On March 30, 1988, at the second annual Soul Train Music Awards held in Los Angeles's Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Whitney Houston was booed. During the following year's Soul Train Music Awards ceremony, at L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium, Whitney was booed again. The audible jeers came after Houston's name was read alongside fellow nominees in categories she'd go on to lose: Best Music Video and Best R&B Urban Contemporary Single by a Female, respectively. The booings have long been considered representative of the black music audience's displeasure with Houston's image and output up to that moment.

http://gawker.com/remembe...1660783143

I've never understood the idea that if someone is black that they have to sing a certain way or perform a certain kind of music, generally R&B, gospel, or rap. If not, then they're doing "white" music and "selling out" (ig. 5th Demension, Leontyne Price, Johnny Mathis, Charley Pride, Leslie Uggams, Sammy Davis Jr., Lionel Richie, Bus Boys, Tracy Chapman, Hootie & The Blowfish, etc.). Or it's given a label like Afropunk and Black rock.

I remember that night in 1988 that Whitney got booed because her music wasn't "black enough" according to some in the black audience. And I also remember within that same year, George Michael, the first white man to ever have an album go #1 on Billboards r&b/soul album charts, also won a Soul Train Music Award for best male album of the year. I also recall that Dionne Warwick (Whitney's aunt) and Glady Knight were piss off about those incidents at the time.

Yep I remember,

The Soul Patrol at work

While I was reading that article I thought when Whitney got booed that must have been one of the happiest days in Vainandy's life. And there was that skit on the tv show In Living Color called "Whitney's Rythmless Nation".

UnderMySun said:

While I was reading that article I thought when Whitney got booed that must have been one of the happiest days in Vainandy's life. And there was that skit on the tv show In Living Color called "Whitney's Rythmless Nation".

For all we know, Vainandy may have been a member of THAT very same audience that night!

TonyVanDam said:

UnderMySun said:

While I was reading that article I thought when Whitney got booed that must have been one of the happiest days in Vainandy's life. And there was that skit on the tv show In Living Color called "Whitney's Rythmless Nation".

For all we know, Vainandy may have been a member of THAT very same audience that night!

I had already stopped watching awards shows by then, thanks to her, but I would love to see a video clip of the incident. Oh honey, I have searched all over youtube for one and there just isn't one to be found.

vainandy said:

TonyVanDam said:

For all we know, Vainandy may have been a member of THAT very same audience that night!

I had already stopped watching awards shows by then, thanks to her, but I would love to see a video clip of the incident. Oh honey, I have searched all over youtube for one and there just isn't one to be found.

HuMpThAnG said:

vainandy said:

I had already stopped watching awards shows by then, thanks to her, but I would love to see a video clip of the incident. Oh honey, I have searched all over youtube for one and there just isn't one to be found.

Well, that was certainly a dissappointment. I had always thought she got booed off the stage during a performance. Hell, they could have at least showed the look on her face while sitting in the audience getting booed.

HuMpThAnG said:

vainandy said:

I had already stopped watching awards shows by then, thanks to her, but I would love to see a video clip of the incident. Oh honey, I have searched all over youtube for one and there just isn't one to be found.

Vanessa L. Williams was THE only one with an uptempo track.

I remember this like it was yesterday......

and what's crazy about all of this.....it was never Whitney Houston's fault

this is the one moment that more than likely, led her to start experimenting with drug use...

we always see the effects but we are never taught to look for the cause...

and when she was booed, word had that when she went backstage, she cried her eyeballs out because she was practically ostracized by both communities

by 1989, and I witnessed it firsthand when it all went down

Whitney Houston was not only shunned by White America but by Black America too

see, it's not about the presentation itself, but the manner in which a form of expression is presented that often causes the backlash....

