Popular Music Since The 1950s As The Exploitation Of Black Music By White Artists And Corporations - Essay Example

Popular music since the 1950s as the exploitation of black music by white artists and corporations A number of scholars propose the idea that African-American culture and music were effective expression forms and social inclusion means. Although they originate from the folk music of the African-American slaves, "the root cause of transnational black identity" (Gilroy The Black Atlantic 1992, p.60), it served as an effective instrument for cultural and social inclusion throughout the 20th century. The introduction of blues, jazz and other black music genres provided blacks a strong impact over American culture and a distinguishing place in a society that was fundamentally closed to black people well into the 20th century (Chiriguayo 2002), (Dwight 1995). In the study The Spirituals and the Blues the African-American scholar James H. Cone (1991, p. 130) argued that "whatever form black music takes, it is always an expression of black life in America and what the people must do to survive with a measure of dignity in a society which seems bent on destroying their right to be human beings". The book Blues People is the first real try to place major black music genres as blues and jazz within the setting of Afro-American social history, it illuminates the impact of blacks on American history and culture. Terry Jones (2005) asserts that the blues is a musical opera about life and times of Black America. The blues is the story of Black America in worldly musical form. However, Harrison (1997, p. 18) insisted that "blues was always a multi-racial music. More importantly, surely, is the fact that it was the one musical common denominator for the poor, the exploited, the wage slaves of both races who often shared the same deprivations in the mines, the factories, and the fields. It was a music that grew from within those mixed communities". According to Norman Kelley (Kelley 1999) 'blacks are a $400 million segment of the U. S. economy. Preceded by soul, gospel, jazz, and reggae, hip hop generates $1 billionHowever, the money spent by black consumers is directed and circulated into the dominant economy, not into the black communities of America." The answer why people who have invented several music genres don't have more control over them is that black artists have been exploited. The Wikipedia encyclopedia, defines that the term exploitation may carry two distinct meanings: (1) the act of utilizing something for any purpose. In this case, exploit is a synonym for use; (2) the act of utilizing something in an unjust or cruel manner for one's own advantage. Most often, the word exploitation is used to refer to economic exploitation - the act of using another person's labor without offering them an adequate compensation. The Marxist theory is primarily concerned with the exploitation of a whole segment or class of society by another. From this point of view the black music is exploited by whites. Article of Phil Rubio 'Crossover Dreams' (1993) provides a curious vision of the confrontation between black art forms and white performers. In many cases white musicians are motivated by envy or admiration for the emulated black performers. And we see the utilization of African-American culture by whites to find the spirit and humanity, they feel they've lost. It is known that the end of a constant source of interchange and friction should not be seen as the start as 'whites have been playing black music for decades' (Davis 1995, p.84). We are not to locate the first white blues performer. The phenomenon of numerous white musicians taking up the black music is a fairly modern spectacle, beginning in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. One of the first objections to this phenomenon was made by Charles Radcliffe in the UK publication Anarchy (1965). Of course, many people did not consider singing in a black vocal style to be part of blues performance, moreover many feel that whites who have uneasy destiny, for example Hank Williams, sing in their own suffering manner, a distinctively non-black style. We can agree that western and country performers have their own way of singing the blues. The question of identification is very important one for just this reason. One reason Blues and the Poetic Spirit (Garon 1996) probed the psychological aspect of identification was that it was so obvious that many white singers coping black ones for what they regarded as maturity. Often this resulted in white performers singing unfit words of black men, occasionally offensive, without their original grounding. In 2005 Paul Garon noted that 'for many new white performers the notion of the blues' 'black heritage' is a mystery; the only 'heritage' they know is sun glasses, black suits and fedoras, which have become one of the classic new white blues uniforms'. In the nineties the relationship between black music and the biggest six record companies was colonial-like. The theft of black music was so pervasive that a Rhythm and Blues Foundation was founded in 1994 to assist R&B artists of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, the victims of bad management, poor business practices, and dishonest record companies. Frank Kofsky in Black Music, White Business (1998, p. 154) probed the principal contradiction of the jazz world of that time: black artistry on the one hand and white ownership of the means of jazz distribution (the recording companies, festivals, booking agencies, nightclubs, magazines) on the other. Drawing on a wide range of sources and his own experiences as well, the Kofsky