"If Music Be The Food Of The Gods Play ON"
Man , what a summer of live music for me and all of the lucky music lovers in NYC. Seeing all of these live acts and their genre bending or pure soul essence made me reflect on what a blessing it is to live in this particular time and place of sonic freedom coupled with audiences created by seemingly unlimited access to their cosmic slop via the internet ( youtube, myspace, facebook, twitter, i tunes, e.t.c) and word of mouth. This reflection was also triggered by a twenty something woman who couldn't understand why I thought that the afro-punk festival was unique and essential for black kids who wanted to fly their freak flags high. Her position was (is) that young people today don't have apartheid walls around the music that they enjoy. " If we like it, we listen to it." The color or style doesn't matter" She said with the conviction of someone who doesn't even keep physical cd's in her home. Do I agree with her that the walls have fallen down? Not really. I do believe however that she knows her generation better than this born in the sixties man ever will. Plantation radio is still programmed by the keepers of the tradition . Genre radio is the norm not the exception. With that being said, I have not gone to one concert this summer that wasn't filled with multi colored,/culture knowledgeable fans who loved the music as much as I did. All of the artists that I speak of are Black (albeit different genres). A little background here:
As a little Kid in Harlem and Upstate New York in the 70's , it was all about Soul Music. The Jackson Five(later the Jackson's), Aretha, Gladys Knight and The Pips, Curtis Mayfield , The Temptations, Barry White, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Taylor, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Ojay's The Motown Canon, Natalie Cole, and too numerous to mention other purveyors of Classic Soul were the soundtrack to all of our lives. I used to wear my mom's 45's , eight tracks, and lp's out. I would create my own radio station by recording songs on my tape recorder. I would introduce them by recording my version of D.J voiced interludes . The songs lost a bit of crispness because they were filtered through the stereo speakers and my cheap microphone. No matter, I was THE SOUL MAN. Issac Hayes didn't have anything on my hot buttered soul. There were a lot of messages in that music also. I truly believe that they helped to shape my burgeoning social consciousness. Dig this lyric from my favorite elementary school song by Timmy Thomas (I think) " You may not have a great big Cadillac, diamond in the back, sunroof top, digging the scene with a gangster lean, gangster whitewall tv antenna sitting in the back. You may not have a car at all, but remember brothers and sisters-you can still stand and talk. Just be thankful for what you got" OK maybe that 's not the best example, but it was simple enough for me. I couldn't drive anyway( but I sure could talk) In all seriousness Stevie, Marvin, Curtis, The Main Ingredient, and many others were singing about the hopes and dreams through a 70's microphone that smelled of incense and visually took the place of a Black Power fist. We loved our sweet soul music. I assumed that the White Folks only liked their own music. We had posters of Pam Grier . They had Farah Fawcett Majors.
And Then we moved to Texas right as I was entering Middle School. The Soul music station went off the air at sundown. What was a hip young brother to do for his music fix? Why , I discovered the "white music" Elton, Pink Floyd, Traffic, James Taylor, The Stones, The Beatles, Led Zepplin, Heart, and all of the other extended jams found on FM. One night the sound that would blow all of the cobwebs out of my mind came through the cheap speakers like a personal present from GOD- JIMI HENDRIX. Man, all of the music prior to that was just to prime my ears for the truth. Funky , hard, bluesy, and otherworldly are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what it all meant to my virgin ears. I wanted to walk and talk like this man. I wanted my fingers to produce magic like his did by merely touching a guitar string. I wanted to drink out of the same well that created my super hero. I wanted to wave my" freak flag" in the faces of all those plastic businessman trying to judge me. I smoked weed to just to hear the" wind cry Mary". I belonged in Electric Lady Land even if I wasn't "experienced" "Not necessarily bold, but beautiful ", "Just Ask The Axis" . Even though he had been dead for years I was so eager to share my newfound rockstar ; I tried to share him with my fellow new teens only to be told that it was " White Music". I learned to keep Jimi to myself. One day my cousin Karl turned me on to the music of this Jimi sound alike. His name was BootsyCollins. Whoa! This dude was no shower for a week funky! This dude was chitlins before they were cleaned funky. This dude was Hendrix for the black masses. I ate it up. Working my way through Bootsy, I discoverd the sound and movement that along with Hendrix defines me to this very day>Parliament/ Funkadelic. They had radio songs, so you weren't ostracized for listening to them. . They had concept albums that took me from my Texas which was full of rednecks, ignorance, guns, violence, Jesus everywhere, and kids who thought that I was weird , all the way to space and the bottom of the ocean." P Funk, uncut Funk, The Bomb" Afronots, Dr Funkenstien, members of a chocolate covered milkyway , Sir Nose D'Void of funk, and all kinds of Freak flag wavers dominated this universe. Other funk came to me through them ; the Ohio Players, Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Confunktion and all types of groove masters dominated my earholes. Parliament had the hits, but Funkadelic and their funk mob guitar army turned it out! Two words-Maggot Brain. They out soloed the "white" boys. Sadly it all came to an end for them all too soon. The Mothership flew off and left me looking around for the next guitar carrying Moses. He came not a moment too soon. His name was Prince and he was Funky! Rock Funky. Freaky Funky. Soft Funky. It's like Hendrix had an a.d.d son. I was at the alter of Prince quicker than you could say dancemusicsexromance. Purple Rain made him huge, but those of us who loved to knock down the barriers, loved him like a brother, sister, friend.
There have been many people throughout the years that have appealed to many cultures, but these were some of the few folks of my youth who really opened my eyes and ears to so much more. Maybe one towering person or group is not needed to open our minds anymore. There is so much music to access both past and present. I still believe that it is still more of an anomly than not to hear Black folks straight rocking out. I love Living Colour, but when have they ever been played on both urban and rock radio. I dig this woman named Daniela Cotton who can rock with the best, but I still believe that most folks would still consider her to be "White Music" I saw 3 of the most amazing bass players of all time ( Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten) last week in concert. The audience was more white than anything else. Raphael Sadiq was mostly Black folks when I saw him in concert a few days ago. But these may not be the rule. When I saw Al Green at Carnegie Hall with Dianne Reeves, I was fascinated by the interracial balance of the sing along crowd. Other concerts have shown me the same.
Is my 20 something friend right? Have we come to the place where music is just music? Is it the arist that you identify with as opposed to their race . Hip hop is consumed by Black and other youth in the same quantities now. That certainly wasn't the case when hip hop was young. When I saw the Roots at The Apollo Theater, I was sandwiched between Whites. Do Black kids today need a Hendrix or a Prince to show them the way to a bigger world? Do White Kids?
