Dorf (2009) is short for “dead, old, retro or foreign”. Jody Rosen at Slate.com came up with the term to get a handle on what it is about the black music that NPR plays. You find the same sort of black music at Starbucks and the New York Times Magazine.
If you have ever noticed that out-of-date black music is respectable among well-to-do whites while the current stuff never is, that is dorf.
On occasion NPR will have a Jill Scott or a Santigold, but by and large their black artists are dorf:
- dead: Michael Jackson (now that he is dead), Mahalia Jackson, Bobby Short, Albert Ayler, Sam Rivers.
- old: black vaudeville, jazz, blues, Motown, old school hip hop, Booker T. (still alive), Smokey Robinson, Living Colour, Death (1970s), Run DMC, Solomon Burke.
- retro: soul revivals, Little Jackie, Ryan Shaw, Brown Bag AllStars, Lenny Kravitz.
- foreign: anything African or anyone with the last name of Marley, Oumou Sangare, Rokia Traore, BLK JKS, Staff Benda Bilili, Amadou and Miriam, Blick Bassy, Cesaria Evora, Andy Palacio.
You might say, “Well, it is not like NPR plays Britney Spears either.” In fact many NPR stations spend much of the day playing utterly dorf music like classical and jazz.
True enough, but they also push plenty of white indie rock: current stuff by living, breathing American artists working in a current style. None of it dorf, but nearly all of it white.
To assume that NPR is not being racist at some level you have to assume that the quality of black music sank like a rock sometime in the early 1990s and never recovered, at least not up to the levels of indie rock, African music and Little Jackie.
One could argue that, but I doubt that is what is going on here. Because dorf is not just an NPR thing or even a current upper-middle-class white thing. I first noticed dorf in the 1980s:
- The opening credits of “The Big Chill” (1983). It has an all-white cast but it starts with Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” (1968), a black song from 15 years before.
- In “Pretty in Pink” (1986) Duckie, who plays a white teenager, knows all the words to Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” (1966), a black song from 20 years before.
But meanwhile old school hip hop was at its height at the time. Back then it was dismissed by whites (and many blacks) as being “too ghetto”, but now it has become respectable in the very same circles.
And jazz went through the same thing too: at first it was just music that poor blacks listened to. Not only did whites look down on it, so did middle-class blacks. But now the very same songs, in their dorfitude, are utterly respectable. Why is that? It is not like the music has changed.
Angela Davis noticed this dorf thing too among white people: if she spoke with a foreign accent, whites would be way nicer to her.
See also:
Wow, I never looked at in that way. Wow, interesting perception.
I think that there is truth in this idea however, it has always seemed to me that white people, in general, have a greater appreciation for black music that’s classic, obscure, wordly and/or experimental. Way more than blacks do.
Look at any R&B act or black artist who doesn’t perform mainstream R&B/rap. Most of their fanbase is white.
Whites, the world over, have always had a strong appreciation and love for progressive black music. Wayyyy more than blacks do.
Some of the examples used above are misguided. Michael Jackson was transcendant. Everyone loved him. They just starting loving him even more after his sudden passing. Also, whites were always the biggest supporters of rap music from day one. Remember, most blacks in the industry thought of rap as uncouth, ignorant and lowly. It was the white Jewish hipsters and moneymakers who helped elevate the genre and artform to the height that it enjoys now.
Also,
Why don’t blacks support progressive or classic black music?
Why is the audience at every jazz, blues, reggae, Afro-beat”, black rock or future-minded rap/R&B show that I’ve attended ALL WHITE? Why don’t black Americans support these artists and keep the tradition going?
Before criticizing whites, maybe some people need to take a look at themselves.
Also, to answer the the topic’s original topic: Many whites are more receptive to a black person who doesn’t remind them of other black people. Ask Obama or Kanye West.
Right: for many genres of black music, the audience is largely white.
Agreed about Michael Jackson. He is in his own category.
Keep in mind that record sales among the white masses is not the same thing as cultural respectability among the NPR set.
I don’t think this has anything to do with race. Modern pop music made by white artists isn’t respected either.
