothing but a beat with some talking over it. This was shit hop.

See, as for all the "searching to find good music" arguements, I've been there and done that as far back as 1985, years before the internet. I did so because, even though there were still plenty of jams on R&B radio, with each month and year that went by back then, they were becoming fewer and further between because more and more adult contemporary was being played on R&B radio, much more than ever before. I found that public radio station where I discovered house music, I used to search for out of town AM stations that would only come in at night and they would be full of static, and I also spent tons of money buying 12 Inch singles I had never heard before, basically just taking a chance that it was going to be good and back then, you could do that because a lot of the hardcore jams were released on 12 Inch singles only until shit hop came along and it being rap, was also released on 12 Inch singles also so sometimes I would end up throwing records away and just losing my money because record stores don't give refunds. That's one of the main reasons it pisses me off when some internet searching person tells me "there's good music out there but you have to search for it" because they've had it easy. I've been there and done that long before the internet existed when it was not easy to search and wasted a lot of money doing it by taking chances on what I bought. Then you finally get to the point that you shouldn't have to search. Having to search for good music didn't just start recently, it started in the late 1980s and I'm getting damn tired of searching for it and shouldn't have to. And I wasn't older either, I was 18. Enough is enough already. I'm tired of the "live and let live" attitude because the dead dull asses haven't let the party people live. They've shut them completely out and have taken over. I'm at the point now that if you're an artist and you can't throwdown, you need to sit your fucking ass down. If it sounds mean, I don't care because I've had enough.

You're right about the shit hop influencing people for the worst also. When I was under 18, the way underage people partied was in the skating rinks. I graduated high school in 1985 so that means I was underage in the early 1980s. The skating rinks were packed every weekend back then. Me loving R&B and having black friends, naturally I went skating on the nights that were called the "Super Soul Skate Night", in other words "black night". I was the only white person in there except for one white girl that had a black boyfriend that we all used to call "Teena Marie" and where my head was at back then, if another white person came in there, I would get jealous. I gave "Teena" a pass. Hey, you live and you learn and as I got older, I changed. Anyway, the skating rink would be literally elbow to elbow with black people, I'm talking like 2000 of them. I'm not exaggerating either, I remember the fire marshall came in one night and shut the place down for being over capacity. Cars were parked up and down the street on both sides of the road. My mother used to drop me off and then come back and pick me up. One night, her car broke down and my grandmother ended up having to pick me up at one o'clock in the morning right as it closed. She pulls up and when I get in the car she says..."Get in this car! I'm scared for my life! Ain't no black folks on the street because they're all up in here! What the hell is wrong with your mother dropping you off here!". However, she couldn't have been further from the truth. It was completely safe. The worst thing that happened back then was someone smoking weed in the restroom or an occassional fight between two people but fights didn't happen often, everyone was too busy having a good time.

Skating went on until around 1991 or 1992 or so but I was grown and partying as an adult in clubs by then. I went skating once right before it ended just for old times sake and it was a completely different scene that it had been before. It was downright dull. Shit hop, which had previously been underground, was above ground then and blaring from the speakers. The welcoming attitude of the people who had previously been in there was replaced by people with hard looks on their faces like "What the fuck are you doing in here". There must have been four or five fights that night also. It just wasn't a friendly or party scene whatsoever anymore. I was partying in the black gay clubs by then and they played house music and there was none of that bullshit except for the gay bashers driving by and shooting (which is a total different story). Back to the skating rink though, I turned on the news one day, and a gang have driven by and shot the outside of the place up. They caught one of the gang members and his name was "Papa Smurf". The idiots couldn't even come up with original names of their own and the gang was the "Vice Lords". Well hell, those fools just got that name off an old rerun of "Good Times", they couldn't even come up with an original name for their gang either. Then, the place got shot up again a few months later, and again about a year later. Finally, they just closed the place down. They tried to revive it at another skating rink around 1996 and it ended up with a shooting where two people died and they closed up right after that. To my surprise, I see there is still one skating rink open to this very day and it has been open all this time. However, it never had an all R&B night, or "black night", and it's also in a suburb town where I now live and those police out here don't put up with no shit. Hell, I got a seatbelt ticket for $75 and in Jackson, it would have only costed me $25. From what I hear though, that skating rink consists of mainly smaller kids who aren't even teenagers yet.

