Say It Loud

you can turn on BET and get a better celebration of black american music, but this still isn't bad, i'm just happy to see 'colors' getting play anywhere even if they think rap ended with 'fantastic voyage'. how is putting the announcement of the rodney king verdict on there appropiate though? that was hardly a high point in black (or white) american history.

The Coolio inclusion really bothers me.

Looks like a Ken Burns production.

ethan, that's exactly why it's on there. it's a reminder that, no matter how good things seem, no matter how far it appears that we've come, we've still got a long way to go.

it's black music for dummies. dummies with a lot of disposable income, actually. as usual, i applaud rhino's efforts and i can't really fault the song selection, especially when there's so much ground to cover.

They had a similar box of music made by women - it was called "Respect", I think. The whole thing is really patronizing.

ethan, that's exactly why it's on there. it's a reminder that, no matter how good things seem, no matter how far it appears that we've come, we've still got a long way to go.

Says the wanky portion of the audience. Including it is inappropriate and derogatory and just plain nonsensical - what does it have to do with a celebration of music, music of any type, black white latin whatever. Is Gloria Estefan going to open her next album with the Elian Gonzalez announcement? The Diallo verdict going to make cameos all over? It has nothing to do with anything to do with this set. It's also condescending - it's playing into the opression scheme instead of just pointing out that it's good music.

Ethan's right: it's inappropriate. Quite frankly, the only people I can see finding it appropriate are coffee table sociologists who like to wring their hands and nod along at how oppressed the "other" people are, which unfortunately describes most people behind box sets like this (cf the aforementioned women's box sets). Good intentions, but they're intentions that actually harm the groups in question IMO.

Oh, the music is good, anyhow, and they missed about 8 trillion things but considering it's one box set trying to cover, what, 50, 60, whatever? years of music, it's going to miss quite a lot. They did a good job, in terms of overall.

King verdict = LA burns = setting for The Chronic = arguably most important rap album evah.

they would have been better off just putting 'fuck wit dre day' on it.

arguably most important rap album evah

You dare say this about any album other than Vanilla Ice's live release? Begone.

it's called "a celebration of black music"? well, then the rodney king thing does seem out of place. i was set to argue that "well, maybe it's context; maybe it's meant, as sterling indicates, to set the scene for the music that followed in its wake."

and then i saw that it precedes "fantastic voyage." d'oh.

The CDs seem to be peppered with those soundbites, though. It's a bit crass.

I think it's a bit of a reach on their part -- extending their musical selections to cover the history of race relations in America. That said we often listen to an AM soul station who peppers their music with soundbites. Segments from speeches by MLK and Malcom X, e.g. and that is actually quite stirring.

Where's Prince? I hope it was a rights thing.

Not enough of the early blues shouters

No Public Enemy?

PE were too black, too strong!

i've never known a black person who listened to public enemy.