NPR caters to “intellectual” types and music that fall into this DORF category is foolishly considered high class and intellectual among pretentious music snobs.
Then why play indie rock? That is not dorf.
“Why don’t blacks support progressive or classic black music?”
i like dorf, i know plenty of bp who appreciate the old school, jazz, motown stuff and support new and upcoming/upstanding artist. coem to the jazz fest in baltimore. How about the black arts fest in ATL? you know i’m getting really sick and tired of people acting like bp dont’ appreciate our culture and trying to make it out that whites support the “True,” black culture more than blacks do. we lie in the damn culture, we breathe it and eat it.
prime example: i remember watching these white kids dancing to lindy hop, you know lindy hop and they were pretty damn good, it was clear they had lessons, it was a competition, but they were good. at 1st i was kinda like damn, its a shame bp don’t appreciate this stuff, its a shame other people are appreciating our artform, but then that same nite, i was watching this step dancing/ club dancing people to hip hop (baltimore stuff) and i was looking at them and I thought to myself wow alot of the stuff these club dancing kids are doing is like an offshoot of the stuff the white kids were doing w/ the lindy hop, but modernized. But I talk to the kids who do the stuff and they’ll tell you, that’s just how they dance and i felt better and that’s when i realized that our culture comes from within, its in our blood and no one can take that away from us or beat it out of us. How would these kids know to dance the way they were and they were doing difficult dances akin to the lindy hop stuff w/ no real training. so no we do appreciate our culture, we breathe it daily and its in our blood.
also its mostly wp who support the “trashy,” stuff they put out today soulja boy aka coonery in action. When tupac and the real stuff was out, they wanted him jail, same w/ ray charles, so what are you talking about?
Yup. This is nothing new. Black folks create a music form and then immediately drop it to race off to the next new thing. Whites tend to have a more classical approach. Buddy Guy, BB King or many other blues or jazz musicians would starve if they could only rely on the black audience.
Also music is more intimate to people. Blacks don’t like to attend music shows in which they are the minority and neither do whites. Some whites may like black music but they aren’t overly fond of black people. (Ted Nugent is probably the poster child for this stance)
There’s an excellent book by Charles Shaar Murray titled “Crosstown Traffic” in which Eric Burdon tells of discussing black music stars with a white female fan who knows as much about soul and blues as he does. He asked her if she had caught a recent Otis Redding show and she said “Are you crazy? The place was full of n*****s!”
Not much has changed.
But I do think that music in general and black music in particular has lost something since about the seventies.
Why aren’t black audiences out there supporting The Meters or Ben Harper or Burnt Sugar or Otis Taylor or even P-Funk? There’s a very limited range of modern black music that’s commercially viable for black audiences and that’s a shame.
Shady Grady says:
There’s an excellent book by Charles Shaar Murray titled “Crosstown Traffic” in which Eric Burdon tells of discussing black music stars with a white female fan who knows as much about soul and blues as he does. He asked her if she had caught a recent Otis Redding show and she said “Are you crazy? The place was full of n*****s!”
LOL. I remember reading that too!
mynameismyname Says:
Why don’t blacks support progressive or classic black music? Why is the audience at every jazz, blues, reggae, Afro-beat”, black rock or future-minded rap/R&B show that I’ve attended ALL WHITE? Why don’t black Americans support these artists and keep the tradition going?
The crazy thing is that they do! My mom and dad travel far and wide to some of the best Jazz festivals and are greeted by many people of color along the way.
But my mom is not buying Bobby Buble! She and other family members are hunting down the rare shit that the average white jazz listeners skipped over because they’re still jamming to Miles Davis.
I discovered this white phenomena and the attraction to “old school” when I moved to California and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I went to a jazz festival in San Francisco with my roomate from New Orleans- it was offensive. It wasn’t even jazz, it was an outdoor party for white people to drink beer.
