[EDITED TO ADD: If you're just joining the conversation and are puzzled/provoked/disturbed by the video below, the thread topic line, or anything I write in my first post below, you might want to take a look at my later posts time-stamped 6:39 AM and 10:45 AM, where I clarify at length the deliberately reductive claims I've made here.]
Here's the real Mississippi blues: Clarksdale, a quarter mile from the Ground Zero blues club, circa 2008. The deep blues playing/talking starts around 2:30, so by all means skip ahead if it's not quite happening for you before that:
Like all good blues musicians, these guys are representing the neighborhood (a la "Kansas City") and signifying on the recent hits (between 2:30 and 3:00, the guy is riffing on David Banner's hip-hop hit, "Mississippi."
The language is rough, but that's the blues. A lot of masculinity on display, but that's the blues. Ice-handled pistol, muhfuh. Graveyard train.
A lot of smoking and drinking, but that's the blues.
The music is kind of repetitive, but....that's the blues. Mufuh.
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2012 11:22 AM
It's funny you mentioned that. I run a recording studio in New Orelans and I was just telling a rapper that if he would have been born anytime before 1980 he would have been a blues singer, and I think that goes for most rappers and modern rnb singers.
I was thinkin that they should have went into "Don,t Bogart that blunt my N...Gah,Pass it over to this Mo-Fo".Now thats a hip-hop blues hit that I be talkin bout.
you're kidding, right? or maybe the vids been changed. i'm 6 minutes in and aint heard nothing even close to the blues! some rhyming, and that was mostly incomprehensible.
That was just a bunch of useless dribble. Pure malarkey.
If I stated the same BS, but about astronomy or insects while representing a town called Pleasant Prairie, would I be talking blues? Or is it only blues when it involves "hard-core" stuff like guns and nicely-rolled blunts?
@Miles: I'm so glad you reacted that way. I was hoping to elicit that sort of reaction. I posted the video to make a point. The music of Little Walter, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and other southern-born black Chicago bluesmen--the stuff that many of us would celebrate (and for good reason) as real blues, vital blues, was music made by creative geniuses who were also violent, braggartly, quarreling men, men who carried guns and knives, used them on each other, and talked about using them on each other. Alcohol use was a given; drug use, of one sort or another, was a part of many of those lives. (Little Walter was a notorious pot-head.) Paul Oscher talks about this when he speaks of his time with Muddy. "Everybody in that band carried a gun," he told an interviewer. And he describes situations in which everybody in the car, out on the road, was suddenly pointing a gun at each other. John Lee Hooker sings about how his "boys" are going to torture and kill somebody he doesn't like. "They might shoot you, they might drown you. I just don't know." He sings about "the bubbles coming up." Peetie Wheatstraw has "Gangster Blues." There's a song called "Cuttin' My ABCs" about using a blade 26 different ways on the body of the woman whose done you wrong. Little Walter sings "Ain't no need of goin' no further, brother." Walter sings "If I get you in my sights....boom! boom! Out go the lights!" John Lee sings "Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!" Muddy sings Willie Dixon's "I'm Ready."
The men in this video I posted above don't play guitars and harmonicas, but the talk they talk, the life they celebrate and represent, the threats they toss off, the way in which all those things blend together into a kind of collective dream, offers the best contemporary version I've seen of the mindset sketched by the songs I've mentioned above. The entire video brings "I'm Ready" to life.
Of course there are many kind of blues, and many kinds of blues musicians. But if you're talking about Muddy, Little Walter (who died of wounds suffered in a fight), John Lee Hooker, Junior Wells (who got shot in a fight and lost a lung), Sonny Boy Williamson (a notorious boozer/bragger), John Lee Williamson (who died of wounds suffered in a fight)--if that's the music you love and if you're even the slightest bit interested in the sort of social environment that the music grew out of, you'd be well advised to pay attention to the video and absorb the lessons it has to teach. This is blues culture fifty years down the line.