When she reject the offer to become America's princess, that's the very moment commercial media and urban media began focusing on her sexuality and whether or not she was a lesbian

white media did it and black media did too......because both sides felt she was trying to be something she wasn't while in fact, she wasn't allowed to be who she was meant to be from the get go

what I mean is, no sooner than she released her debut album "Whitney Houston" in 1985 w/her debut single YOU GIVE GOOD LOVE...her record execs at Arista told her that she looked too ethnic and that they wanted her to refrain from conducting any interviews with black radio, which eventually led to this moment at the Soul Train Awards some 3-4 years later....because the primary support of her debut album consisted of black record buyers but commercial media never acknowledged that...black people didn't know she was being restricted by her record label from communicating with us freely, that's what led them to react the way they did years later...

and if one compares the photos taken on the cover of her debut album and her follow up in 1986, she looked dramatically different which led the black community to believe she was trying to be white........

she got swarmed by the Pop Ascension just like Michael Jackson, just like Lionel Richie because all three were separated from their initial support, for this ascension did not, would not allow premier black artists to function properly

the record sales proves what happened to her by both americas by the time the 90s arrived, she was replaced by both sides when Mariah Carey surfaced on the scene in 1990.....America found its new princess (until she was ran ragged) and urban america found its new "Whitney".....

Whitney's third LP "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" in 1991 sold like 1.5 million copies in her own country...the majority of sales for that album took place overseas.......

Her first album sold like 13 million in America, ther second album like 10 million in the states, but her third album sold almost 9 million less........

she was casted to the wind until the one song revived her career I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, written by Dolly Parton.......

and years prior to her death, she was constantly vilified by the media, not just nationally, but globally w/out truly understanding what happened to her......concert goers ragged on her because her voice was not as prominent as it once was.......you could see the hate being directed at her

but when she died, that entire weekend, all of a sudden, she was looooved again......."aww, she was our Whitney".....

race is crippling this country

[Edited 11/27/14 8:12am]

Scorp said:

I remember this like it was yesterday......

and what's crazy about all of this.....it was never Whitney Houston's fault

this is the one moment that more than likely, led her to start experimenting with drug use...

we always see the effects but we are never taught to look for the cause...

and when she was booed, word had that when she went backstage, she cried her eyeballs out because she was practically ostracized by both communities

by 1989, and I witnessed it firsthand when it all went down

Whitney Houston was not only shunned by White America but by Black America too

see, it's not about the presentation itself, but the manner in which a form of expression is presented that often causes the backlash....

When she reject the offer to become America's princess, that's the very moment commercial media and urban media began focusing on her sexuality and whether or not she was a lesbian

white media did it and black media did too......because both sides felt she was trying to be something she wasn't while in fact, she wasn't allowed to be who she was meant to be from the get go

what I mean is, no sooner than she released her debut album "Whitney Houston" in 1985 w/her debut single YOU GIVE GOOD LOVE...her record execs at Arista told her that she looked too ethnic and that they wanted her to refrain from conducting any interviews with black radio, which eventually led to this moment at the Soul Train Awards some 3-4 years later....because the primary support of her debut album consisted of black record buyers but commercial media never acknowledged that...black people didn't know she was being restricted by her record label from communicating with us freely, that's what led them to react the way they did years later...

and if one compares the photos taken on the cover of her debut album and her follow up in 1986, she looked dramatically different which led the black community to believe she was trying to be white........

she got swarmed by the Pop Ascension just like Michael Jackson, just like Lionel Richie because all three were separated from their initial support, for this ascension did not, would not allow premier black artists to function properly

the record sales proves what happened to her by both americas by the time the 90s arrived, she was replaced by both sides when Mariah Carey surfaced on the scene in 1990.....America found its new princess (until she was ran ragged) and urban america found its new "Whitney".....

Whitney's third LP "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" in 1991 sold like 1.5 million copies in her own country...the majority of sales for that album took place overseas.......

Her first album sold like 13 million in America, ther second album like 10 million in the states, but her third album sold almost 9 million less........

she was casted to the wind until the one song revived her career I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, written by Dolly Parton.......

and years prior to her death, she was constantly vilified by the media, not just nationally, but globally w/out truly understanding what happened to her......concert goers ragged on her because her voice was not as prominent as it once was.......you could see the hate being directed at her

but when she died, that entire weekend, all of a sudden, she was looooved again......."aww, she was our Whitney".....

race is crippling this country

[Edited 11/27/14 8:12am]

Actually Whitney had been dabbling with drugs since her late teen years. Her older brother Michael said he always felt guilty that he introduced drugs into her life.