What I find funny is even though I’m not the largest supportive of “old school”, I have the privilege of actually being “there” when the videos first aired on BET, and the excitement of hearing the music when it first hit the radio. Not to mention whites tend to hit the surface stuff and miss alot of the craze that was Frankie Beverly and Maze and Anita Baker. They find Usher but can’t quite place Telvin Campbell. They may listen to Ice Cube now, but they can’t recall the craze that was watching Boyz in the Hood, or recite lines from Juice, and New Jack City. In fact most of my white friends didn’t listen to Sade until after they were able to squeeze it into their lounge mix. It’s pretty telling when white people are late to the game and I don’t mind a bit. I ask them if they remember that year so-and-so performed on BET and they look confused or simply out of place.
But how often do I have to sit through people’s speeches about how “black music/hip hop has lost that certain something, how it’s not the same”, and you just know they have no idea about the early sounds of Blues and songs like “She’s got a good Pussy,” and female blues singers talking about their “cabbage”. Black music continues to evolve and in my opinion most white people just can’t keep up, and consider the change to be for the worst because they can’t seem to admit that they just don’t get it.
I agree with Peanut when he says “it’s in our blood, we breath it daily”. Our standards of beauty, celebrities, our films, are wrapped up in the music. You can’t take a crash course and catch up. There are no Cliff’s Notes for Black music and culture.
Again, nothing intelligent or introspective to say, but this is funny and sad at the same time.
Note: There is a historical pattern of white appropriating elements of black culture, especially artistic forms. Once they’ve picked apart black culture and selected what they feel is not too black, it is then declared “cool” or “sophisticated,” marketed, and favored among well-to-do whites and those who aspire to be this way.
~*~ Pretty Star
Abagond says:
And jazz went through the same thing too: at first it was just music that poor blacks listened to. Not only did whites look down on it, so did middle-class blacks.
All of the black musical genres went through this process. The music was looked down upon as ‘race’ music at their inceptions. When white artists started to adopt these genres($), and discarded much of the ‘racial’ aspects, the music became more palatable for the general white population. A good example of this would be Pat Boone doing ‘cleaned’ up versions of Little Richard songs. Rock and Roll also started out as a black music genre. It was when these ‘cleaned’ up versions became popular that the original renditions were heard more widely and became popular as a result. The whites listening to these genres before the rest of the white populace were usually ‘hipsters’, beatniks etc, much like the ‘wiggers’ of today. It will be interesting to see if the ‘wiggers’ of today, follow in the footsteps of current NPR listeners, years from now. Of course when most of the current artists are off the national scene or dead, and their music is referred to as ‘classic’. As to why they listen to mostly white indie bands? Take a look at the history of black music and the criticisms they garnered at the each era they came out and you’ll know why. A similar trend can be seen in popular dance styles throughout different eras as well. In order to become ‘legitimate’(look at syncopated music for example), it appears the black music at any time in American history, had, has to validated by white society at large in order to become ‘popular’ and mainstream.
Black music continues to evolve and in my opinion most white people just can’t keep up, and consider the change to be for the worst because they can’t seem to admit that they just don’t get it
Bingo!
Dorf is just a sun tan for the ears, its cool because it makes one seem open, sophisticated and in the know.
Peanut and Mia,
Why do black Americans get so defensive when you call out their behavior? Not too different from white Americans.
Ask any “progressive” black musician, of any era, and they will repeat what I said. Remember, I’m in the industry. So, this isn’t just mere outsider opinion. I witness it all the time; I hear it all the time.
Yes, many older blacks, will have a better appreciation for black music since they were fortunate enough to live in an era where the quality of music was far superior. But for the most part, black Americans tend to extremely trendy and “off the moment” when it comes to black arts.
Abagond,
Most indie rock comes from a very “high brow” aesthetic. (That’s part of the reason why it’s not mainstream!) Hence, it’s frequently played on a station like NPR.
From what i can see here in europe (belgium and france) white people (middle age) are mostly into dorf. But in fact, its not even “dorf” it is those music but replayed by white people.
Most of the radio where i can hear some jazz or some other type of music that is originally black are replayed and have now their own white artist performing it.
