Are Afro-American political issues in music gone?

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I was listening to a Living Color Lp I found and was enjoying the musicianship, and noting that the lyric had really lost it's power for me. It used to feel more like protest music, similarly a listen to the Last Poets feels now somehow more nostalgic, than urgent. What happened? Did the combination of the rap/hip-hop imagery of money combined with globalization somehow dilute the effect? Or did Rage Against the Machine just steal the thunder?

― jameslucas, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think the thing with a lot of protest music, black or otherwise, is that it's protesting against something immediate....in the here and now. Ten or twenty years down the road it's bound to have less oomph, even if the issues haven't been resolved.

― Sean via blackberry, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's probably also worth pointing out that the Living Colour albums...especially the first on...had a production that was of the 80s through and through. I remember really liking that album a lot when it first came out, but upon hearing it midway through the 90s, I couldn't really listen to it for very long because it just sounded too much like going back, despite the really good sentiments.

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Depends on how well it's done, like everything else. P-Funk lyrics ("Chocolate City", "Star Child", "Funky Dollar Bill") seem pretty charged to me, but then they're more metaphorical/multilayered.

― dave q, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*waits on tenterhooks for ethan to find this thread*

― matthew m., Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think the same thing is happening with punk.

― anthony, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I find Ice Cube's 'I Wanna Kill Sam' grabs me every time. Analytical and raging in equal measures.

― dave q, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

James asks a funny q: our RESPONSE to protest music of times gone by. Today's protest music, for the most part, is minimal and tends to suXoR, which could be 'coz there's little dynamic protest OUTSIDE of the music but CLOSE to the musicians (as opposed to cheering on sbcdte marcos from afar, say). Certainly social activism w/r/t race is at a low. Nonetheless, political hip-hop tied to protest movements does exist, and can be quite good. Dead Prez excepted. Non Phixion, who I know nothing about save their early release, may not be tied to anything in particular, but they certainly SOUND vital these days. Benjamin's Theses On History prolly are relevant here, as old music will become reanimated as it becomes infused with new relevance, the time of now shot through with chips of Messianic Time.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They're certainly not gone, but they were, I guess, marginalised within hip-hop at the time of the mass commercialization / gangsta thing round about 92/93.

Last overwhelmingly political hip-hop album I heard: Dead Prez's "Let's Get Free" which, as I mentioned on NYLPM ages back, I found a third great / two thirds very dull, which might explain in itself why James asks this question: a lot of the music is quite unexciting so it's easier / more tempting to marginalise it.

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think what I was trying to get at is that in this globalized society it really doesn't matter what race you are any longer, at least politically, because the dawn of one world odor..I mean order is at hand. There are still plenty of socio-economic issues, like pay inequality (mostly between women and men), and educational opportunities, which I don't mean to dilute as far as a source of protest. What I think is that racially we have been *homoginized* into a global workforce, which basically puts us all at a certain equal place (on our knees if you ask me). I also agree with the comment about punk (see Momus's thought on Punk...can't recall the name of it). It says that basically punk is now the anthem of conservatism...which I believe to be the case. I mean my president is acting like a total punk right now, turning his back on the Kyoto agreements, arms agreements, etc etc.

― jameslucas, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*bites tongue.*

*tongue bleeds.*

*bites harder.*

(oh yes, and cf. Bangs on Reagan meeting the Ramones and cf. Blink 182 and Pennywise's latest ones. Also, cf. [for the other side of the story] Earth Crisis.)

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What I think is that racially we have been *homoginized* into a global workforce

presumably a global workforce in which the the underpaid jobs have been exported to poorer countries with laissez faire employment regulation?

― gareth, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*gives up, releases tongue*

