Post by mecca on Mar 24, 2007 22:25:51 GMT -5
Peace
This is an old post that I copied from Hashim from the Hiphop blogs site. However it is revelant, and I would like to know how people feel about this subject. I would love to hear feedback especially from artists/rappers, and poets on this subject.
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Bakari Kitwana: White Fans at Conscious Rap Shows
This week hip-hop intellectual Bakari Kitwana did a piece in the Village Voice about "Black-conscious hip-hop dealing with an overwhelmingly white live audience." I'm not sure what Bakari is trying to tell me in this article. Is this a problem that needs to be solved (since the artists are complaining about it), or a strange fact that should be better understood (since activist Wendy Day wants to study it).
I don't think it's a problem or strange at all. White people are the main draw at conscious hip-hop shows?! Man, that's old news and good news.
According to the political hip-hop groups Bakari interviewed, White people at their concerts is new-news:
"My audience has gone from being over 95 percent Black 10 years ago to over 95 percent white today," laments Boots Riley of the Coup, whose 1994 Genocide and Juice responded to Snoop Dogg's 1993 gangsta party anthem "Gin and Juice."
Negro, please. Ten years ago he was circling his block, doing shows at the neighborhood clubs. Now he performs across the country in venues that have only recently opened their doors to non-rock groups. Who does Boots Riley expect to appear at his show in Oklahoma City?
Black folks are less than 13% of the population, and most of us live in just 10 States (peep the facts). This leaves 40 other States where these conscious emcess are performing that's overwhelmingly NOT Black . The American White population equals more than the combined number of various minorities. Anything that's popular in America has to have White people involved in a big way. That's just demographic reality.
Bakari offers more "proof":
Looking for the 70 to 80 percent majority white audience? In most cases you won't find it at a Nelly concert or any other top-selling hip-hop artist's show. At large venues like Detroit's 40,000-capacity Comerica Park, where Eminem and 50 Cent will headline the Anger Management Tour in August, estimates suggest that 50 to 60 percent of the seats are filled by white fans. By contrast, Caucasian concertgoers staring down culturally focused Black hip-hop artists topple these numbers. Although to date there's been no attempt to track concert demographic data, fans, promoters, and independent MCs who play live more than half the year give estimates of 85 to 95 percent.
It's never a good idea to offer statistics that start with "estimates suggest." That's like making a promise with a "maybe, someday, I'll think about it." Even if the figure for Black and White fans at major venues is accurate, we're still comparing a tour that hits major cities (remember, that's where the bulk of Black people live), to indie tours that make runs in the smaller markets (remember, that's where the Black people don't live).
What's wrong with White support anyway? I've read too many interviews where these Black conscious emcees are embarrased by their core Caucasion following, bitter at Black people for the lack of support, and jealous of indie White rappers for being more successful than them. Bakari's quotes from political emcees covers all these attitudes. Peep:
White Fan Shame- "We jokingly refer to our tour as the Cotton Club"
Black Fan Bitterness- "So many Black people don't want to hear it. They want that thug sh-t."
White Rapper Jealousy- ""They believe that Aesop Rock is better than independent artists who are Black and mainstream artists like Ludacris. ...they believe it's the white MCs who created the styles they like. This isn't an underground-versus-mainstream thing—it's a racist thing."
Of course! Any underground White rapper who sells more than a Black one must be benefiting from racist fans, not better beats and lyrics! I hate how some of these guys diss their own loyal fanbase, AND the fans they wish they had. Longtime readers of Hip Hop Blogs know that I called out Talib Kweli and Jean Grae for this ungrateful sort of attitude that's tinged with it's own form of racism.
Mr. Lif is a notable, humble exception, however I disagree when he says, "But no artist is in a position to choose his fans." I would argue that these artists choose to perform in Lower Manhattan rather than the Bronx, hang out at Fat Beats instead of Beat Street, and promote their songs college radio and the net rather than mixtapes. If they focused on the hood then they would have plenty more Black fans. Instead, they (or someone in their camp making these decisions) go after the White kids, probably because they feel that's where the money is.
And that's the real problem, and the real story here. Why do conscious emcees pander to Whites, then hate themselves for it? I need to pitch that to the Voice or write a book about it.
------------
Separate, yet related issue. Someone school me on the truth in what Bakari writes here:
"In those days Afrocentric MCs rolled neck and neck with their counterparts, routinely reaching 500,000 units—the gold sales standard of the mid '80s. By decade's end, a few such records—Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, for instance—had gone platinum."
Afrocentric MC's routinely reaching gold? A few such records had gone platinum? Really? Who?
I always hear about some magical time in the 90's when conscious rap was super-popular. Public Enemy gets trotted out as an example (yet no one dares mention it was the bangin beats and Chuck's booming voice that drove their popularity, not really the conscious message). Who else was there who was legitmately popular? Not really anyone, I would guess.
I'm not saying I'm right about this. I'm just asking for ya'll to give me names and record sales. If you can't, then let's dead this myth.