In europe when you say the term “Jazz” and “Rythm and Blues” it looks more like some white music trend, all main artist are white, they make concerts, huge selling cds etc.
It even seems to me that the most ignorant of them think that these music style have been originated by white people as they think it is the case for Rock with Elvis Presley.
Its like if in 50 years, white people will tell that Eminem invented rap music. Same thing here.
Also, I think that black people are no more into those old and retro styles because we tend to invent new style, we sometime use the past styles, but we keep on inventing new trends. This is my point of view. It seems to me that we need to come up with something new beside rap music and nowadays r&b.
Once more it will be taken by white people in 20 years and we will again need to come up with something new. That is how things goes: We invent, they take, we drop it, we reinvent…
Something else : I’m African from congo, and here also the music from my country well known among africa is some kind of dorf but i rarely see white people playing it. So not african-foreign music is dorf. Sometimes it is too black for them.
I haven’t listened to them so I don’t know how good they are but the band Antibalas is mostly white and play music derived mostly from Afrobeat-primarily Fela though I’ve heard they attempt some Congolese stuff as well.
mynameismyname Says:
Why do black Americans get so defensive when you call out their behavior? Not too different from white Americans.
Because most of the time it’s simply poorly informed, false, or is wrapped up in some statement or agenda to further encourage racism. The statement that we’re not listening to earlier mentioned artist comes from the fact that you don’t know what’s in black people’s private collections. That same level of racism seems to get recycled in the industry as well, so it doesn’t surprise me that you might hold these viewpoints on black behavior.
“Ask any ‘progressive’…” I’m sure you have a list of who’s progressive and who isn’t, right? I’m not sure what qualifies as appreciation for you – but it’s just not new for us. POC capable of doing two things at once – picking up on new artist and moving forward, and occasionally ripping out that old album and reminiscing.
I’m pretty certain it’s not just you that feels that way. I find it interesting that most white people at work don’t care to share their new found love of “old school” with black people in a public way because they assume we wouldn’t be into it, or they think it will lead to hip hop domination of the station. So white people can jam “old school” all they want, but the new stuff, the up-to-date stuff, is usually off limits.
I think the problem is this, as a fan of NPR I was exposed to non mainstream black acts like Santogold or Television on the Radio through NPR. They are not old, dead, or retro. Saul Williams will get media attention there as well, were as mainstream music stations don’t play these artists, they are too white to be on the black station, too black to be on the white stations.
Mia,
My line of thinking doesn’t come from blind assumptions. It comes from repeated experiences as a person of color in a wide range of black environments. Experiences from an individual who is an insider in the music world, mind you. I’m not on the outside looking in; I’m square in the middle of the inside.
Yes, there are some blacks who may have knowledge and interest in some of the less mainstream forms of “black” music (or music in general since music has no color or race.) But you know damn well that they are the exception. Not the majority, by far. That’s nothing to argue about. When I stated this fact, I didn’t even to mean to state it as a negative. It’s not good or bad. It just is.
Siddity,
Saul Williams and TV On The Radio don’t make music for the radio. Hence, why it’s not played on modern rock or “urban” formats. Plus, most of the songs that the public is bombarbed with are played courtesy of payola, record company favors and well…use your imagination.
mynameismyname Says:
Thu 22 Oct 2009 at 17:49:02
Mia,
My line of thinking doesn’t come from blind assumptions. It comes from repeated experiences as a person of color in a wide range of black environments. Experiences from an individual who is an insider in the music world, mind you. I’m not on the outside looking in; I’m square in the middle of the inside.
Yes, there are some blacks who may have knowledge and interest in some of the less mainstream forms of “black” music (or music in general since music has no color or race.) But you know damn well that they are the exception. Not the majority, by far. That’s nothing to argue about. When I stated this fact, I didn’t even to mean to state it as a negative. It’s not good or bad. It just is.
And yet you’re still on the outside. I’m sorry but what’s the exception for you happens to be the rule for me. Your experiences happen to fall in line with who you’ve interacted with in your time in this industry and I’m telling you, “you need to get out more.”