If you think race has been superseded by "globalization" then you are living in a very tiny deformed waterlogged box. Further, the very *existance* of an entire music spectrum which is socially-signified as "black" music is indirect proof of the ongoing importance of race. The "anti-globalization" crowd's backlash against identity politics has managed to show lots of these foax for the smug middle-class white kids they are. I mean. Honestly.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

instead of starting..."I think what I meant", or "I think what I said was"...I am saying, that Black, American Indian, whatever the racial group identified as singing a protest song...(not that it really matters, but we need to know, becuase somehow we do care about an artist's worldview), the protesters political points are now diluted by globalization...yeah someone was shot by the police that shouldn't of been (which is absoulutley horrible), but they closed the factory where all our parents used to work at and shipped out to Ecuador. So now our parents work at Walmart, brother. See? Now the immediacy of a statement about a class sturggle of a particular race is diluted, because we are now on a more level playing (working, actually ) field. True the worker in Ecuador has shit wages at a boring mundane job working for a company with no local allegances, but the same is true for the service worker at a chain retail store in the small town where the factory had closed. Walmart is a government, McDonalds is a government, they come into a small town (like mine) setup a big store or resturant, subsequently forcing closures of "mom and pop" businesses, and eventually become one of the main employers in the area. They all have their own uniforms, codes of conduct, etc. WE ARE ALL ONE! Raise the fist of service job indignation!

― jameslucas, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Think James is right that globalisation brings on shared concerns about inequity etc.

OTOH think Sterling is right that you can't write off history on the grounds of globalisation alone.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The first two political hip-hop songs by black artists that I can think of are "Television, drug of the nation" and something off Deltron's album last year. Both very much "We've got a bigger problem now". It's possible that the fact that the focus of hip-hop has shifted towards blatant ostentation about how much money they've made has pulled the teeth of anyone wishing to get the message out about how well non-famous blacks compare to whites. Or as recession sets in, socially aware artists believe/realise that screwed-over people of all colours both have more in common against their unnaturla enemies (the mega-corporations) and have a better chance together. Of course, that could just be my white liberal biases showing:)

― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think one major difference is that poor American whites aren't forced at whip-point to work at a Wal-Mart thousands of miles away for 400 years for nothing, then having their names changed to break their families up and forced by corporate executives to breed more slaves for them, but I could be getting a bit melodramatic here, what the fuck do I know?

― dave q, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sorry, I'm just a dumb white kid from the ass end of nowhere, but I just have a suspicion that not distinguishing between poverty and slavery leads to a fundamental misunderstanding of 20th century pop music itself.

― dave q, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Gotta agree with Tarden on this one. My life has been pretty damn privileged from the get go and I still encounter racial issues from time to time.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Y'know I like go off on one abt "appropriation" being bad analysis: well, here's an in-full (= a wee bit fuller, anyway) on that. The PE claim, much repeated in Af- Am rage'R'us circles that eg Elvis "stole" the music — when in fact he of course he merely BOUGHT something that was being SOLD — ran v.v.into contradiction when it was concurrently being hoped (by most of said artistes) that Not Just Black Yoof were opting to purchase the Various Political Items on offer. Separatism just kinda came to bits (except for weedy libs way behind the game) in that era.

― mark s, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

in the age of globalization is any protest song valid, what's to protest if we are all in the same soup? Is the death of any shread of differential Marxism in music gone? Meaning without a class division, there is no Black and White only a Gray. Also on a side note I was speaking to someone about my last post and was corrected with the reminder that the playing field may be more level, but there is still alot of racism ingrained in the world that shows up at the assembly line or the register line.

― jameslucas, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*blood pouring from corners of mouth like end scene of Kiss Of The Dragon*

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ans. to question: obviously no.

"the assembly line, the register line," in your bed, in a glance, at the park. "protest song" define please? i think it's pretty squirrely to nail down. "Do Right Woman" is a protest song, of sorts.

"old music will become reanimated as it becomes infused with new relevance, the time of now shot through with chips of Messianic Time" = perfect description of the Kardinal Offishall album!

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and: songs abt cash and guns are very political.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two years pass...

http://www.kwark.org/gfx/2000/12/momus.schuif.jpg
MOMUS LOVES LIVING COLOR

― 0r4l R0b3rt5 (ex machina), Thursday, 17 June 2004 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't understand how Last Poets or Gil Scott-Heron is dated. That shit seems prescient instead.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 June 2004 13:22 (twenty-one years ago)

There was something on npr this morning about a "National Hip-Hop Political Convention" being held in New Jersey this week. Imagine my surprise as I lay in bed this morning hearing "Rebel Without a Pause" coming out of my clock radio at 7:30am.

― frankE (frankE), Thursday, 17 June 2004 13:55 (twenty-one years ago)

you might have been listening to Air America.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 June 2004 13:57 (twenty-one years ago)

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