This is an old post that I copied from Hashim from the Hiphop blogs site. However it is revelant, and I would like to know how people feel about this subject. I would love to hear feedback especially from artists/rappers, and poets on this subject.
****************************************************
Bakari Kitwana: White Fans at Conscious Rap Shows
This week hip-hop intellectual Bakari Kitwana did a piece in the Village Voice about "Black-conscious hip-hop dealing with an overwhelmingly white live audience." I'm not sure what Bakari is trying to tell me in this article. Is this a problem that needs to be solved (since the artists are complaining about it), or a strange fact that should be better understood (since activist Wendy Day wants to study it).
I don't think it's a problem or strange at all. White people are the main draw at conscious hip-hop shows?! Man, that's old news and good news.
According to the political hip-hop groups Bakari interviewed, White people at their concerts is new-news:
"My audience has gone from being over 95 percent Black 10 years ago to over 95 percent white today," laments Boots Riley of the Coup, whose 1994 Genocide and Juice responded to Snoop Dogg's 1993 gangsta party anthem "Gin and Juice."
Negro, please. Ten years ago he was circling his block, doing shows at the neighborhood clubs. Now he performs across the country in venues that have only recently opened their doors to non-rock groups. Who does Boots Riley expect to appear at his show in Oklahoma City?
Black folks are less than 13% of the population, and most of us live in just 10 States (peep the facts). This leaves 40 other States where these conscious emcess are performing that's overwhelmingly NOT Black . The American White population equals more than the combined number of various minorities. Anything that's popular in America has to have White people involved in a big way. That's just demographic reality.
Bakari offers more "proof":
Looking for the 70 to 80 percent majority white audience? In most cases you won't find it at a Nelly concert or any other top-selling hip-hop artist's show. At large venues like Detroit's 40,000-capacity Comerica Park, where Eminem and 50 Cent will headline the Anger Management Tour in August, estimates suggest that 50 to 60 percent of the seats are filled by white fans. By contrast, Caucasian concertgoers staring down culturally focused Black hip-hop artists topple these numbers. Although to date there's been no attempt to track concert demographic data, fans, promoters, and independent MCs who play live more than half the year give estimates of 85 to 95 percent.
It's never a good idea to offer statistics that start with "estimates suggest." That's like making a promise with a "maybe, someday, I'll think about it." Even if the figure for Black and White fans at major venues is accurate, we're still comparing a tour that hits major cities (remember, that's where the bulk of Black people live), to indie tours that make runs in the smaller markets (remember, that's where the Black people don't live).
What's wrong with White support anyway? I've read too many interviews where these Black conscious emcees are embarrased by their core Caucasion following, bitter at Black people for the lack of support, and jealous of indie White rappers for being more successful than them. Bakari's quotes from political emcees covers all these attitudes. Peep:
White Fan Shame- "We jokingly refer to our tour as the Cotton Club"
Black Fan Bitterness- "So many Black people don't want to hear it. They want that thug sh-t."
White Rapper Jealousy- ""They believe that Aesop Rock is better than independent artists who are Black and mainstream artists like Ludacris. ...they believe it's the white MCs who created the styles they like. This isn't an underground-versus-mainstream thing—it's a racist thing."
Of course! Any underground White rapper who sells more than a Black one must be benefiting from racist fans, not better beats and lyrics! I hate how some of these guys diss their own loyal fanbase, AND the fans they wish they had. Longtime readers of Hip Hop Blogs know that I called out Talib Kweli and Jean Grae for this ungrateful sort of attitude that's tinged with it's own form of racism.
Mr. Lif is a notable, humble exception, however I disagree when he says, "But no artist is in a position to choose his fans." I would argue that these artists choose to perform in Lower Manhattan rather than the Bronx, hang out at Fat Beats instead of Beat Street, and promote their songs college radio and the net rather than mixtapes. If they focused on the hood then they would have plenty more Black fans. Instead, they (or someone in their camp making these decisions) go after the White kids, probably because they feel that's where the money is.
And that's the real problem, and the real story here. Why do conscious emcees pander to Whites, then hate themselves for it? I need to pitch that to the Voice or write a book about it.
------------
Separate, yet related issue. Someone school me on the truth in what Bakari writes here:
"In those days Afrocentric MCs rolled neck and neck with their counterparts, routinely reaching 500,000 units—the gold sales standard of the mid '80s. By decade's end, a few such records—Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, for instance—had gone platinum."
Afrocentric MC's routinely reaching gold? A few such records had gone platinum? Really? Who?
I always hear about some magical time in the 90's when conscious rap was super-popular. Public Enemy gets trotted out as an example (yet no one dares mention it was the bangin beats and Chuck's booming voice that drove their popularity, not really the conscious message). Who else was there who was legitmately popular? Not really anyone, I would guess.
I'm not saying I'm right about this. I'm just asking for ya'll to give me names and record sales. If you can't, then let's dead this myth.