Not all white people listen to “black” music. Sometimes when they do, it’s falls in line with artist they feel most comfortable with – “old school”. In the same token not all black people leave out the oldies in their quest for new artist. You’d be surprised to find we can still throw on a tune when the mood suits us.
But I don’t expect every white person knows Kiss or Jefferson Airplane, so I guess I’m just missing your point. Some people just don’t know a lot about music – white or black.
Mia,
You’re diverting and now your commentary isn’t making much sense.
Again, when I stated some well-known facts about the disparity of black and white appreciation of all realms of black music, I wasn’t saying it in a critical manner.
You know, let’s just drop the ideas and use a real live incident from last night:
I attended a concert that saw three major-label “urban” acts perform for a virtually all-black audience. (Age demo was maybe, 18-30). One of the opening acts was a rock-ish black band that wasn’t half-bad if I had to say so myself.
You could hear crickets from the audience during said band’s performance. You should have seen the quizzical looks when the saw the bandmembers come out with guitars.
These black folks didn’t want the “old”. They didn’t want the “future”. They wanted the familiar. The “what’s hot RIGHT NOW”. Story of my life.
Caroline said:
NPR caters to “intellectual” types and music that fall into this DORF category is foolishly considered high class and intellectual among pretentious music snobs.
Gen said:
Dorf is just a sun tan for the ears, its cool because it makes one seem open, sophisticated and in the know.
These two statements sums up my feelings about NPR lol.
I think some people need to rephrase their blantant statements in here. I think some of you need to say “Why very few Blacks support the non-mainstream non-urban Black artist?” That statement would probably go over well then to say “Black people don’t support non-mainstream, non-urban Black artist only white people do”.
As far as DORF, I don’t want to undermine people’s experiences but where they hell do some of you guys live? Black people in Chicago support DORF to the wheels fall off lol Black people in the fall and summer sponsor alot of festivals where they have non-mainstream and sometimes non-urban artist that perform at these events. I was at the African festival this year and had a great time they had the Ohio Players come out and perform and people had a blast (even though some of the orginal members were not there lol) For the commentator that said that Black people don’t support P-Funk you better hope you playing because the Black people in Chicago would be there ASAP if they were scheduled to perform here lol
Now some of you guys are giving NPR too much credit. I heard about Santigold through a popular Black gossip blog and also heard more of music through a site I assume is owned by some Black people from Chicago called “BlindIForTheKids” they support and feature alot of underground music that NPR plays. Janelle Monae I heard about through Vibe in 2006 and went on her myspace page and loved her music. NPR was late at playing her music because she came out way before her video “Many Moons” aired and way before she got on the NY hipster scene. Not only that she got alot of support from Black people in ATL in the underground scnenes. j*DaVey is starting to come up too. However, I heard about them through word of mouth in 2006 from a Black dude who lived on the west coast. Loved their music and now their starting to catch on. I think some of you guys complain too much about Black people not supporting these artist. Truth be told, many don’t know. I spread the word and guess what? some of these Black hipster artist gain new fans that way.
@dani:
I noticed this when I was in Chicago, mostly in the summer mind you. In fact I attended a Zydeco festival, there was a Jazz festival which was upcoming and, dozens more. Hell even neighbourhoods have their local musical/arts&craft festival which I attended. I am going back on Sunday for a couple of weeks. Are these festivals year round or just in the summer? I must say I really enjoyed the ones I attended!
Dani,
I love J*Davey too! They’re more on the underground “new groove” tip though. This scene is dominated by black bohos. Again, they are not the norm.
Again, I wasn’t being critical when I made my observations. I never said that “all” blacks don’t respond to non-mainstream “urban” music. I said “most” don’t. I just meant the greatest number of people. Not all. I know better than that. Many black folks are very electic and free-spirited in their tastes and aesethic. But they’re not the norm.
As mentioned part of the issue is also that white people tend to want to support their own. In the current magazine “Guitar Legends”, which is put out by Guitar World, there is an interview with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.
Both guitarists are asked about blues influences and are somewhat dismissive. Satriani speaks of trying to play along with John Lee Hooker records but finding the rhythms and spacings too challenging.
