Ebony & Ivory, Part II

  For the last two weeks, we’ve been talking “Black Music.” 

  It all started about three weeks ago when I was reading an online interview with a Top 40 radio programmer from Lafayette, LA named Bobby Novosad.  He was asked how radio has changed in the past twenty years, and he responded, “That’s easy.  It’s not “Black Music” anymore.  It’s Hip-Hop!  Listeners are accepting it as mainstream.  As recently as 2002, when the sound had completely taken over and we’d started playing more of it, there were quite a lot of listener/client complaints.  Now they love it.”

  Think about that.  And think about how mainstream music has changed in the past three years.  For the sake of making the term “mainstream” easily definable, think of it in terms of the music you hear in television commercials.  In movie soundtracks.  On MTV.  Hip-Hop is everywhere.

  Last week, according to Billboard, four of the five best-selling albums in the country were by Hip-Hop artists.  Green Day’s new album came in at number two, and all the rest were by hip-hop artists.  Before hip-hop blew up, who knows how long it’s been since a predominantly-black genre could boast an accomplishment like that?  R&B?  Funk?  Soul?  Motown?  Jazz?  Blues?  It’s been a while.

  Two weeks ago, I went into the history of the term “Black Music,” and why it no longer applies.  If there has been a constant theme that ties all of these columns together, it is the simple notion that the mainstream is broadening.  And I suspect that it has to do with how we are raised.

  Since the early 1970’s, in the aftermath of the civil rights movements, schools have taught tolerance and sensitivity.  It was a gradual process, but our generation—a generation of twenty-somethings—and subsequent generations have been bombarded with this multicultural curriculum of understanding and embracing cultural and biological differences our entire lives.  And this broadening of the mainstream is its direct result.  That’s a good thing. 

  While this may be the most awe-inspiring reason for the seemingly-sudden success of Hip-Hop, it’s certainly not the only reason.  A lot of also has to do with Britney-burnout.  The pop acts of the late ’90s and the early part of this decade have become tired.  The Britneys, Backstreets, Justins and Christinas are not exciting anymore.  We’re looking for something new and refreshing, something shocking and unique.  And we have found that in Hip-Hop.

  Pop music has been on the downslide for three years or so.  The new acts are not interesting.  And I’m not blaming Ashlee Simpson alone for this.  It’s the Avrils and Hilarys and the whole lot.  And rock music isn’t bringing too many thrilling acts to the scene, either.  Sure, one or two squeak through from time to time, but that’s hardly enough to save the struggling Top 40 radio stations.

  And so they have turned to Hip-Hop.  America has turned to Hip-Hop. 

-From Pulse
  February 3, 2005

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Quincy

“My entire career, indeed my entire life, has been based on trying to break down the walls between people of all colors throughout the world.  I’ve lived that.”

--Quincy Jones

  Quincy Jones was born in 1933 on the south side of Chicago, but grew up just outside of Seattle.  He was in the game as Jazz was hitting the scene, as a fourteen-year-old trumpet player.  He was a conductor and arranger for big bands when big band music was the big thing.  He was the first black this and the first black that, and has dedicated his entire life at ridding the world of those labels.

  Last week, we talked about the term “Black music,” and how the term no longer exists, doesn’t apply the way it did as recently as five years ago.  That is a victory for Quincy Jones.  And I argue that it couldn’t be done without him.

  Quincy’s life has been a star-studded event.  He knew Ray Charles when Ray was sixteen, undiscovered, and playing small Seattle jazz clubs.  At fifteen, he played with Billie Holiday.  At twenty-five, Quincy was leading Sinatra’s band, and working with Count Basie.  He discovered Lesley Gore, wrote the score for thirty-four movies, including “Roots” and “The Color Purple,” and produced and arranged Michael Jackson’s album, “Thriller.”  He composed the theme songs to thirteen television shows, including “Ironsides,” “Sanford and Son,” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”  His song “Soul Bossa Nova” was used as the very recognizable theme for the Austin Powers movies.  He founded Vibe Magazine.

