I've known this all along:
A leading African American newspaper published a series of articles assailing black musicians for holding back the race. The music "is killing some people," the paper claimed. "Some are going insane; others are losing their religion." The artists under attack were not rappers such as 50 Cent or Ludacris but Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. "The young girls and boys who constantly take jazz every day and night are absolutely becoming bad, and some criminals," the (New York) Amsterdam News wrote in 1925.
The next time Stanley Crouch spouts off some bull about rap and hip-hop, tell him to go till his own backyard.
Look, I'm from the Boomer generation that loved Motown and the Philadelphia Sound. I am no particular lover of hip-hop, and of course, there is that problem I have with its denigration of women. There are some early guys I like, and one of these days I am going to have time to listen deep to Tupac and Biggie. I've liked Outkast and Kanye West.
I also love history and culture, so to me, Thaddeus Russell in the Los Angeles Times hits the nail deep when he writes:
These critics argue that the "damaging" images of African Americans in rap discourage whites from opening the door to full citizenship. Yet a consideration of the troubled relationship between civil rights leaders and black popular music in the past might give pause to the opponents of contemporary rap, and, for that matter, to the proponents of integration. In fact, blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues were all denounced by advocates for racial integration, and for the same reasons rap is now under attack.
In the 1920s, several civil rights leaders were so concerned about the sexual and violent content of popular blues and jazz songs that they established a record company to "undertake the job of elevating the musical taste of the race." Promoted by W.E.B. DuBois and A. Philip Randolph, two of the most important civil rights leaders of the 20th century, Black Swan Records pledged to distribute "the Better Class of Records by Colored Artists," which meant recordings of "respectable" European classical music.
Civil rights leaders similarly opposed the next creations of African American musicians: rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues. In the 1950s, Martin Luther King Jr. told African Americans to shun the new music, which, he said, "plunges men's minds into degrading and immoral depths." Likewise, Randolph's Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which produced a great portion of the civil rights leadership, condemned rock and R&B for their overt sexuality and their "degrading portrayal of Negro womanhood."
Black men and women who were into jazz and blues packed razors and knives. When they were able to party, they did drugs, liquor, dance halls, live entertainment and gambling (and sex) more openly because it was more readily available in the cities than it was in the country. They created a whole new culture (or subculture) that was mimicked, purveyed and imitated by whites.
These black men and women were the great-grandparents of the hip-hop artists and fans today. And what do hip-hoppers do? They extol the merits of Courvoisier and 40s. The young girls and women are mostly interested in guys who are thugs and playas "in the Game." They create their own clothing lines (remember the sartorial splendor of someone like Cab Calloway with zootsuits and chains down the leg?). They have their own particular clubs and bars. They have their extreme thing about sex and women, which unfortunately, can mirror that of the great-grandparents. All of this points to a sharp divide, not only generational, but of class as well.
All of these people, from DuBois to Jackson, represent blacks as leaders, gatekeepers and activists to the white establishment, if not to their constituencies. They prosper in those roles. They become respectably and comfortably middle-class. And yet, when something like jazz or hip-hop develops, rather than understand the phenomenon, they seek to suppress it. Hip-hop, like jazz, came from the very dregs of the people that they represent, from the blown-out neighborhoods of the Bronx to Brooklyn, from Oakland (Oaktown) to Marin City. They cannot stop it, even if they tried. And as history suggests, it's been tried. And even now, the music, as always, is poised to go in another direction because the music industry seems to have hit the wall.
Most of these leaders, in their time, also told these constituencies how to vote, if not how to be. And for the last forty years, it's been Dems for blacks.
There was some kind of detente reached when P. Diddy and Russell Simmons tried to get out the young black underclass (and mostly Dem) hip-hop vote last year. But they were largely dissed and dismissed, not only by the civil rights hierarchy but by the Kerry campaign itself. Which makes me wonder whether the hip-hop generation will ever vote again like that again in large numbers and for Dems, and whether black leadership will continue to err on the wrong side of history.
Because hip-hop culture, with its emphases on hard, hypermasculinist men has more of an attraction to the winger aspect of the Republican Party than it does to the supposedly staid and wimpy Democratic Party that still hasn't delivered the goods to the one group that has kept faith with them all this time. And delivering the goods is one aspect of hip-hop culture that has stuck with many.
Just my two cents.