Give black artists their master recordings back instead…Those that want out of their contracts, let them out. | | | | American original: Son House, circa 1960.
(Tom Copi/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “Give black artists their master recordings back instead…Those that want out of their contracts, let them out.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// It's Wednesday. What now? BLACKOUT TUESDAY, which began inside a record company—credit ATLANTIC RECORDS execs JAMILA THOMAS and BRIANNA AGYEMANG—and spread far and wide, was met with a mix of praise, confusion and skepticism. BLACK LIVES MATTER and MOVEMENT 4 BLACK LIVES co-founder PATRISSE CULLORS called the gesture "a really huge show of support." Great. Now, after 24 hours of reflection, the real work hopefully begins. What questions will be asked today? What plans will be made tomorrow? What will be the follow-through the day after that? Thomas and Agyemang seeded the movement with a clear set of goals for aiding the protest movement, and the Movement 4 Black Lives has a concrete plan of action, too. The music business has money, clout, engaged creators and lots of ways to contribute. It also has a chance to set a different kind of example by looking inward, which is almost certainly the best way for music companies to advance the cause of racial justice. This is AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSIC APPRECIATION MONTH. But every month should be that. The music business is built on the work of black artists, black writers and black producers. This is blindingly obvious in an era when hip-hop culture is the dominant force in popular music—how many people subscribe to SPOTIFY just for this?—but it's never not been true. The business also has a long, ugly history (all the stories in today's mix are about this in one way or another) of exploiting, mistreating and neglecting people of color. Even today, in 2020, a black man who's the chief executive of the world's biggest publishing company has to ask why, "in our business dealings, we are targets for unfounded assumptions by people whose unspoken questioning of whether we belong is written on their faces." How can the music industry go about fixing *that*? How many days of reflection will that take? How many days of action?... RIP ROBERT "BROTHER AH" NORTHERN, MAJEK FASHEK, LENNIE NIEHAUS, JIMMY CAPPS, JOEY IMAGE and JOSEF BANSUELO. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | The New York Times | | Black music, forged in captivity, became the sound of complete artistic freedom. It also became the sound of America. | | | |  | Smithsonian Magazine | | Thomas Wiggins, an African-American musician marketed as ‘Blind Tom’, had a lucrative career-but saw none of the profits himself. | | | |  | HISTORY.com | | The recordings, which became a national phenomenon, captured artists like Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong-but most artists were exploited and forgotten. | | | |  | WNYC | | Musicologist Alan Lomax had a specific idea of what African-American music should sound like - an idea that reinforced stereotypes instead of breaking them down. | | | |  | African American Review | | The first full decade of radio broadcasting in the United States coincided with the fabled "Jazz Age" or "Roaring Twenties," a period of significant cultural upheaval on both sides of the color line. | | | |  | Pitchfork | | A new methodology has rendered Billboard's R&B chart a shell of its former self, replete with dubious racial and cultural consequences. | | | |  | Billboard | | The word ‘urban’ has described -- and, some say, marginalized -- hip-hop and R&B artists and executives for decades. Now, the industry is airing its issues with the term. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | Only three black women have topped the charts in the past 10 years. Here's why. | | | |  | Slate | | And how the Rolling Stones, a band in love with black music, helped lead the way to rock’s segregated future. | | | |  | The New York Observer | | When trying to understand how cultural hornswoggling works, a look at the history of black American music is telling. | | | |  | WBUR | | Black executives, managers and producers entered the mainstream music industry in the 1970s - progress that has been all but been reversed since. | | | | | The New York Times | | When Will Smith announced last month that he would join his wife, Jada Pinkett, in skipping the Oscars after no black actors were nominated for two years in a row, he put it simply: “We’re uncomfortable to stand there and say that this is O.K.” It was a position he’d taken before. | | | |  | Vulture | | It’s a pattern too blatant, too in your face to ignore. | | | |  | NPR | | Adele's attempt to share her album of the year Grammy with Beyoncé on Sunday was a gesture that held within it a history of privilege and power that listeners and institutions alike reckon with. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | Justin Timberlake's career rebounded after his nip-slip apology, but Miss Jackson never recovered from her wardrobe malfunction | | | |  | In These Times | | When the powerful appropriate from the oppressed, inequality is exacerbated. | | | | | Pitchfork | | As the borders that once defined genres continue to dissolve, what are the rules and who gets to make them? | | | |  | The New Yorker | | There is certainly diversity among its fans, but there are only occasional exceptions to the homogeneity of its charts. | | | |  | The Washington Post | | Should white people pay a premium to attend an Afrofuturist music festival in a historically black Detroit neighborhood? To the organizers of the Afrofuture Fest, the answer was clear: Yes, they absolutely should. | | | | | Rolling Stone | | One of MusicREDEF's MATTY KARAS's favorite stories ever... How American music legends made millions off the work of a Zulu tribesman who died a pauper. (Originally published in May 2000.) | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | Terrace Martin ft. Denzel Curry, Daylyt, Kamasi Washington and G Perico | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
