Tag: black music

Black America is White America entertainment

Black America has become white America source of entertainment. At glancing a list of the richest African Americans, I noticed an alarming trend, here is a link to the list so you can see for yourself, “http://www.ranker.com/list/the-20-richest-african-americans/worlds-richest-people-lists”

Have you figured it out? Basically with the exception of a few nearly everyone on the list are entertainers of some sort. Whether it be sport, music or film.

Now look at a list of the richest Americans in general, “http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/top20/#3df0ffc3d8d5”, not one person is an entertainer, the list is made primarily of tech entrepreneurs, energy tycoons, and media moguls.

Black people have been “chucking and jiving” for white America since the minstrels of the 19th century. The only difference today is the market reach and the profitability. Many African Americans take great pride that black people have an influence on pop culture, but at what cost. Have black people become so ghettoized in how they aspire to be successful in this country.

Go to any urban school in this country and ask the typical black child what would he or she aspire to be, and the most popular answer is either a sports athlete or a rapper. You will be hard pressed to hear child aspire to be a tech entrepreneur or business mogul. Why do young black people have such a limited scope of career choices? The answer lies on what black youth see in the media. Media is very important in how people view themselves. Films, music, television, etc. informs us on how to think, how to behave, and how to view life. When you’re black you are particularly sensitive to media influence. This because as a minority you have limited exposure to representation that you can relate to, and when you do get that representation, it hold a lot sway on your thought process.

The worst of this is that black Americans don’t even fully profit from their talents, behind every multimillionaire black entertainer there is a much richer white person in the background profiting handsomely of black ingenuity. Yes, Michael Jordan became a billionaire from his signature sneaker, but Nike in return became a multi-billion dollar sportswear company with a near monopolistic hold in their industry. Yeah, rappers make millions of dollars from tours and single sales, but record companies make billions of dollars every year in licensing royalties.

Black America epitomizes cool in this country, and corporations gladly use us as marketing tools, finding an athlete to petals their sneakers, rappers to wear their clothing or appear in their soda commercials. I’m am not at all angry at anybody for profiting off their marketability, but I do just want to fully analyze the situation in terms of race in this country.

Us as black people need to do better for ourselves, we need to teach our children to have a diversity of aspiration. You have a lot better chance of becoming an oral surgeon or an electrical engineer than a rapper or an athlete. It vital for the future of Black America that our youth have realistic aspirations.

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The Hip Hop Fallacy of racial harmony

There is a false belief(mainly propagated by rappers) that hip hop has been a driving force in the decline of racism. I would like to present an argument that this is indeed false. White Americans in this country have a long history of enjoying and appropriating black culture but still maintaining their racist ideologies towards blacks. Let’s have a brief history lesson of black music in America.

Let’s begin with Ragtime. Ragtime which was a precursor to Jazz and arguably the most popular musical genre across the world during the early 20th century. Ragtime began in the late 19th century in African American communities in St Louis. The most popular composer Scott Joplin, who was born in Northeast Texas. Helped to make Ragtime a popular and viable genre. His most famous piece, Maple Leaf Rag (which I advise anyone reading to listen to on YouTube).

Point to be made from this is while Ragtime a black musical art-form was the most popular musical genre of its era, with many of its black musicians being celebrated worldwide(sound familiar). Occurred during the nadir years, the worst period of race relation(post slavery) in this American history. On average, a 100 African Americans were lynched a year, between the years of 1875 and 1920.

Jazz which followed right after Ragtime was the most popular genre in the world, from the 1920s up into the 1930s. The 1920s was, in fact, synonyms with Jazz, with many historians coining this period as the Jazz age. Jazz could be heard from clubs all the way from up in Harlem to Paris to even Tokyo. It perhaps was the first time that American culture began to have a global presence. While many Whites frequent Black establishment(really only in the Northeast cities and a few Midwest cities) you would have been hard press to any Blacks frequenting White establishments.

I bring up Ragtime and Jazz just to illustrate a historical example of White’s enjoying the fruits of African American culture during a period of legalize racism and rampant racial violence(look up the red summer of 1919). Now let’s get into the modern era.

Hip Hop today is a musical genre that is widely consumed around the world. Millions of youth from various ethnic backgrounds have adopted hip hop fashion, language, and many other of its cultural facets for themselves. Hip Hop in itself is a facet of African American culture. originating in poor African American communities in the Bronx. As way for young inner city kids to express themselves.

This brings me to an important topic, the usage of the N-word(or frankly nigga). The word Nigga is just a simple modification of the word Nigger. A derogatory word used against African Americans throughout most of their history in America.

First, there’s the argument that nigga is an entirely separate word from Nigger with its own meaning and context. This is not the case at all. Some will say that nigga is used as a term of endearment, no it’s not! I’ll present you an example of this

Two black men who are friends greeting each other “wats up my nigga” example two an inner city drug deal gone bad “I’m going to kill you nigga” can you figure out the point I’m trying to make.

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