A lot of people keep saying that the reason younger people keep getting into trouble these days is because there is nowhere for them to go like we used to have somewhere to go. Well, we've been there and done that with them. There was even talk a few years ago of building a skating rink so they will have a place to go. Have they forgotten about the skating rink shootings of the 1990s? Well, it's even worse now then it was then. Unlike us, their music is too damn slow to skate to and also unlike us, their music has continuously promoted violence, not only though it's lyrics, but also from the thugged out look of the artists that make the music. Our music consisted of "Shake shake it baby...shake shake it....shake shake it mama....shake it for me.....let me see you do it on the dance floor baby". In other words, the majority of it was about partying and having a good time which are things that are needed for a party atmosphere, not a bunch of violent attitude. Yes, that's their rebellion, and all young people rebelled. But our rebellion was the music itself, moreso than the lyrics or the image of the artist. Nothing was cooler back then than to hear old folks bitch about that "bumpitty bump" music whose rhythm came straight from the devil himself. The sound of the music itself was our rebellion, it had nothing to do with violence or negativity. Sure, there were exceptions like negative artists like Prince who sang about sex and Rick James who sang about drugs, but the majority of them just sang about shaking ass on the dance floor. And when a whole lot of adult contemporary artists such as little miss goodie two shoes, Anita Baker, Freddie Jackson, Miki Howard, etc. started flooding the airwaves, more and more music became "parent friendly". Those aren't the type of artists that would make your grandmother holler..."Turn down that infernal heatherness bumbitty bump shit"....Hell, those are the type that she would say...."Oh, what purty music"....Hell, that's not "cool". So what replaced the rebellion void after the adult contemporary artists eventually killed off funk? Shit hop replaced the void with it's not only violent lyrics, but violent look and attitude also.

And you're also right about the crossover aspect of it. It was bad enough when R&B artists would water down their funk in attempts to get white listeners and get onto white radio because the quality of the music suffered because of it. But when young white boys discovered shit hop, shit hop became another way for them to get onto white radio. And while these young black kids were shooting up the places where they hung out and killing each other, the little white boys were listening to it from the safety of their nice suburban homes and neighborhoods with their white friends. Someone here on the org described it perfectly, I can't remember who it was though. White kids saw shit hop as like an angry lion but it's in a cage at the zoo so they can watch it, enjoy it, and still be safe. While black kids were inside the cage with the angry lion at the angy lion's mercy.

Damnit, Andy. PREACH !!!

vainandy said:

See, as for all the "searching to find good music" arguements, I've been there and done that as far back as 1985, years before the internet.

People that listen to certain types of music always had to "look for it". Decades ago, how did people who listened to polka or zydeco find their records? They received little if any radio airplay. What about "party records" like Moms Mabley or speeches? Other than that one album that became a hit in the early 1990's, when did records of monks chanting get a lot of publicity? Radio played "smooth jazz", but not "free jazz". Today, if I want to find a new act that makes Lawrence Welk/Percy Faith type of easy listening music, I won't find it by listening to the radio or watching TV. That music has been out of mainstream favor for decades. The big stations played records that would appeal to a large audience, so they can get advertising dollars. Many of the records were played because of payola/gifts from the record companies, the same as today. The music you think is bad is good to the people who buy it. Most people don't listen to or buy music they don't like.

DakutiusMaximus said:

Can anyone suggest something to get me reacquainted with what the fuss is all about? But please be kind to an old funkster and shoot me something not too twangy and with some positive and thoughtful lyrics.