brought to light the racist disdain with which many industry executives viewed jazz and the exploitation to which jazz performers have been historically subjected. Norman Kelley (1999) asserted that the control of black music by the corporate entertainment industry is never featured. Despite the names of a few big money makers rap, like most black music, in 90's was under the white corporate control and purchased mostly by whites. He insisted that the black music history has been a continuous lucrative expropriation of black cultural forms by whites. Meanwhile, major labels respond to a young white audience that purchases 66% of black music, hip hop, R'n'B, and funk in particular, where the most common political message is satire of the white-dominated American culture. An example of this can be Elvis Presley who is universally known as the King of Rock 'n' Roll (Brewster 2004), but in fact is the creator of a genre that mixed blues, R&B, country, gospel and swing. As Marc Kirkeby said 'The seeds were present well before Elvis, but the thing we call rock 'n' roll was an explosion of black culture meeting white culture that was embodied in him.' (cited in Nekesa Mumbi Moody, 2004 ). Brian Ward (1998, p.136) quoted Elvis, 'A lot of people seem to think I started this business. But rock 'n' roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people.' The number of white performers that have been success in hip hop or reggae have been few as they are faced with a challenge to authenticate themselves. For instance, Vanilla Ice's career in hip hop was as authentic as he was. The Beastie Boys succeeded by presenting themselves as middle-class suburban white rebels, which they really were. Justin Timberlake is being compared to Michael Jackson, maybe the most copied Black entertainer of all times, but he is still a success. The explosion of a singer like Eminem, however, changed the concept of hip hop. For the first time, a white rapper, under the support of Dr. Dre, was acknowledged by both white and black audiences. The discrepancy of Eminem is much of the force that brought him to the top, he is the white symbol to which white culture could relate, and yet still depicting and showing the rebellious, anti-societal attitude that is characteristic to hip hop music. The black music managed to develop, unite and empower the Black-American community in a white-dominated world (Gann 1997); it has confronted internal conflicts due to the stress of repression based more upon socio-economical issues than racial ones. We may conclude by words of Negus (1996, p. 224) - 'popular music should contribute to the creation of dialogues between people who are continually moving, performing and listening to music across cultural boundaries, geographical borders and social divisions'. Despite the music business exploits the black culture, and is unequal and separate, many music lovers and some music critics alike accurately argue that music is a great equalizer, it is an ever-changing art form that should not be restricted to only one race and should be shared freely between cultures. References Baraka A 1999, Blues People, Harper Perennial, NY. Brewster M 2004, Elvis Presley: Birth of the Rock Star, BusinessWeek, Sep 27, 2004. Retrieved January 14, 2006, from http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/printer_elvis_presley_birth_of_a_rock_star.shtml Chiriguayo W, 2002, 'The Rhythmic Cry of the Slave: Black Music and Cultural Identity in America, 1890-1910', The UCI Undergraduate Research Journal, vol. 5, pp. 9-16. Retrived January 14, 2006, from http://www.urop.uci.edu/journal/journal02/02_WilliamChiriguayo.html Cone, JH 1991, The Spirituals and the Blues:An Interpretation. Orbis Books, NY. Davis F 1995, The History of the Blues, Hyperion, New York. Dwight McBride 1995, 'The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness', MFS Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 388-391. Gann K 1997, American Music in the 20th Century, Schirmer Books, NY Garon P 1996, Blues and the Poetic Spirit, City Lights Publishers, San Francisco. Garon, P 2005, White Blues. Retrieved January 8, 2006, from http://www.wnmc.org/publisher//articles/14/1/White-Blues-by-Paul-Garon Gilroy, P 1992, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Harvard UP, Oxford. Harrison, D 1997, Blues: A Photographic Documentary, Crescent Books, NY. Jones T 2005, 'Blues People - The Heart and Soul of America', Oakland Business Review , Feb 1, 2005. Retrieved December 12, 2005, from http://www.calstateeastbaynews.com/news/publish/article_407.shtml Kelley N 1999, 'Rhythm Nation: The Political Economy of Black Music', Black Renaissance, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 1-15. Retrieved January 10, 2006, from http://www.rapcoalition.org/political_economy_of_music.htm. Kofsky F 1998, Black Music, White Business. Illuminating the History and Political Economy of Jazz, Pathfinder, Atlanta. Moody NM 2004, 'Elvis Song The Birth Of Rock'. Retrieved from CBS News at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/01/entertainment/printable627046.shtml. Negus K 1996, Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction, Hanover, Wesleyan University Press, NH, & London. Radcliffe C 1965, 'The Blues in Archway Road', Anarchy, vol. 5,pp. 129-133. Rubio P 1993, 'Crossover Dreams: The 'Exceptional White' in Popular Culture", Race Traitor, no. 2. Retrieved June 5, 2005, from http://racetraitor.org Wikipedia, free Encyclopedia, Exploitatio. Retrieved January 11, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation Ward, B 1998, Just My Soul Responding. University of California Press, Los Angeles. Read More