Whitney's first album had several truly soulful songs ("You Give Good Love","Saving All My Love","Thinking About You") but when the follow-up was released,there was a feeling that Whitney's music was becoming too "pop".The album was filled with big,schmaltzy pop numbers like "Didn't We Almost Have It All" and "You're Still My Man".I think this was Clive Davis' intention all along.He wanted her to be the biggest pop superstar on the planet.Didn't he refuse certain songs,saying that they're too "black" sounding?

musicman said:

Scorp said:

I remember this like it was yesterday......

and what's crazy about all of this.....it was never Whitney Houston's fault

this is the one moment that more than likely, led her to start experimenting with drug use...

we always see the effects but we are never taught to look for the cause...

and when she was booed, word had that when she went backstage, she cried her eyeballs out because she was practically ostracized by both communities

by 1989, and I witnessed it firsthand when it all went down

Whitney Houston was not only shunned by White America but by Black America too

see, it's not about the presentation itself, but the manner in which a form of expression is presented that often causes the backlash....

When she reject the offer to become America's princess, that's the very moment commercial media and urban media began focusing on her sexuality and whether or not she was a lesbian

white media did it and black media did too......because both sides felt she was trying to be something she wasn't while in fact, she wasn't allowed to be who she was meant to be from the get go

what I mean is, no sooner than she released her debut album "Whitney Houston" in 1985 w/her debut single YOU GIVE GOOD LOVE...her record execs at Arista told her that she looked too ethnic and that they wanted her to refrain from conducting any interviews with black radio, which eventually led to this moment at the Soul Train Awards some 3-4 years later....because the primary support of her debut album consisted of black record buyers but commercial media never acknowledged that...black people didn't know she was being restricted by her record label from communicating with us freely, that's what led them to react the way they did years later...

and if one compares the photos taken on the cover of her debut album and her follow up in 1986, she looked dramatically different which led the black community to believe she was trying to be white........

she got swarmed by the Pop Ascension just like Michael Jackson, just like Lionel Richie because all three were separated from their initial support, for this ascension did not, would not allow premier black artists to function properly

the record sales proves what happened to her by both americas by the time the 90s arrived, she was replaced by both sides when Mariah Carey surfaced on the scene in 1990.....America found its new princess (until she was ran ragged) and urban america found its new "Whitney".....

Whitney's third LP "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" in 1991 sold like 1.5 million copies in her own country...the majority of sales for that album took place overseas.......

Her first album sold like 13 million in America, ther second album like 10 million in the states, but her third album sold almost 9 million less........

she was casted to the wind until the one song revived her career I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, written by Dolly Parton.......

and years prior to her death, she was constantly vilified by the media, not just nationally, but globally w/out truly understanding what happened to her......concert goers ragged on her because her voice was not as prominent as it once was.......you could see the hate being directed at her

but when she died, that entire weekend, all of a sudden, she was looooved again......."aww, she was our Whitney".....

race is crippling this country

[Edited 11/27/14 8:12am]

Actually Whitney had been dabbling with drugs since her late teen years. Her older brother Michael said he always felt guilty that he introduced drugs into her life.

I heard about this.

That experience of getting booed at the soul train awards and being ostracized pushed her to the brink

[Edited 11/28/14 1:56am]

TonyVanDam said:

HuMpThAnG said:

Vanessa L. Williams was THE only one with an uptempo track.

See what I mean. See how the little goodie two shoes changed things for the worst. And they're not even sexy after midnight ....."come home drunk from a club and bring a stranger home at 3 a.m." .....type slow jams either. They're parent friendly ....."sit on the couch and talk with mama, grandma, and whole family while drinking lemonade and watching the children run around and play on a dull Sunday afternoon with beams of bright ass sunlight shining through the windows while dreading going back to work the next day" ....adult contemporary type slow songs.

.

Those nominees were three of the dullest ones they could have picked. I'm suprised Mikki Howard's dull ass wasn't the fourth nominee. Vanessa Williams definitely should have won that one. "The Right Stuff" is the best song she ever made and she jammed her ass off on that one.

.

.

.