Maybe this is more your speed:

http://prince.org/msg/8/384990

Scorp said:

vainandy said:

You just described the infancy stages of shit hop. We had it too back then but it was completely underground. The only rap that was being played on the R&B stations back in the late 1980s was the danceable type rap such as LA Dream Team "Dream Team Is In The House", Freestyle "It's Automatic", Egyptian Lover "Freak-A-Holic", Afro Rican "Give It All You Got", etc. and that's the way it should have been and should have remained. Shit hop wasn't played because it didn't even sound like like an actual "song", just a beat with some talking over it. We had a public radio station that played a variety of music throughout the day. During the week, it was black gospel in the daytime, blues at night, and reggae after midnight. On the weekends, they had the same format but they had a one hour mix show and I love mixing. During this mixshow, I discovered house music for the first time around 1985 or 1986 even before I ever stepped foot into a gay club in 1990 where house dominated. The mixshow also had some fast rap that didn't make it onto R&B radio such as Gigolo Tony "Smurf Rap, Sir Mix-A-Lot "Square Dance Rap", 2 Live Crew "Throw The D" (The clean version...I bought the 12 inch to get the dirty version ), The Megatrons "Rock The Planet", etc. But every now and then, the DJ would get on this kick and play the slowest, dullest, stripped down rap that was absolutely boring as hell and sounded like nothing but a beat with some talking over it. This was shit hop.

See, as for all the "searching to find good music" arguements, I've been there and done that as far back as 1985, years before the internet. I did so because, even though there were still plenty of jams on R&B radio, with each month and year that went by back then, they were becoming fewer and further between because more and more adult contemporary was being played on R&B radio, much more than ever before. I found that public radio station where I discovered house music, I used to search for out of town AM stations that would only come in at night and they would be full of static, and I also spent tons of money buying 12 Inch singles I had never heard before, basically just taking a chance that it was going to be good and back then, you could do that because a lot of the hardcore jams were released on 12 Inch singles only until shit hop came along and it being rap, was also released on 12 Inch singles also so sometimes I would end up throwing records away and just losing my money because record stores don't give refunds. That's one of the main reasons it pisses me off when some internet searching person tells me "there's good music out there but you have to search for it" because they've had it easy. I've been there and done that long before the internet existed when it was not easy to search and wasted a lot of money doing it by taking chances on what I bought. Then you finally get to the point that you shouldn't have to search. Having to search for good music didn't just start recently, it started in the late 1980s and I'm getting damn tired of searching for it and shouldn't have to. And I wasn't older either, I was 18. Enough is enough already. I'm tired of the "live and let live" attitude because the dead dull asses haven't let the party people live. They've shut them completely out and have taken over. I'm at the point now that if you're an artist and you can't throwdown, you need to sit your fucking ass down. If it sounds mean, I don't care because I've had enough.

You're right about the shit hop influencing people for the worst also. When I was under 18, the way underage people partied was in the skating rinks. I graduated high school in 1985 so that means I was underage in the early 1980s. The skating rinks were packed every weekend back then. Me loving R&B and having black friends, naturally I went skating on the nights that were called the "Super Soul Skate Night", in other words "black night". I was the only white person in there except for one white girl that had a black boyfriend that we all used to call "Teena Marie" and where my head was at back then, if another white person came in there, I would get jealous. I gave "Teena" a pass. Hey, you live and you learn and as I got older, I changed. Anyway, the skating rink would be literally elbow to elbow with black people, I'm talking like 2000 of them. I'm not exaggerating either, I remember the fire marshall came in one night and shut the place down for being over capacity. Cars were parked up and down the street on both sides of the road. My mother used to drop me off and then come back and pick me up. One night, her car broke down and my grandmother ended up having to pick me up at one o'clock in the morning right as it closed. She pulls up and when I get in the car she says..."Get in this car! I'm scared for my life! Ain't no black folks on the street because they're all up in here! What the hell is wrong with your mother dropping you off here!". However, she couldn't have been further from the truth. It was completely safe. The worst thing that happened back then was someone smoking weed in the restroom or an occassional fight between two people but fights didn't happen often, everyone was too busy having a good time.

