Correct Me If I'm Wrong - Music

[Guest fultie]

Okay.. so you know how.. steriotypically.. there is rock n roll for white people.. and rap for black.. and when a rock n roll band puts rap into their music.. it's said that they're stealing the black man's music...

well.. has this happened since rock n roll started?

rock n roll took blues.. gospel.. r&b.. country.. most of those genres are primarily black genres.. so 50 years ago when Elvis came out.. where there black cats on the street say gah damn, white man stealin our music.. and now here it is again with bands like Linkin Park and Limp Bizket etc?

i hope this post makes sense, i'm really tired and i just wanted to be able to get an answer or a discussion started by the time i woke up... what do you guys think?

[K]

...... huh

[Ruckus]

I'm never seen someone say a rock band is stealing black people's music. I HAVE seen people say Rap bands have ruined a Rock and Roll song by covering it. Yeah..

[kaya]

No one really complains that white people 'stole' Rock Music today at least, although some black musicians in the 50s might have been a bitter about how events played out, ie. rock music is big when it's performed by white people. In its original form, it does originate from the black community, rock music was a fusion of both black and white music. An interesting little set of paragraphs i found on jahsonic, a music culture site....

"Both [rap and rock] originated within the African American community and both were initially recorded by small, independent record labels and marketed almost exclusively to a black audience. In both cases, the new style gradually attracted white musicans, a few of whom began performing it. For rock'n roll it was a white American from Mississippi, Elvis Presley, who broke into the billboard magazine popular music charts. For rap it was a white group from New York, the Beastie Boys."

And this from legendary Rock music critic, Lester Bangs:

"Of course Rock’n’Roll is part of a whole tradition of American music that goes back. Really what I think it is the tradition of miscegenation. It’s that tradition of black and white, getting together to create this thing that reached it’s ultimate fruition beginning with Elvis. Well it carried on when Mick Jagger came out and sang all these Muddy Waters blues songs. And I guess it even carries on today when The Clash do ‘Police and Thieves’ a Reggae song originally done by Junior Marvin I think? And it’s a conditional tradition of miscegenation of black and white music coming together to form something new. . That is really vital and healthy"

So yeah, although the roots of rock n' roll are in black music, the genre is much bigger than that and has so many different foundational influences no one can really claim it soley, one way or the other.

Edited February 16, 2005 by kaya

[Guest Bluesman]

I'd be shocked if you can find any person, especially black, willing to say "Limp Bizkit stole our song, it had a dope beat".