Music still segregated

This summer, between working an *exciting* research job and recording with the band, I'm making a radio documentary about the resurgence in Black Rock Music. Resurgence, you say? Well, yes. Bands like The Thirst, Noisettes, Ebony Bones, Test Icicles (r.i.p) and of course Bloc Party.

Interviewing some stellar people like Skin, Soul 2 Soul, Dotun Adebayo and Rob Fields from the Black Rock Coalition has given me hope that the music industry might get over that long worn fallacy, 'black people don't like rock', however many times my (rock) band is put on the urban or 'ethnic' stage. The time we went on after a group of delegates from the Pakistani foreign ministry is a story I'll save for another time... And yet it seems that a black person in a band suddenly shifts journalists into euphemism mode - rather than being a rock or indie band you're 'funky' or 'soulful'. What they're trying to say is 'black'. By and large, the people I've interviewed have been positive and hopeful that the cross pollination in music will bear mixed race fruit. But one only has to look at the rock n roll scene of the 1950s, the prog scene of the late 1960s and the ska/punk scene of the late 1970s to see that it's white folk that come to dominate.

Here's an article soon to be published for bigcityredneck.co.uk

When my band, Mama Shamone, got the call that we were playing industry festival In The City we jumped around the room with grins of not-yet-jaded glee, but the jumps were tempered in height by the now familiar qualifier: we were playing the urban stage. Again.

We're a punk rock band consisting of two girls, two boys, two black, two white. Pretty egalitarian, but, of course we’re described as a band of colour: ‘heavy metal Tina Turner’; ‘Black Blondie’ are just two of the terms often applied. There’s no point in getting sensitive about it – bands are pigeon holed from the very first lazy journalist’s question: ‘so what are your influences’ – but it got me thinking one day as we played the Brick Lane Festival.

Rocking out on the ethnic and world music stage I looked on enviously at the Vice bar rocking with the sounds of Dead Kids and Selfish Cunt. These were our peers, not the slightly baffled looking families in the front row who had come to see the African men's choir following us.
In a music scene where crossover is king and the urban scene is pretty mixed, we're still ridiculously segregated in the world of rock and indie. The media seem to lose their minds when a black person picks up a guitar and suddenly words like 'funky' and 'soulful' start creeping into reviews: used by writers euphemising 'black'.

It would be naive, however, to pretend that we're all colour blind. Kele Okereke of Bloc Party has complained that the media have hounded him about his colour (and sexuality but that's another article) and yet on the second album a significant batch of lyrics are devoted to exploring his racial identity. Perhaps this is just venting in response to the more naff cries of 'look - an indie band with a black man!', but as far as his race informs his experience, his colour have influenced the band. Similarly with Ebony Bones' cover of 'Mind Your Own Business' resounding with the refrain 'no blacks, no Irish, no dogs'. A friend, playing devil's advocate, pointed out to me the other day that, like it or not, the name Mama Shamone 'sounded black'. The stereotypes may be contemptible but if social consciousness believes it to be true, then it becomes truth.

There has been a significant resurgence in black British rock bands over the last few years: Noisettes, Test Icicles, Ebony Bones, The Thirst, and of course Bloc Party. Over the course of the summer I am making a radio documentary exploring this and asking at once: why now and not before? Typically, I get one of four responses:

Black People Don't Like Rock

It's surprising how often I hear this from all colours. It's blatantly untrue, but the fallacy holds not a little sway about how music is segregated.

“My black friends think I’m mad”, laughs Sonia, a black Queens of the Stone Age fan I met on late night drunken bus trip recently. She thinks it's a mixture of people not wanting to step outside their typical peer group - something common to all colours - and a deeper religious mistrust of rock music as 'depressing' or 'evil'. At the recent Lovebox festival I spoke to Soul 2 Soul's MC Chickaboo, who confirmed this opinion - 'in the Caribbean, people like happy music - rock's not viewed as that'.

As cultures mix and deep Christian faith is less commonplace, rock may filter through.

Discrimination

‘Elvis wasn’t my king’ wrote Helen Kolawole in the Guardian on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the rock n roller's death. To her Elvis ‘epitomises the theft of black people’s music and dance’. There’s no denying that rock originated with black musicians. How many times have we heard the John Lennon quote that the Beatles were simply stealing from the black rhythm and blues artists?

During the 70s and 80s, punk saw more black people involved in rock: Polystyrene from X Ray Spex, Barry Adamson from Magazine, while over in the US the punk attitudes of Bad Brains. Yet it was Madness and the Clash that charged ahead, taking the reggae and ska influences and reaping the rewards. Have the white folks stolen what is rightfully black music?

The record industry claimed for ages there wasn't a market for black rock, indeed take a fine tooth comb to the 90s and the pickings are small: Skunk Anansie in the UK and Fishbone in the US or Living Color. But there's an argument that the industry didn't push black rock either because of a perceived lack of a market or a kind of racism.

During their 80s/90s career Living Color found themselves continually put on as an RnB band even though they grew out of lead singer Vernon Reid's involvement in the Black Rock Coalition, an organisation dedicated to promoting black artists in rock. They are still struggling to find that elusive black rock audience on a significant scale.

The music industry may still be as discriminatory as ever, indeed, it even works the other way: 1xtra consciously don't interview white actors at movie premieres even though their remit is to be 'urban' not 'black'. Yet the industry may just be running out of gimmicks and the appeal of a black lead singer in a rock band appeals in money terms just as Eminem was the white kid who opened up the hip hop market to a flood of white rednecks.

Social Mobility

As I walked around Lovebox I noted some of the legendary acts on the programme: Don Letts, Toots and the Maytals, Soul 2 Soul and I noted the location - deepest Hackney - but I saw very few black faces among the crowd. Perhaps it was a class thing. The middle classes tend to be white and the middle classes can afford tickets to festivals at £35 a day.

Rock is also dominated by the middle classes, which possibly explains Kele Okereke's indie star status: it's far more to do with him being a well educated middle class boy than anything else. The UK is still a place paralysed by class prejudice and that's reflected in its music. On the council estates it's grime, garage and two step you'll hear, while the private school kids drinking cider on Barnes Village Green are bound to be listening to indie bands.

As black people rise up the class ladder perhaps we'll see more at rock concerts.

The Ipod Generation

The crossover kids, the 'mash up' crew, whatever you want to call them, the under 25s are listening to music in a completely different way. And shuffle has a lot to answer for. "I think it's a natural progression" says Sonia, "more people are mixing and so the music mixes up too". Artists like Lethal Bizzle and Dizzee Rascal are enough to testify that rock riffs are being looked on as something new to mix in, but will it encourage a new generation of black kids to pick up guitars rather than mics?

Rob Fields, former PR executive for the Black Rock Coalition hopes that rock can be brought back to black.

“The conundrum of Black rock is that the most obvious audience for this music is Black people. So, the question for me is not how to market the music to black folks, but how to bring more black folks to the music. Not only would it create more demand for the music, but it would change lives.”

Until then, my band will be playing an urban stage near you.

Ruth is currently making a documentary about black rock music. If you would like to take part or comment contact her at ruthblackrock@googlemail.com.