Skating went on until around 1991 or 1992 or so but I was grown and partying as an adult in clubs by then. I went skating once right before it ended just for old times sake and it was a completely different scene that it had been before. It was downright dull. Shit hop, which had previously been underground, was above ground then and blaring from the speakers. The welcoming attitude of the people who had previously been in there was replaced by people with hard looks on their faces like "What the fuck are you doing in here". There must have been four or five fights that night also. It just wasn't a friendly or party scene whatsoever anymore. I was partying in the black gay clubs by then and they played house music and there was none of that bullshit except for the gay bashers driving by and shooting (which is a total different story). Back to the skating rink though, I turned on the news one day, and a gang have driven by and shot the outside of the place up. They caught one of the gang members and his name was "Papa Smurf". The idiots couldn't even come up with original names of their own and the gang was the "Vice Lords". Well hell, those fools just got that name off an old rerun of "Good Times", they couldn't even come up with an original name for their gang either. Then, the place got shot up again a few months later, and again about a year later. Finally, they just closed the place down. They tried to revive it at another skating rink around 1996 and it ended up with a shooting where two people died and they closed up right after that. To my surprise, I see there is still one skating rink open to this very day and it has been open all this time. However, it never had an all R&B night, or "black night", and it's also in a suburb town where I now live and those police out here don't put up with no shit. Hell, I got a seatbelt ticket for $75 and in Jackson, it would have only costed me $25. From what I hear though, that skating rink consists of mainly smaller kids who aren't even teenagers yet.

A lot of people keep saying that the reason younger people keep getting into trouble these days is because there is nowhere for them to go like we used to have somewhere to go. Well, we've been there and done that with them. There was even talk a few years ago of building a skating rink so they will have a place to go. Have they forgotten about the skating rink shootings of the 1990s? Well, it's even worse now then it was then. Unlike us, their music is too damn slow to skate to and also unlike us, their music has continuously promoted violence, not only though it's lyrics, but also from the thugged out look of the artists that make the music. Our music consisted of "Shake shake it baby...shake shake it....shake shake it mama....shake it for me.....let me see you do it on the dance floor baby". In other words, the majority of it was about partying and having a good time which are things that are needed for a party atmosphere, not a bunch of violent attitude. Yes, that's their rebellion, and all young people rebelled. But our rebellion was the music itself, moreso than the lyrics or the image of the artist. Nothing was cooler back then than to hear old folks bitch about that "bumpitty bump" music whose rhythm came straight from the devil himself. The sound of the music itself was our rebellion, it had nothing to do with violence or negativity. Sure, there were exceptions like negative artists like Prince who sang about sex and Rick James who sang about drugs, but the majority of them just sang about shaking ass on the dance floor. And when a whole lot of adult contemporary artists such as little miss goodie two shoes, Anita Baker, Freddie Jackson, Miki Howard, etc. started flooding the airwaves, more and more music became "parent friendly". Those aren't the type of artists that would make your grandmother holler..."Turn down that infernal heatherness bumbitty bump shit"....Hell, those are the type that she would say...."Oh, what purty music"....Hell, that's not "cool". So what replaced the rebellion void after the adult contemporary artists eventually killed off funk? Shit hop replaced the void with it's not only violent lyrics, but violent look and attitude also.

And you're also right about the crossover aspect of it. It was bad enough when R&B artists would water down their funk in attempts to get white listeners and get onto white radio because the quality of the music suffered because of it. But when young white boys discovered shit hop, shit hop became another way for them to get onto white radio. And while these young black kids were shooting up the places where they hung out and killing each other, the little white boys were listening to it from the safety of their nice suburban homes and neighborhoods with their white friends. Someone here on the org described it perfectly, I can't remember who it was though. White kids saw shit hop as like an angry lion but it's in a cage at the zoo so they can watch it, enjoy it, and still be safe. While black kids were inside the cage with the angry lion at the angy lion's mercy.

awesome, awesome, awesome....and more awesome

I loved everything you shared and appreciate how you pointed to the void in our music that has expanded to every facet of cultural expression.....because there is a huuuuuuge void left from the exploitation that took place during that time

music is shaped by the degree of its culture

the richer the culture, the richer the music, when culture becomes exploited and misrepresented, it creates a great deal of hostility, which reflects in today's music w/the lyrical content being expressed.....

the forefathers who crafted hip-hop in the NYC city burroughs during the mid 70s, in 1977-1978, those grandmasters issued a stark warning.....they said if this music was ever commercialized, not only would it be destroyed, but create much damage along the way....

they knew they had crafted something special. it was no meant for commercial consumption but provide a voice for the people who's voice was neglected for so long

as you shared, when you have to start "searching for good music", we're already in trouble

there's so much I want to respond to.....once I get my computer fixed by early next week, I definitely will...great stuff

Thank you. Oh please do, because you're post was dead on point too.

