To run my label and management company, to direct my films and produce my tours, that meant ownership—owning my masters, owning my art, owning my future and writing my own story. Not enough black women had a seat at the table. So I had to go and chop down that wood and build my own table. | | | | Keep on pushing: Curtis Mayfield in 1970.
(Gilles Petard/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “To run my label and management company, to direct my films and produce my tours, that meant ownership—owning my masters, owning my art, owning my future and writing my own story. Not enough black women had a seat at the table. So I had to go and chop down that wood and build my own table.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// "Urban," a music industry code word for you know what, began as a radio format called urban contemporary, coined by New York radio legend FRANKIE CROCKER in the 1970s to describe a generous and forward-thinking programming vision that made room for R&B, jazz, disco, Latin pop, hip-hop and much more. Each of those genre names has a lexicological history of its own to explore if you ever get the itch. Rabbit holes within rabbit holes. Crocker wasn't averse to playing BARBRA STREISAND. His station, WBLS, was urban in the most literal, non-musical sense, and it's easy to see, in retrospect, how the phrase described the station's demographic more than it described any particular song on the playlist. It's a good name. It has a nice ring to it and it works with or without the code that was embedded in it from the beginning. (Crocker did not, to my knowledge, play much or any country music, but that genre, too, despite a name that evokes cornfields, has a valid claim to the urban designation. The industry is based in cosmopolitan Nashville and its audience is spread through other major cities from Chicago to Dallas to Los Angeles. But I digress.) It's not unusual for names to become detached or at least semi-detached over time from their origin stories. Magazines, record companies, the rest of the radio industry and awards shows all found the phrase "urban contemporary," and particularly the first word, useful for avoiding saying something else, and for avoiding having to describe concepts that defy description. The GRAMMY AWARDS, for example, still give a Best Urban Contemporary statuette to an album "containing at least 51% playing time of newly recorded contemporary vocal tracks derivative of R&B." (Does anyone at the RECORDING ACADEMY or anywhere else in the industry knows what that means beyond the fact that this year it meant LIZZO, who won the category, but not ANDERSON.PAAK, who won the Best R&B Album prize?) Labels have long used it to describe black artists as well as the departments and people at the labels who work with those artists. People in those departments sometimes complain about being denied opportunities for both themselves and their artists, as if trapped by an urban ceiling. "It’s just a politically correct way to say the n-word, to me," TYLER, THE CREATOR said after this year's Grammys. "When I hear [urban], I’m just like, why can’t we just be in pop?" But now maybe he can. As one of its first concrete responses to this spring's racial justice protests, REPUBLIC RECORDS on Friday announced it will no longer use "this antiquated term" that's "rooted in the historical evolution of terms that sought to define Black music." The label called on the rest of the industry to follow suit "as it is important to shape the future of what we want it to look like, as to not adhere to the outdated structures of the past." It's a symbolic move, but one that may well have concrete ramifications. Frankie Crocker would have loved Tyler, the Creator, and I'd like to think that somewhere up there he's smiling, knowing that the spirit of his programming vision is durable enough to survive a grammatical edit, and may even be stronger for it... ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS has reopened after a 10-week coronavirus closure... Nightclubs in Ibiza remain closed, with local government orders overriding Spain's move into phase three of its national reopening plan... Brooklyn metal club SAINT VITUS went on KICKSTARTER in search of $15,000 to weather the pandemic. And then the most metal thing ever happened... BTS and BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT donate $1 million to BLACK LIVES MATTER... RIP RUPERT HINE, KENNY YOUNG, CLAUDE HEATER and TYRONE "THE BONE" PROCTOR... And this is a hell of an obituary for pioneering rap journalist, producer and songwriter ROBERT FORD JR., who died in May. It's a story of where following your curiosity can lead. All you have to do is keep your ears open, always. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | | | | | maxwell's urban hang suite | |  | Pitchfork | | Hardcore, reggae, hip-hop, and Beyoncé provide the soundtrack to protests against police brutality and systemic racism. | | | |  | NPR Music | | As demonstrations for racial equality continue across the U.S. and the world, artists have been shaping and sharing their grief, fury, resolve and vision for the future. | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | Why is it that Black music generates millions and millions of dollars a year and yet none of the companies have a meaningful number of employees of color, let alone in the executive suite? | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | On Tuesday, the major labels protested police brutality with a “blackout.” Executives and artists say industry-wide racial equality is still a long way away. | | | |  | The Daily Beast | | As protesters fight on the ground, K-pop fans around the world have shown support by overwhelming police apps and flooding dangerous hashtags-including, most recently, #QAnon. | | | |  | NewMusicBox | | I knew I wanted to hear from artists I believed in, who have been thinking deeply, and for many years, about the role of musicians in enacting social change. Here are some of their thoughts. | | | |  | Hollywood Reporter | | Time's Up is the most recognizable brand in the quest for gender equality, but for some women in HBO Max's 'On the Record' and other activists, its reluctance to back the film raises deeper questions: "It's difficult to incubate a social justice organization when you are adjacent to powerful entertainment executives." | | | |  | OneZero | | Users like Wali Da Great are growing infamous for tricking streaming listeners with falsified metadata. | | | |  | The New York Times | | The rapper who burst out in 2006 with the rollicking “YoYoYoYoYo” is returning with “Startisha,” his first new album in nine years, and a newfound comfort with speaking his truth. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | Bob and Espie Riskin, longtime owners of the iconic McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, are turning over the business to their daughter and son-in-law. | | | | | NPR Music | | "I did Nashville the Nashville way for so long ... with very little results," Guyton tells NPR. "So why am I holding out just in case?" | | | | | Pitchfork | | The star of Hulu’s "Ramy" talks about the stereotype-busting soundtrack to his show, now in its second season. | | | | | The New York Times | | Two former editors look back at the magazine’s on-the-ground reporting following the Rodney King verdict. | | | |  | Water & Music | | The issues that are top of mind for me right now focus on two actions that all of us can start doing right now in service of Black equality, both in and out of music: Following the money (economics), and tracking what you see (visibility). | | | |  | Adam Neely | |  | The Undefeated | | How martial arts flows throughout the work of the influential hip-hop group. | | | | | Rolling Stone | | When it comes to launching singles, “the emotional side of TikTok is now showing that it has the potential to be as powerful as the dance side,” says one major-label A&R. | | | |  | The Conversation | | Concert halls may slowly be able to reopen -- but difficulties will remain. | | | |  | Complex | | Drakeo the Ruler speaks with Complex over the phone from jail about his new album, criminal justice reform, police, and protests unfolding across America. | | | |  | The Tennessean | | A little more than a year ago, Nashville songwriter Luke Laird won his second Grammy Award for co-writing Kacey Musgraves’ heartbreaking “Space Cowboy.” But if you thought that was good, wait until you hear his new single: “Rocks, Worms, Dirt.” | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