  Jones’ approach to breaking down the color barrier was three-fold, but simple.  First, just make good music and people will listen.  Second, ignore race and color, and let the music speak for itself.  And third, give the music the exposure it deserves.  It was a recipe for success, and the state of music as we move into 2005 can attest to that.

  But this is Hip-Hop, you say, not Jazz or Big Band or R&B or Pop.  After Hip-Hop began on the streets of New York, it didn’t take Quincy Jones long to get on board.  He recognized its potential, acknowledged that music was changing, and wanted to be a part of it.  He became friends of Hip-Hop pioneers like Melle Mel, Run DMC, and a fifteen-year-old LL Cool J.  Quincy once went with LL to visit Easy-E in the hospital as Easy was dying of AIDS.  Quincy’s daughter, Kidada, was engaged to Tupac Shakur when he was killed.

  His son, QDIII, lives, breathes and produces Hip-Hop.  Seeing his son’s passion for the music helped ignite that same passion in himself.  Quincy Jones has made Hip-Hop mainstream.  It was Jones who helped convince NBC and its advertisers that a Hip-Hop sitcom was not a risky venture; and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” was born.  Vibe Magazine is one of the leading authorities on Hip-Hop and the street culture.

  A column this size is not nearly enough to cover the life, the accomplishments, the contributions that Quincy Jones has made to music and American culture.  I urge you to run to the nearest bookstore and pick up a copy of his book, “Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones.”

  Next week: Hip-Hop and Black Music.

 -From Pulse
   January 27, 2005

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Ebony & Ivory, Pt. I

  You know, every week this column runs under the bold heading “AIRWAVES.”  And rarely, if ever, do I write about the state of radio.  So this week, we’ll talk radio—particularly Top 40 radio.

  I was reading an interview last week with a radio programmer in Lafayette, LA.  He was asked by the interviewer how Top 40 (Mainstream) radio had changed in the last five years or so.  His answer echoed something I’ve been writing in this column for the last four and a half months.

  His seemingly politically-incorrect response was (and I’m paraphrasing here) that the label “Black Music” no longer exists.  Music by black artists no longer carries the stigma that it did as recently as five years ago.  This speaks loudly in favor of my repeated assertion that the so-called “Mainstream” is broadening.

  Black Music, for lack of a better term, has never been a welcome guest at mainstream radio.  It’s a long history that goes back to the 1950s with Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Pat Boone.  One doesn’t have to look very far to see evidence of this.  Pat Boone took “Ain’t It a Shame” higher up the Top 40 charts than Fats Domino did.  Boone’s recording of “Tutti Frutti” did better at mainstream radio than Little Richard’s version.  In fact, much of Pat Boone’s success came from the re-recording of Black Music for a white audience.  You might expect this in pre-civil rights America, but it didn’t stop there.

  Rock and Roll was born of Rhythm and Blues, with people like Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard helping to bridge that gap.  Yet Elvis is known as “The King,” and The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton are some of its best-known icons.  In fact, Elvis had almost twice as many Top 40 hits as Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Little Richard combined.

  One more piece of evidence to seal the deal: guitar-god Jimi Hendrix had only one hit on the Top 40 charts.  It was “All Along the Watchtower,” a Bob Dylan cover, which he took to number 20 on the charts.  Steve Martin also had one hit, “King Tut.”  It made it to number 17 on the charts.

  Black Music has always been a powerful force that commands respect, demands attention, and has won over white audiences for generations.  But its victory has been in our visceral response, the way it settles in our soul, makes us dance. And, for generations, it has almost always been met with the disapproval of our parents.  This goes back to the early days of Rock, and continues today with our parents and our Hip-Hop.  “That’s not music,” they said then of Rock.  “That’s not music,” they say now of Rap.

  We’ll pick up next week where we left off, talking about the broadening of the mainstream and “Black Music,” and why the term has gotten tired.  How it no longer applies.  Meanwhile, spend an hour listening to a Top 40 station.  You’ll immediately be able to see what I’m talking about.

-From Pulse
   January 20, 2005

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