PDogz said:

vainandy said:

You just described the infancy stages of shit hop. We had it too back then but it was completely underground. The only rap that was being played on the R&B stations back in the late 1980s was the danceable type rap such as LA Dream Team "Dream Team Is In The House", Freestyle "It's Automatic", Egyptian Lover "Freak-A-Holic", Afro Rican "Give It All You Got", etc. and that's the way it should have been and should have remained. Shit hop wasn't played because it didn't even sound like like an actual "song", just a beat with some talking over it. We had a public radio station that played a variety of music throughout the day. During the week, it was black gospel in the daytime, blues at night, and reggae after midnight. On the weekends, they had the same format but they had a one hour mix show and I love mixing. During this mixshow, I discovered house music for the first time around 1985 or 1986 even before I ever stepped foot into a gay club in 1990 where house dominated. The mixshow also had some fast rap that didn't make it onto R&B radio such as Gigolo Tony "Smurf Rap, Sir Mix-A-Lot "Square Dance Rap", 2 Live Crew "Throw The D" (The clean version...I bought the 12 inch to get the dirty version ), The Megatrons "Rock The Planet", etc. But every now and then, the DJ would get on this kick and play the slowest, dullest, stripped down rap that was absolutely boring as hell and sounded like nothing but a beat with some talking over it. This was shit hop.

See, as for all the "searching to find good music" arguements, I've been there and done that as far back as 1985, years before the internet. I did so because, even though there were still plenty of jams on R&B radio, with each month and year that went by back then, they were becoming fewer and further between because more and more adult contemporary was being played on R&B radio, much more than ever before. I found that public radio station where I discovered house music, I used to search for out of town AM stations that would only come in at night and they would be full of static, and I also spent tons of money buying 12 Inch singles I had never heard before, basically just taking a chance that it was going to be good and back then, you could do that because a lot of the hardcore jams were released on 12 Inch singles only until shit hop came along and it being rap, was also released on 12 Inch singles also so sometimes I would end up throwing records away and just losing my money because record stores don't give refunds. That's one of the main reasons it pisses me off when some internet searching person tells me "there's good music out there but you have to search for it" because they've had it easy. I've been there and done that long before the internet existed when it was not easy to search and wasted a lot of money doing it by taking chances on what I bought. Then you finally get to the point that you shouldn't have to search. Having to search for good music didn't just start recently, it started in the late 1980s and I'm getting damn tired of searching for it and shouldn't have to. And I wasn't older either, I was 18. Enough is enough already. I'm tired of the "live and let live" attitude because the dead dull asses haven't let the party people live. They've shut them completely out and have taken over. I'm at the point now that if you're an artist and you can't throwdown, you need to sit your fucking ass down. If it sounds mean, I don't care because I've had enough.

You're right about the shit hop influencing people for the worst also. When I was under 18, the way underage people partied was in the skating rinks. I graduated high school in 1985 so that means I was underage in the early 1980s. The skating rinks were packed every weekend back then. Me loving R&B and having black friends, naturally I went skating on the nights that were called the "Super Soul Skate Night", in other words "black night". I was the only white person in there except for one white girl that had a black boyfriend that we all used to call "Teena Marie" and where my head was at back then, if another white person came in there, I would get jealous. I gave "Teena" a pass. Hey, you live and you learn and as I got older, I changed. Anyway, the skating rink would be literally elbow to elbow with black people, I'm talking like 2000 of them. I'm not exaggerating either, I remember the fire marshall came in one night and shut the place down for being over capacity. Cars were parked up and down the street on both sides of the road. My mother used to drop me off and then come back and pick me up. One night, her car broke down and my grandmother ended up having to pick me up at one o'clock in the morning right as it closed. She pulls up and when I get in the car she says..."Get in this car! I'm scared for my life! Ain't no black folks on the street because they're all up in here! What the hell is wrong with your mother dropping you off here!". However, she couldn't have been further from the truth. It was completely safe. The worst thing that happened back then was someone smoking weed in the restroom or an occassional fight between two people but fights didn't happen often, everyone was too busy having a good time.

