Mostly, in this blog, I've tried to be impersonal and only let things about me come through by conjecture and inference. Today I'm going to throw that aside and talk about something that I think about and that has been an impediment to me in, well, following my dreams I suppose. Some of my best friends know about this concern but I want to share it more generally.
There's this song. It's called "Baby Please Don't Go". It's a blues tune that was written and recorded in 1935 (by Big Joe Williams) but has been done again by literally dozens of notable artists. The first version I heard of it, and the one that was stuck in my mind, was done by Van Morrison. It's a groovy song. Download it.
Anyway, the reason I bring up the song is that many white bands/recording artists, namely in rock, have made lots of money ripping off songs by unrecognized blues musicians from the depression. These songs were an expression of the misery that accompanied living in such a hard time, and specifically, living in that time as a black man in the south. This is a feeling that no white person, then or now, could really understand or relate to. While it's American music, distinctly American, it seems (to me) quite presumptuous and egotistical for privileged white men living in the 1960s (a time of significant gains in social freedom and an economically successful time) to use these songs for their own profit and pleasure. There seems something terribly false about singing such a song in front of a crowd of screaming fans, having an uproariously good time, and making no mention of where the song came from.
Of course, covering songs is a ubiquitous practice. And there's nothing wrong with it, I suppose. Well, maybe there is, but that's not what I'm talking about here. It only seems unjust that legitimate artists, expressing the deepest and most painful of emotions, should live and die in poverty while years later others live on the high hog by riding their creativity.
Now, as a fan of rock and roll, I must here recognize that if this practice never happened, there would probably be no rock and roll. That would be a shame. I guess what's really sticking in my craw is the fact that people (myself included) know the much later covers of these classic, standard songs, and don't know where or who they actually came from. I remember hearing Rolling Stones Let it Bleed for the first time and being really into the song "Love in Vain", thinking Jagger and Richards were brilliant, and so on - it was some time before I discovered the song was actually written by Robert Johnson. As I mentioned earlier, it seems to me that it should be the current artists' responsibility, having the people's ear, to educate as to the roots of their craft. Of course, these artists pay lip service to the pioneers when asked their opinion, but they don't make it their business to give credit where it is due.
One thing I love most about hip-hop is the fact that in a given song, you can and will hear pieces literally taken right out of other songs. This seems to be a very self-conscious recognition that hip-hop is a building process and every new composition relies on and is influenced by everything prior. However, the same sort of thing tends to happen where stuff is taken without really any credit being given, so that new fans don't know where they beats they like so much actually come from. This is not the fans' fault, of course, but it still seems wrong somehow, in a way that is deeply unsettling to me. [Particularly heinous examples of this can be found, where a large piece of an old 70s groove or something young people don't know is taken and is pretty much used straight up as the beat for a song. I have a certain person in mind but I will continue to suppress my anger on this subject.]
So yeah, stealing other people's songs, blah blah blah. This certainly is not the legitimate concern I am talking about, I am just building a case. I am getting to my actual concern now.
I am a young white man. I have lived a life of privilege, and, if I'm truly honest with myself, luxury. I have worked to earn some of these benefits, but mostly, they were bestowed upon me by fact of my birth. I am very lucky. Extremely lucky, to have grown up and lived in the place time and skin that I have lived. While people who know me know that I am truly troubled and have seen legitimate depths of depression and mental sickness, I have been given everything a person could reasonably ask for. I am Ivy League educated. I am from an extremely safe and clean suburb in New England. My parents have been extremely kind and supportive to me my entire life. I have never known abuse or exploitation. I have (very) rarely been looked down upon and treated as an inferior person, and I have only because I have rubbed elbows with the absolute elite of this country and of the world, really.
I love hip-hop, and when I say that I mean that the music moves me in a way that no other music ever has and I have love for all the people who have worked so hard to build it into what it is today. I have used the music so many times to cheer me up when I felt bad, to make me think when I was uninspired, to make me feel strong and tough when I felt weak and vulnerable. Ever since I started to really listen to it, to shake off rock and roll to a certain degree and start to pursue it as, truly, an obsession, I have wanted to be a part of the music and the community. Guys like KRS-One, MF Doom, Big L, Ice Cube, Del, B.I.G., Mos Def to name a few, they are my heroes. I idolize them. But, one of the things I enjoy so much about them is not just, or not so much, their technical and vocal abilities but their ability to speak darkly and sincerely about their own experience and be striking at society from an oppressed position. Coming from difficult circumstances and emerging successful, intelligent, insightful, and eloquent, it's awe-inspiring. I will NEVER EVER be able to accomplish what they have.
That said, I want to be an MC. I have a knack for language, some affinity for music, and can hold down a stage. I am already in a hole in the sense that I've only really been into the music for less than 5 years and have been trying to write raps for even less than that. The giants, the guys who are really good, have been knee deep in it, or neck deep, since they were kids. I think that I have meaningful things to express, but meaningful to whom? When you MC, you're not part of a band. You are literally putting yourself, or your character I guess, out there for everyone to see and judge and being judged is one of the scariest things in the world to me - BECAUSE AS A WHITE MAN I HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED THE CONSEQUENCES OF BEING JUDGED.
Whoo. Sorry.
So anyway, if you're going to MC, you'd better have something to say. Every time I write something, I second-guess myself. I can't tell you how much material I've thrown away because I decided either right away or later that it was self-indulgent or ignorant. I have always been my own harshest critic but I feel like when it comes to something this important, grown man business, it is necessary. Do I deserve to even hold the microphone? I don't know.
One thing that people I've spoken to about this have told me is that as long as you're honest and love the music it's hard for people to hate you. I'm not sure, but that's fine. I most especially don't want to end up hating myself for my expression or what it could become.
OK. That's it for now.