Vai says that most of the blues he was listening to was blues-rock. Vai tells of being told by Zappa that his feeling was too “white” but Vai says that he wasn’t really feeling any blues artists until he heard Stevie Ray Vaughn, who he says was the best and most influential to him, including Hendrix.
So there’s serious commercial challenges to any black musician trying to sell music that’s off the beaten path, because most whites (hipsters aside) won’t support it if there’s a white alternative. And most black people REALLY won’t support it. Better to stay in the confines of whatever happens to be currently popular in the Black community.
There are of course free-minded people of all races who don’t care and just listen to what they think is good music regardless of race. But I think those folks are a definite minority.
^^^
Exactly what I’ve been (trying to?) emphasizing all along.
herneith said:
@dani:
I noticed this when I was in Chicago, mostly in the summer mind you. In fact I attended a Zydeco festival, there was a Jazz festival which was upcoming and, dozens more. Hell even neighbourhoods have their local musical/arts&craft festival which I attended. I am going back on Sunday for a couple of weeks. Are these festivals year round or just in the summer? I must say I really enjoyed the ones I attended!
Girl, I do not know what’s going on right now. Usually they have alot festivals during the times you went. I don’t know if they still have any now because it’s getting cold in Chicago and the weather gets atrocious here lol. I’m glad you had fun. The African and Carribbean festivals here in Chicago are great!
@ mynameismyname said:
Dani,
I love J*Davey too! They’re more on the underground “new groove” tip though. This scene is dominated by black bohos. Again, they are not the norm.
Again, I wasn’t being critical when I made my observations. I never said that “all” blacks don’t respond to non-mainstream “urban” music. I said “most” don’t. I just meant the greatest number of people. Not all. I know better than that. Many black folks are very electic and free-spirited in their tastes and aesethic. But they’re not the norm.
Cool cool. I see your point. I’m not saying I totally disagree, I just think that people like Jody Rosen tends to make blantant statements without using much research. The Black people in Chicago sponsor alot of African and Carribbean festivals that supports the DORFS so him trying to give White people all this damn credit is beyond me condescending. Janelle Monae was heard of in the underground scene in Atlanta with a small black hipster scene that was so major for her that she got signed to Bad Boy in started to perform in NY. NPR didn’t start playing her sh*t until she got known in the underground scene in NY with a bunch of White hispters. NPR pats themselves on the back of being so damn eccentric and so damn exclusive, when they forget that they didn’t really make some of these artist (especially some of the Blacks ones like Janelle Monae and j*daVey they were already known in the black hobo circuit). NPR is nothing but a mainstream-underground radio stations lol. I know it’s an oxy moron but that’s how I feel. I just can’t stand music elitist. That’s why I choose not to listen to NPR.
Yes! I love j*daVey my fav song is “Hi-Sun” I would play that song to death! and “Lazydaze”, “Venus to Mars” “This One!” “TopsyTurvy” “Cowboys & Indians” of course “Mister Mister” ahh just most of their original sh*t lol
Shady_Grady said:
Vai says that most of the blues he was listening to was blues-rock. Vai tells of being told by Zappa that his feeling was too “white” but Vai says that he wasn’t really feeling any blues artists until he heard Stevie Ray Vaughn, who he says was the best and most influential to him, including Hendrix.
So there’s serious commercial challenges to any black musician trying to sell music that’s off the beaten path, because most whites (hipsters aside) won’t support it if there’s a white alternative. And most black people REALLY won’t support it. Better to stay in the confines of whatever happens to be currently popular in the Black community.
Now this I agree with. I do think that Black non-urban artist have it very hard because of those reasons you said it. They categorized Santigold as an Hip-Hop artist. I was like what?? No she is not. It was definitely steterotypical. I don’t see them half-step on Robin Thicke being a named a alternative artist because he is White lol. It’s a trip. I listen to Santigold’s songs “L.E.S. Artises” and think that if she was alot younger and White that song would be huge lol.