Skating went on until around 1991 or 1992 or so but I was grown and partying as an adult in clubs by then. I went skating once right before it ended just for old times sake and it was a completely different scene that it had been before. It was downright dull. Shit hop, which had previously been underground, was above ground then and blaring from the speakers. The welcoming attitude of the people who had previously been in there was replaced by people with hard looks on their faces like "What the fuck are you doing in here". There must have been four or five fights that night also. It just wasn't a friendly or party scene whatsoever anymore. I was partying in the black gay clubs by then and they played house music and there was none of that bullshit except for the gay bashers driving by and shooting (which is a total different story). Back to the skating rink though, I turned on the news one day, and a gang have driven by and shot the outside of the place up. They caught one of the gang members and his name was "Papa Smurf". The idiots couldn't even come up with original names of their own and the gang was the "Vice Lords". Well hell, those fools just got that name off an old rerun of "Good Times", they couldn't even come up with an original name for their gang either. Then, the place got shot up again a few months later, and again about a year later. Finally, they just closed the place down. They tried to revive it at another skating rink around 1996 and it ended up with a shooting where two people died and they closed up right after that. To my surprise, I see there is still one skating rink open to this very day and it has been open all this time. However, it never had an all R&B night, or "black night", and it's also in a suburb town where I now live and those police out here don't put up with no shit. Hell, I got a seatbelt ticket for $75 and in Jackson, it would have only costed me $25. From what I hear though, that skating rink consists of mainly smaller kids who aren't even teenagers yet.

A lot of people keep saying that the reason younger people keep getting into trouble these days is because there is nowhere for them to go like we used to have somewhere to go. Well, we've been there and done that with them. There was even talk a few years ago of building a skating rink so they will have a place to go. Have they forgotten about the skating rink shootings of the 1990s? Well, it's even worse now then it was then. Unlike us, their music is too damn slow to skate to and also unlike us, their music has continuously promoted violence, not only though it's lyrics, but also from the thugged out look of the artists that make the music. Our music consisted of "Shake shake it baby...shake shake it....shake shake it mama....shake it for me.....let me see you do it on the dance floor baby". In other words, the majority of it was about partying and having a good time which are things that are needed for a party atmosphere, not a bunch of violent attitude. Yes, that's their rebellion, and all young people rebelled. But our rebellion was the music itself, moreso than the lyrics or the image of the artist. Nothing was cooler back then than to hear old folks bitch about that "bumpitty bump" music whose rhythm came straight from the devil himself. The sound of the music itself was our rebellion, it had nothing to do with violence or negativity. Sure, there were exceptions like negative artists like Prince who sang about sex and Rick James who sang about drugs, but the majority of them just sang about shaking ass on the dance floor. And when a whole lot of adult contemporary artists such as little miss goodie two shoes, Anita Baker, Freddie Jackson, Miki Howard, etc. started flooding the airwaves, more and more music became "parent friendly". Those aren't the type of artists that would make your grandmother holler..."Turn down that infernal heatherness bumbitty bump shit"....Hell, those are the type that she would say...."Oh, what purty music"....Hell, that's not "cool". So what replaced the rebellion void after the adult contemporary artists eventually killed off funk? Shit hop replaced the void with it's not only violent lyrics, but violent look and attitude also.

And you're also right about the crossover aspect of it. It was bad enough when R&B artists would water down their funk in attempts to get white listeners and get onto white radio because the quality of the music suffered because of it. But when young white boys discovered shit hop, shit hop became another way for them to get onto white radio. And while these young black kids were shooting up the places where they hung out and killing each other, the little white boys were listening to it from the safety of their nice suburban homes and neighborhoods with their white friends. Someone here on the org described it perfectly, I can't remember who it was though. White kids saw shit hop as like an angry lion but it's in a cage at the zoo so they can watch it, enjoy it, and still be safe. While black kids were inside the cage with the angry lion at the angy lion's mercy.

Damnit, Andy. PREACH !!!

Oh, you know it honey! I'm getting ready to take my wig off and lay on the floor and kick my legs in a little while.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

See, as for all the "searching to find good music" arguements, I've been there and done that as far back as 1985, years before the internet.

