[scat]

Black Eyed Peas can be summed up simply: Fergie ruined them. Listen to Behind the Front, Bridging The Gap and about 1/4 of Elephunk and you have a solid group of artists doing some pretty respectable hip hop. The rest of Elephunk and pretty much all of Monkey Business is complete musical garbage. I mean, what the hell is up with that Dick Dale sample in "Pump It Up"? I'd say next to Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy/Whatever's use of the Police, that's the most uninteresting and far-too-easily-recognizable sample in hip hop history. Hell even Run DMC reworking Aerosmith at least had some artistic merit behind it to back up the shameless crossover attempt.
Minimalism in hip hop pretty much begins and ends with the Neptunes in this day and age, and they suffer from severe over-exposure. I mean, who haven't they produced in the past five or six years? "My Humps" isn't minimalistic, it's just stupid, unimaginitive, and pathetic.

agree agree.
havnt hearnt the p.diddy thing though.
yes neptunes rock, yes they work tirelessly to produce wicked songs. If I had the chance to work with them, I would too. and if you're being offered half a million dollars to produce a song, you would take it. Why wouldn't an artist want to work with them? when it pretty much a sure thing that anything with Pharrell Williams in it will make big bucks.
I dont know if it was fergie that killed them, but her pop influences certainly helped drive record sales, forcing BEP to ask, "if we follow this formula again, will we make more money?"
and what good did their socio-political rap do for them? did it influence social change? did it bring about peace and prosperity? sure it got them street-cred, but really, what good did it do?

Make no mistake, I don't agree with what they and the music biz has been doing, I do wish for the untimly death of fergie. I don't think that their dancy-pop-rap is ANY good at all when you compair them with all the incredible artists out their, or even the ones able to break it onto mass media like K-os, but.
but.
when you compair them to the rest of the music coming out of the black community (and lets face it, the only "acceptable" choice for a black artist is gansta rap, sex rap, sappy r&b and dance) it is cool sounding, very palettable for mass media, and very successful, and if millions of people are listening to it, then it must has some redeming qualities that our obstinant minds can't see because we're too busy standing back with our arms crossed saying "this is pop, therefore shit" and whil most of the time that might be the case, I dont think so here.

yes. we're all snobs of some sort.

[Heccubus]

If that's true, then it would be hard to explain the success seen by artists like Sepultura (despite the fact that their replacement has yet to come close to Max Cavalera's ability as a musician), Killswitch Engage, Bloc Party, TV On The Radio, Test Icicles (as short-lived as it was), Sevendust (eww), or even Lenny Kravitz. The black community has made a considerably respectable contribution to rock/metal in the past decade or so, and it hasn't come close to going unnoticed. Almost all of those artists are signed to major labels, and some of them have seen a pretty reasonable amount of financial success in their own right (*cough*Lenny*cough*). On top of that, you can backtrack to bands like Bad Brains who seemed a little out of their league being black and playing hardcore, but still managed to become one of the single most influencial bands in their respective genre of all time. It's unfair to say that being black and a musician means you're limited to urban music if you expect to see any sort of success.
The problem with BEP's sudden 180-degree flip is that it's clear that they made the switch for money. They had one attempt at something vaguely socially-conscious on Elephunk and it was really only the video that put that message across. So it's difficult to watch a collective of extremely (formerly) talented musicians abandon their ideals, morals and goals for the sake of the almighty dollar.

[floppydisk]

I was going to say what Hecc did, but I didn't know enough bands with black guitarists. All I know are POD (they suck) and Living Colour (they're okay).

[scat]

yeah, unfortunatly so. I wish for for people of different races in the scene but I think the industry and social expectations make it hard. How does one seperate your culture from your music? a lot of it is peer influence. And besides which, you seem pretty knowlegable about music and all that, and those are all the successful black rock artists that you can come up with, of which I know half (lenny doesnt count)
but getting back to the point. eyah it was the almighty dollar, but they still do manage to put out stuff that has a unique flavour.
but they still suck mooseballs.

[Heccubus]

I came nowhere close to listing off all of the black rock artists I can think of. Shall I?

-Bad Brains
-Bedouin Soundclash
-Black Jack Johnson (Mos Def fronts, backed with members of P-Funk, Bad Brains, Living Color, etc)
-Bloc Party
-Body Count
-Candiria
-Chapman, Tracy
-Dead Kennedys
-The Dirtbombs
-Fishbone
-The Germs (I believe Pat Smear was part black, no?)
-The Go! Team
-God Forbid
-Head P.E.
-Hendrix, Jimi
-Killswitch Engage
-King's X
-Kool & The Gang
-Kravitz, Lenny
-Living Color
-The Mars Volta
-Paul McCartney had a black drummer on his last tour
-The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
-No Doubt (or at least, back when they still had their horn section)
-Peligro
-POD
-Powerman 5000
-Pretty Girls Make Graves
-Prince
-Screamin' Jay Hawkins
-newer Sepultura
-Sevendust
-Spearhead
-The Specials
-Stuck Mojo
-Suffocation
-Suicidal Tendencies
-Sun Ra (Jazz, but I'll put him here based on his influence)
-Test Icicles
-TV On The Radio
-Wesley Willis
-X-Ray Spex
-Yellowcard (they suck, but they help my point)

Do I need to go on? Even then I left a lot out. There's a good directory with lots of black rock artists here

This post has been edited by Heccubus: 18 March 2006 - 05:04 AM