Defending the way I talk, who I hung out with, the type of music I listened to, and who I dated was something I had to do a lot growing up. I didn't always fit into the stereotype of what the world thought was "black". But I didn't care, I love sushi, fell in love with a boy about 10 shades lighter than me & had Nirvana, Bob Marley, and Nas on the same playlist, and told everyone to suck it...(okay not really, I'm too nice sometimes...but I was thinkin it) That was a while ago, but sometimes I still have to explain myself to a group of people that want to squeeze me into their 'box of stereotypes', or I'll just say it's 'b.s'. There are a lot of girls who have gone and are still going through this b.s.
I found this article on Santogold, she is a fresh music artist, and because she is a black woman people want to label her sound as "hip hop/r&b" when her music is a world away from that genre. Check this article out peeples!
http://www.thelipster.com/articles/3323653
Here is an exerpt of the article, for my impatient friends. For all the good stuff, you have to go to the link:p
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It comes down to this: to anyone with ears, that genre is wrong. Gwen Stefani is more hip-hop/rap than Santogold, but she is called pop/rock - and it's because she's white.
I interviewed Santi last week and I admitted I was surprised when I finally heard her music, because I kept reading that she was a new R&B or hip-hop artist. But what you're doing is straight-up pop, I said. She laughed about it, but confessed that it was starting to grate:
"It's racist (laughs). It's totally racist. Everyone is just so shocked that I don't like R&B. Why does R&B keep coming into my interviews? It's pissing me off. I didn't grow up as a big fan of R&B and, like, what is the big shocker? It's stupid. In the beginning I thought that was funny. I'm an 'MC', I'm a 'soul singer', I'm a 'dance hybrid artist'. And some guy said I looked like Kelly Rowland!"
It's not just racism. It's happening because the album touches on a number of different genres, which makes it difficult to categorise. Artistically, that's what Santogold set out to achieve. Good. But it makes it much more difficult for retailers who rely on categories to help the customers find what they're looking for. They have to label it somehow and, typically, the record company supply the information.
Santi knows that the record takes in a bit of everything: "The cool thing is that I was able to work with all these genres that are typically sub-cultural, like dub or punk or something, and then, by writing in a way that had hooks, made it accessible to everyone."
Yet she's being called a rapper, when there's no rapping on the album. She's being called hip-hop when she sounds like Cyndi Lauper. It could be down to the record company. It could be down to the stores. Or it could be down to a collective lack of imagination, meaning a black artist must fit into a black genre. In Santi's own words, "it's a pop record. I made sure it was." They should have gone straight to the source.
"Oh snap!" - me.
4 comments:
Wow. this is a very interesting article. I went and sampled her music after reading. The "most popular" song sounds like Tegan and Sara - and last time I checked they aren't RnB. I didn't know that genres of music were specified to race and not the music itself. (*note sarcasm*)
Very eye opening. Thanks for sharing T!
Hmm. I noticed you changed your title. HEHE
I agree with you for the most part. In general, I have trouble sticking a genres on any bands. Obviously, this example epitomizes the flaws in genre-labeling. I think the safest way to label music is by what instruments are used in it, and that is going to be different from song to song for most artists, let alone albums. Is Justin Timberlake a singer-songwriter piano man? Most would say not, but if you only ever heard "(Another Song) All Over Again" off of FutureSex/LoveSounds you may think so. When Panic At The Disco re-invented themselves on their latest album, you would probably never lump it in the same genre as their first album. The Beatles and the Beach Boys are the same way. Call it Pop if you must, but only because it's popular in it's time, not because it particularly sounds like other popular music.
In short, classifications are bunk. Judge your reaction to a piece of art and move on. It's okay to say "if you like this artist, you may like this artist" but the algorithm you use to make that claim should be way more complicated than "they're black too" or "they're punk rock too".
I agree with you for the most part. In general, I have trouble sticking a genres on any bands. Obviously, this example epitomizes the flaws in genre-labeling. I think the safest way to label music is by what instruments are used in it, and that is going to be different from song to song for most artists, let alone albums. Is Justin Timberlake a singer-songwriter piano man? Most would say not, but if you only ever heard "(Another Song) All Over Again" off of FutureSex/LoveSounds you may think so. When Panic At The Disco re-invented themselves on their latest album, you would probably never lump it in the same genre as their first album. The Beatles and the Beach Boys are the same way. Call it Pop if you must, but only because it's popular in it's time, not because it particularly sounds like other popular music.
In short, classifications are bunk. Judge your reaction to a piece of art and move on. It's okay to say "if you like this artist, you may like this artist" but the algorithm you use to make that claim should be way more complicated than "they're black too" or "they're punk rock too".
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