People that listen to certain types of music always had to "look for it". Decades ago, how did people who listened to polka or zydeco find their records? They received little if any radio airplay. What about "party records" like Moms Mabley or speeches? Other than that one album that became a hit in the early 1990's, when did records of monks chanting get a lot of publicity? Radio played "smooth jazz", but not "free jazz". Today, if I want to find a new act that makes Lawrence Welk/Percy Faith type of easy listening music, I won't find it by listening to the radio or watching TV. That music has been out of mainstream favor for decades. The big stations played records that would appeal to a large audience, so they can get advertising dollars. Many of the records were played because of payola/gifts from the record companies, the same as today. The music you think is bad is good to the people who buy it. Most people don't listen to or buy music they don't like.

First of all, the thread is about either R&B or country but I knew you were going to come up in here and pull some ancient shit out of your hat like polka. Hell, anybody that likes stuff like polka is used to it being underground their entire lifetime so it's no big loss to them. And anybody that was alive when polka ruled the mainstream is dead now so it doesn't matter to them either.

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[Edited 1/11/13 10:08am]

vainandy said:

First of all, the thread is about either R&B or country but I knew you were going to come up in here and pull some ancient shit out of your hat like polka. Hell, anybody that likes stuff like polka is used to it being underground their entire lifetime so it's no big loss to them. And anybody that was alive when polka ruled the mainstream is dead now so it doesn't matter to them either.

I like easy listening, so I have to search for it, and I have no problem with that. What's the big deal? Easy listening is not played on the radio or MTV, nor at a club. People don't blast it in their cars like with rap. A lot of the music I listen to was never mainstream popular and never heard it on the radio, like Frankie Lee Sims.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

First of all, the thread is about either R&B or country but I knew you were going to come up in here and pull some ancient shit out of your hat like polka. Hell, anybody that likes stuff like polka is used to it being underground their entire lifetime so it's no big loss to them. And anybody that was alive when polka ruled the mainstream is dead now so it doesn't matter to them either.

I like easy listening, so I have to search for it, and I have no problem with that. What's the big deal? Easy listening is not played on the radio or MTV, nor at a club. People don't blast it in their cars like with rap. A lot of the music I listen to was never mainstream popular and never heard it on the radio, like Frankie Lee Sims.

Well, I never had to search for funk, disco, R&B, or good R&B slow jams because they were all over mainstream R&B radio and played in skating rinks, clubs, passing cars, etc. That's the difference, that easy listening stuff was never the mainstream in our lifetimes and you can't miss what you never had to begin with.

Micky, you don't have to divert the discussion when it shouldn't be, this thread ain't about the decline of easy listening, polka, or what have you, its about R&B.

Focus, people, focus.

This is what we need to get back to. Notice the old people in the picture picketing WKRP because they changed their format from classical to rock and check out the old man holding the sign that says "Play Something Slow".

If R&B ever gets back to the way it should be, it won't be old people holding that sign now, it will be people from the younger generation holding it.

vainandy said:

MickyDolenz said:

I like easy listening, so I have to search for it, and I have no problem with that. What's the big deal? Easy listening is not played on the radio or MTV, nor at a club. People don't blast it in their cars like with rap. A lot of the music I listen to was never mainstream popular and never heard it on the radio, like Frankie Lee Sims.

Well, I never had to search for funk, disco, R&B, or good R&B slow jams because they were all over mainstream R&B radio and played in skating rinks, clubs, passing cars, etc. That's the difference, that easy listening stuff was never the mainstream in our lifetimes and you can't miss what you never had to begin with.

But people who listened to easy listening could say the same thing when disco and funk became popular. Funk fell out of favor just like previous popular music, except maybe a few acts that never really went out of style like The Beatles and Elvis Presley. Some people felt about funk the same way you feel about Whitney Houston. That's what "Disco sucks" was all about. Also, some older soul singers complained that the record companies made them record disco tunes that wasn't their style, instead of what they were comfortable with. The ones that stuck with soul music stopped getting airplay.

Harlepolis said:

Micky, you don't have to divert the discussion when it shouldn't be, this thread ain't about the decline of easy listening, polka, or what have you, its about R&B.

Focus, people, focus.

The genre is irrelevant. The old R&B fell out of favor just like easy listening, rockabilly, ragtime, and other music that was once mainsream. Newer generations usually listened to a different style of music from their parents/grandparents. The previous generations usually didn't like the music and fashions of their children. Why should R&B be exempt? If you don't like it, then don't listen to it. It's simple as that. What's the point of saying it's bad?

vainandy said:

This is what we need to get back to. Notice the old people in the picture picketing WKRP because they changed their format from classical to rock and check out the old man holding the sign that says "Play Something Slow".