[Edited 11/28/14 6:14am]

SoulAlive said:

Whitney's first album had several truly soulful songs ("You Give Good Love","Saving All My Love","Thinking About You") but when the follow-up was released,there was a feeling that Whitney's music was becoming too "pop".The album was filled with big,schmaltzy pop numbers like "Didn't We Almost Have It All" and "You're Still My Man".I think this was Clive Davis' intention all along.He wanted her to be the biggest pop superstar on the planet.Didn't he refuse certain songs,saying that they're too "black" sounding?

Before I became more "politically correct" and started calling her Shitney, I used to call her Whiteny. But yeah, he sure did....."You need to tone it down Whitney, you sound too black. You want a crossover pop hit don't you?".....I'd like to put my foot up that old silver balled bastard's ass. If his ass wanted her so damn white, he should have sent her songs to white adult contemporary radio only where she couldn't do any damage. Hell, black adult contemporary radio didn't even exist before she came along.

.

.

.

[Edited 11/28/14 6:28am]

vainandy said:

TonyVanDam said:

Vanessa L. Williams was THE only one with an uptempo track.

See what I mean. See how the little goodie two shoes changed things for the worst. And they're not even sexy after midnight ....."come home drunk from a club and bring a stranger home at 3 a.m." .....type slow jams either. They're parent friendly ....."sit on the couch and talk with mama, grandma, and whole family while drinking lemonade and watching the children run around and play on a dull Sunday afternoon with beams of bright ass sunlight shining through the windows while dreading going back to work the next day" ....adult contemporary type slow songs.

.

Those nominees were three of the dullest ones they could have picked. I'm suprised Mikki Howard's dull ass wasn't the fourth nominee. Vanessa Williams definitely should have won that one. "The Right Stuff" is the best song she ever made and she jammed her ass off on that one.

.

.

.

[Edited 11/28/14 6:14am]

You would have hated being in New Orleans East within the summer of 1988-89 when Karyn White's Superwoman was playing and a bunch of black girls were singing THAT song in unison while braiding each other hair!

vainandy said:

TonyVanDam said:

Vanessa L. Williams was THE only one with an uptempo track.

See what I mean. See how the little goodie two shoes changed things for the worst. And they're not even sexy after midnight ....."come home drunk from a club and bring a stranger home at 3 a.m." .....type slow jams either. They're parent friendly ....."sit on the couch and talk with mama, grandma, and whole family while drinking lemonade and watching the children run around and play on a dull Sunday afternoon with beams of bright ass sunlight shining through the windows while dreading going back to work the next day" ....adult contemporary type slow songs.

.

Those nominees were three of the dullest ones they could have picked. I'm suprised Mikki Howard's dull ass wasn't the fourth nominee. Vanessa Williams definitely should have won that one. "The Right Stuff" is the best song she ever made and she jammed her ass off on that one.

.

.

.

[Edited 11/28/14 6:14am]

I rebuke you,


[img:$uid]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y240/delivertheword/misc/Aunt_Esther.jpg[/img:$uid]

SoulAlive said:

Whitney's first album had several truly soulful songs ("You Give Good Love","Saving All My Love","Thinking About You") but when the follow-up was released,there was a feeling that Whitney's music was becoming too "pop".The album was filled with big,schmaltzy pop numbers like "Didn't We Almost Have It All" and "You're Still My Man".I think this was Clive Davis' intention all along.He wanted her to be the biggest pop superstar on the planet.Didn't he refuse certain songs,saying that they're too "black" sounding?

The path to super stardom in the music biz is strewn with bodies.

TonyVanDam said:

vainandy said:

See what I mean. See how the little goodie two shoes changed things for the worst. And they're not even sexy after midnight ....."come home drunk from a club and bring a stranger home at 3 a.m." .....type slow jams either. They're parent friendly ....."sit on the couch and talk with mama, grandma, and whole family while drinking lemonade and watching the children run around and play on a dull Sunday afternoon with beams of bright ass sunlight shining through the windows while dreading going back to work the next day" ....adult contemporary type slow songs.

.

Those nominees were three of the dullest ones they could have picked. I'm suprised Mikki Howard's dull ass wasn't the fourth nominee. Vanessa Williams definitely should have won that one. "The Right Stuff" is the best song she ever made and she jammed her ass off on that one.

