Does FM have any African American fans?

[redbird]

I dug out this article that I really liked in Pop Matters, We Were the World: 85 Word Aboard the Crossover Express. It talks about the cultural politics of music from a (not "the", as if there was only one legitimate one) black American perspective with much more authority than I can.

My dad and my uncles were among the first generation of recognizably educated black men. They were high-brow intellectuals with an image to maintain in the Chicago black community. During my toddler years, they mixed in their “white” albums and eight track tapes with communally acceptable black artists. Sinatra, Lanie Kazan, and the Association (yep—“[they] harmonized as good as the Dells,” swore my Uncle Jeff) were their kiddie porn, black people’s “race music”. It was music not be shared in “same” company, racially speaking; a fetish that could cause huge embarrassment and misunderstanding amongst “the peeps”, especially for my black nationalist, black is beautiful, “death to whitey” Uncle Jeff. They had no problem with their reading of Playboy and Esquire being public knowledge, but “that” music was listened to at low volume and with windows—car and home—closed, and was their way of setting themselves apart (and maybe a little above) their working and middle class cousins and neighbors.

Come the ‘70s, and the walls of my bedroom walls blared out with Sean Cassidy, David Bowie, and the Average White Band competing for space alongside Bootsy Collins, a shirtless and unsanctified Al Green, and the Jackson 5. Apartheid in music had vanished, “crossover” was the order of the day, and even some country spun on the turntables at black radio stations. I could go my own way, indeed.

...

We debated openly the messy politics of sexual lust and the respectful co-opting of “race music” as American race and sex politics in became less honorable and more contemptible each passing day until the ‘70s ended.

The ‘80s brought an unabashed and proudly apartheid moment in music. MTV entrenched itself. Music was to be seen and not heard. Artists that looked more carnival geek (hello, Joe Jackson) or over 30 (goodbye, Fleetwood Mac), no matter the beauty and intellect in notes and lyrics, found themselves the musical equivalent of a televangelist, stuck in the 3AM time slot, if their videos rotated at all—as was the case for black artists looking for purchase on MTV. Corporate entities that produced wire hangers and air fresheners bought up every radio station in America, leaving behind a hard-wired playlist not to be diverted from. Music for the respectable misogynist/racist/ageist/homophobe became the flagship of the American Cultural Armada.

The whole thing is a good read, IMO, and good food for thought. It speaks to the fluid dynamics at play when culture meets art (and when doesn't it?).