If R&B ever gets back to the way it should be, it won't be old people holding that sign now, it will be people from the younger generation holding it.

How well did that work for them? You're wasting your time complaining and protesting, just like they were. The music you like is not coming back to the mainstream. You just have to live with it.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

Well, I never had to search for funk, disco, R&B, or good R&B slow jams because they were all over mainstream R&B radio and played in skating rinks, clubs, passing cars, etc. That's the difference, that easy listening stuff was never the mainstream in our lifetimes and you can't miss what you never had to begin with.

But people who listened to easy listening could say the same thing when disco and funk became popular. Funk fell out of favor just like previous popular music, except maybe a few acts that never really went out of style like The Beatles and Elvis Presley. Some people felt about funk the same way you feel about Whitney Houston. That's what "Disco sucks" was all about. Also, some older soul singers complained that the record companies made them record disco tunes that wasn't their style, instead of what they were comfortable with. The ones that stuck with soul music stopped getting airplay.

Uh....excuse me, but when funk and disco came along, easy listening had been out of style and music had already gone through multiple style changes before those two genres ever existed. And it wasn't those two genres that ran it out of style either. It was when Elvis Presley introduced black music to the white world and called it rock and roll and it became the white mainstream. And by the time funk and disco came around, it had already gone from the rock and roll sound of the 1950s, to a completely different sound of the 1960s, to the Motown era, to the harder rock sound of the late 1960s, to a completely different sound in 1970s rock, to completely different sound in 1970s R&B, just tons of style changes. In other words, music constantly changed and evolved. Most easy listening folks didn't even know what the hell funk or disco was because they never listened to R&B radio to begin with, and while disco may have taken over pop radio also, there had already been mulitple style changes there also and they basically didn't listen to any type of mainstream radio whether it was pop or R&B. What has been the mainstream since the 1990s on the R&B side, not the pop side because this thread isn't about pop, but what has been the mainstream on the R&B side since the 1990s on up until today? Shit hop and adult contemporary. That's it. No style changes whatseover except maybe a little neo stool every now and then which I would consider under the R&B adult contemporary category. That's no style change in over 20 years. Yes, shit hop may not sound exactly like it did back in the 1990s but it's still shit hop and it still dominates. A style change is a completely different sound of music altogether. You know what I'm talking about, you're just trying to be difficult throwing in genres that have absolutely nothing to do with this topic because they were never a form of R&B to begin with, to give people the illusion that this is how it has always been and it hasn't always been like this. Do you work for one of the major record labels or Clear Channel or something? If you don't, you should, because you would make a great person to fight in their defense.

And as for disco, that genre never killed funk. Hell, funk existed right alongside of disco. In fact, disco ain't nothing put polished up funk with some glitter and glam thrown onto it anyway....in other words "gay funk". And funk continued right along after disco's "death" on into the 1980s and became better than ever. That "disco sucks" bullshit was mainly from racists mad because white people were listening to a predomintely black form of music and when they found out it had strong gay roots, they hated it even more. That's why radio became more segregated than ever in the early 1980s because it wasn't really "disco" they had a problem with, it was all things "black" and if a black artist made it onto white radio during that era, they had to water it down with pop.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

This is what we need to get back to. Notice the old people in the picture picketing WKRP because they changed their format from classical to rock and check out the old man holding the sign that says "Play Something Slow".

If R&B ever gets back to the way it should be, it won't be old people holding that sign now, it will be people from the younger generation holding it.

How well did that work for them? You're wasting your time complaining and protesting, just like they were. The music you like is not coming back to the mainstream. You just have to live with it.

No, I'm just showing how backwards the world has become. It has always been old people that slowed down but nowadays, it's the exact opposite. It's the younger generation. It's like I've always said, these days, we're going backwards instead of moving forward.

Today's R&B is too aligned with hip-hop.Mariah Carey can't even make an album without a buch of guest rappers pissing all over her tracks.We need to see R&B stand on its own,and let hip-hop do its own thing as well.