This Music & Race

From: B. Young (bjy07@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Mar 31 2001 - 16:03:48 CEST

  • Next message: Olaf Molenveld: "Re: vinyl vs. CD again"

    I'd like to get something off my chest. I had a conversation recently with
    my brother who i havent heard from in a long time. I was talking to him
    about the music I'm playing and he says... "well, I know some white boys
    that might be interested". I was immediately offended and jumped all over
    him saying "these are black artists, black people developed this shit!". He
    was fully surprise as I ran out the mouth about techno, house, acid jazz,
    drum n bass and how a good majority of the originators and producers of
    electronic music were/are black. He then apologized and said "well now i
    know".

    A LOT of people I know consider this stuff "white" music and can't conceive
    of black people making anything except hip hop or r&b. I've had this
    conversation with at least a dozen people. People are always surprised as I
    run down the list of all the black artists that create electronic music.
    It's like the only black music in there heads is hip hop, r&b, and then jazz
    is for old people. Don't get me wrong, I do know people who aren't ignorant
    on this subject, but the majority of people are.

    At what point has this music been considered by the masses to be "white"?...
    at least here in America most people consider techno, house, and most so
    called underground types of music as white or rave music. Was it a result
    of the rave thing? I understand most of rave music could be considered
    'white', at least in this part of the world, but there is so much dope
    soulful ethnic music that gets labeled as white in the minds of those who
    don't know. The stuff I collect isn't getting any play at raves. All the
    raves i ever went to played shitty techno, house, trance and weak ass
    jungle. Its so frustrating. The race of the producers has never been an
    issue with me untill recently.
    As i browse my collection it just so happens that 80% of it or more is by
    various peoples of color from around the world. I didnt consiously plan it
    that way. I don't care what race these guys are (well, I guess it does make
    me feel more proud of my collection now that I realize most of these guys
    are of color). My question is when did this music become "white" music.
    And do the masses in other countries think the same way? Why the hell do
    black people equate electronic music with white people? Before anybody jumps
    to conclusions, I am not ignoring the contributions white people have made
    to this music... some of the best artists around are white. I'm just really
    tired of people calling it "white music". Whats up with that? And finally,
    there is a huge amount of electronic music circulating that i'm completely
    unaware of... is most of it in fact created by white people?

    Beau.

    _________________________________________________________________
    Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Mar 31 2001 - 16:21:54 CEST