.

.

.

[Edited 11/28/14 6:14am]

You would have hated being in New Orleans East within the summer of 1988-89 when Karyn White's Superwoman was playing and a bunch of black girls were singing THAT song in unison while braiding each other hair!

No you didn't,

Qazz said:

Not everything has to be - or needs to be - obnoxiously upbeat all the time. Some people appreciate and may even prefer (gasp!) a relaxing ballad or mid tempo that showcases emotion and notes. That being said, "The Right Stuff" is one of Vanessa's least memorable songs and 25 years later is EASILY the most forgotten song nominated in that category. The rest of the nominated songs are iconic today...TRS, not so much.

I absolutely appreciate that and enjoy various genres myself. However there is really no reason for the suits such as Clive Davis to compartmentalize acts such as Whitney, who was clealy capable of doing all of it with ease.

I don't like when handlers kill an artist's spirit.

I don't feel like she should have been booed but yes her music was

bland as fuck and bored me to tears. I'm just speaking for myself. It wasnt until late in her career that she started recording soulful material like Heartbreak Hotel. Why Clive kept that kind of material from her earlier in her career? Hell even Lionel had a more soulful tunes at the beginning of

his solo career before he crashed and burned with Dancing On the Ceiling and forward.

[Edited 11/28/14 14:57pm]

vainandy said:

TonyVanDam said:

Vanessa L. Williams was THE only one with an uptempo track.

See what I mean. See how the little goodie two shoes changed things for the worst. And they're not even sexy after midnight ....."come home drunk from a club and bring a stranger home at 3 a.m." .....type slow jams either. They're parent friendly ....."sit on the couch and talk with mama, grandma, and whole family while drinking lemonade and watching the children run around and play on a dull Sunday afternoon with beams of bright ass sunlight shining through the windows while dreading going back to work the next day" ....adult contemporary type slow songs.

.

Those nominees were three of the dullest ones they could have picked. I'm suprised Mikki Howard's dull ass wasn't the fourth nominee. Vanessa Williams definitely should have won that one. "The Right Stuff" is the best song she ever made and she jammed her ass off on that one.

.

.

.

[Edited 11/28/14 6:14am]

I can't say whether or not Whitney started the whole adult contemporary format in the mid eighties but she sure as hell made it fashionable. Even Anita Baker followed suit after her Beverly Glen days. I was okay with Miki Howard because some of her stuff had a jazzy feel to it but some of her material didn't age well.

MotownSubdivision said:

Never knew any of this about Whitney and now that it has been brought to my attention, I mourn her death that much more. Not just being black but a black female and so popular was going to have some sort of recoil but all she had to put up with was completely unnecessary and it's sickening how people treated her back then.

it's terrible what they did to her.......

"The Right Stuff" by Vanessa Williams I forgot about that jam.Her first album was pretty good.Some solid uptempo jams on that one.

phunkdaddy said:

vainandy said:

See what I mean. See how the little goodie two shoes changed things for the worst. And they're not even sexy after midnight ....."come home drunk from a club and bring a stranger home at 3 a.m." .....type slow jams either. They're parent friendly ....."sit on the couch and talk with mama, grandma, and whole family while drinking lemonade and watching the children run around and play on a dull Sunday afternoon with beams of bright ass sunlight shining through the windows while dreading going back to work the next day" ....adult contemporary type slow songs.

.

Those nominees were three of the dullest ones they could have picked. I'm suprised Mikki Howard's dull ass wasn't the fourth nominee. Vanessa Williams definitely should have won that one. "The Right Stuff" is the best song she ever made and she jammed her ass off on that one.

.

.

.

[Edited 11/28/14 6:14am]

I can't say whether or not Whitney started the whole adult contemporary format in the mid eighties but she sure as hell made it fashionable. Even Anita Baker followed suit after her Beverly Glen days. I was okay with Miki Howard because some of her stuff had a jazzy feel to it but some of her material didn't age well.

Now seriously, I like it a lot better when the genre was called soft rock and Olivia Newton-John was queen of it. Soft Rock didn't change to adult contemporary until it gotten closer to the 1990's. Maybe Whitney does get some of the blame for killing the rock in soft rock.