Mainstream is very racialize because Whites dominate Rock while Blacks dominate Hip-Hop and R&B. Music in the 70′s was more intergrated so alot of Blacks then did know some of the 70′s rock bands and their songs. Elton John was one of the rock artist in the 70′s that was transendent. Sh*t my mom loves Elton. “Benny and the Jetts” and “Rocket Man” is the stuff. “Goodbye Yellowbrick Road” is a classic album. Music started to become more segregated in the 80′s when you had the “New Wave/Punk” movement surfaced. (AKA Disco sucks lol). Since then, I think that’s why you see more racialized genres that has not undergone a social paradigm shift yet. It’s just staganant now. So yeah I agree that it is a minority of people that will listen and support artist regardless of race.
I heard about Santigold through a popular Black gossip blog and also heard more of music through a site I assume is owned by some Black people from Chicago called “BlindIForTheKids” they support and feature alot of underground music that NPR plays. Janelle Monae I heard about through Vibe in 2006 and went on her myspace page and loved her music. NPR was late at playing her music because she came out way before her video “Many Moons” aired and way before she got on the NY hipster scene.
Santigold and TV on the Radio were often times be featured in Stereogum and Pitchfork, but I didn’t see a lot of black sites supporting them until they had videos come out.
In terms of Janelle Monae, I don’t know how I found her, but I bought her stuff like two years before Many Moons, I had completely fallen in love with Violent Stars Happy Hunting! I might have found her on myspace way back then. I got an autographed copy of it she was selling on a website.
Alice Smith is another person I find most stations won’t play, even pop stations and she has a pretty mainstream sound, she’s just black. I think actually discovered her on Okayplayer.com, which I guess is a “urban”/hip hop website.
I live in Dallas and our selection of music is piss poor, which is why I have satellite radio.
I don’t think a lot of black artists outside R&B and hip hop get screwed and don’t get support, which explains why organizations like the Black Rock Coalition exist. It was founded by Vernon Reid of In Living Color, one of the few black rock groups that mainstreamed somewhat because of heavy rotation on MTV.
But I don’t see Bad Brains or Michael Franti getting much respect in the black community.
I really didn’t realize what I was listening to was “hipster” music. I am old and I am not too much into “hipsters”. I grew up as what was called a “new waver” but mind you I am 33 now.
Forgot to add, no one ever talks about Fishbone either.
Janelle Monae was heard of in the underground scene in Atlanta with a small black hipster scene that was so major for her that she got signed to Bad Boy in started to perform in NY.
Prior to being signed by Bad Boy, she was heavily marketed by Big Boi of Outkast when she was with the Wonderland Arts Society, she wasn’t signed to Bad Boy when I discovered her, and she would be bigger in my opinion if she wasn’t a “black artist”
Siditty said:
Prior to being signed by Bad Boy, she was heavily marketed by Big Boi of Outkast when she was with the Wonderland Arts Society, she wasn’t signed to Bad Boy when I discovered her, and she would be bigger in my opinion if she wasn’t a “black artist”
Very true! I do think that if Janelle Monee was White she would be huge. Same with Santigold.
Alice Smith is another person I find most stations won’t play, even pop stations and she has a pretty mainstream sound, she’s just black. I think actually discovered her on Okayplayer.com, which I guess is a “urban”/hip hop website.
OMG I love Alice Smith! Not too many people know her neither White or Black she is awesome.
Siddity,
33 is not old! A lot of “hipster” types are that age or older.
I don’t care for Alice Smith, based on what I’ve heard but I believe that she’s too hard for the “pop scene” to figure out. She’s R&B-orientated, yes, but her sound is very ecletic. It’s not something that is as simplistic and linear as the radio candy Beyonce/Alicia Keys throw out to the masses.
Dani,
My favorite J*Davey joints are “Private Parts”, “No More”, “Camera (Gangster)”, “Might As Well”, “Slooww”, and ah..damn, the whole double-EP! I must add that Brianna Cartwright AKA “Jack Davey” is sexy as I don’t know what. She’s my lone celebrity crush! LOL.