There's almost no separation between the talk and the music (in this case, rap). These men are spitting out almost-rhymes as a form of public attitudinizing. They're quoting snatches from, rephrasing, the best-known raps of the day. The music is part of a living culture, a cultural pattern. It's easy to forget this about blues, although if you've ready biographies and autobiographies about the men, if you've heard those snatches of angry talk in the recording studio (LW and Sonny Boy with Leonard Chess), it's possible to triangulate. The violent language of the blues was the language of several intersecting underworlds, including prostitution, gang life, drug life, gambling life.
Another lesson: the religious folk who warned us about the juke joints were right! The men in this video aren't very friendly, although they're full of life and they're clearly enjoying their leisure time. But you can be pretty sure that nightclubs filled with guys like this would, sooner or later, become violent. Blues culture! The world evoked in this video is, for all practical purposes, Little Walter's world 50 years down the line. It's the world that produced Clarksdale's John Lee Hooker. I'm simply trying to connect--and reconnect--the dots.
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2012 6:48 AM
This smacks a bit of "authenticity" romanticizing -- a social/intellectual/aesthetic attitude not uncommon among well-to-do people often removed from the actual context, the "true life". Nothing very wrong in that --except when it comes to the pointless glorification of violence and slack social values that hasn´t created anything productive in this society/subculture för quite a long time -- but doesn´t Miles´ point deserve a more straight answer? The question of "blues": when, why does this become blues, commonly understood as a musical form? I know I´m a honkey, far removed from the American South and whatever (about half the world removed) but are we really eliciting anything "true" about the blues with this comparison. There was apart from the braggadocio themes in the blues also a melancholy, poetic, plaintive quality that seems totally absent in the rap tradition, and that quality -- especially as it turned out in the actual music -- seems to me to characterize the blues more accurately. (Although I´m NOT proposing a defintion contest, been there etc.) Well well, these are probably delicate issues but interesting, but I see the can get rather academic. /Martin
they were a bunch of drunk wannabes that mimic what they see on mtv rappers at 2:00 am. they got no guns. they got no knives. they got alcohol and cheap weed and a predictable future.
i sure dont know how you see them as unfriendly? there is too much laughter for them to be unfriendly or scary. just a group of friends posing for the camera. anyone of us could roll on in there and be welcomed with some cold 40's. if there is one thing a gang of drunks like, it is a supplier.
@ Destin "It's funny you mentioned that. I run a recording studio in New Orelans and I was just telling a rapper that if he would have been born anytime before 1980 he would have been a blues singer, and I think that goes for most rappers and modern rnb singers."
I don't see that at all. Rap stayed pretty much just a novelty during the larger part of its existence, but it's been around since the 30's....some claim the '20's.
Many blues players lived through the popular emergence of rap and declined jumping on that particular bandwagon. My point being, that there is no discernable musical family tree/evolution linking blues to rap. Prior to 1980 there were other genres of music made by African Americans that swept the world & made blues look like a poor relation. Why wouldn't someone born before 1980 played jazz, gospel, soul or disco? Just because there was less slack lyrics it is naive to assume that these guys did not also live hard lives, smoke, inject, boast, drink & fight.
People who live in tough social conditions all over the world do the same, similar conditions that spawned the blues spawned other types of roots music, but hard lives are hard lives and blues music is blues music. They can dovetail but are not always mutual.
If they were white this wouldn't have been posted. If they were white it would be made fun of as a bunch of guys playing faux gangsta.
I am pretty sure these guys are just a pack of wannabes. Most probably haven't even seen a fight in a bar or alley. These guys probably all still think their badass because they beat up some weaklings in school. And now they are cool because they ard smoking and drinking on YouTube.
YouTube makes it to easy to spew nothing for anyone.
Before the days of Internet audio visual diarrhea a person had to work much harder to get stuff out meaning it was worth saying or doing.
If I wear my pants below my ass to the point it's hard to walk and I stick a gun in the waistband of my underwear. If I then started rhyming incoherently on occasions making sure to say motha fucka and bitch at least once every 10-15 secs of speaking
That wouldn't make me any more in tune with anything. It would just make me look like a moron.
Christ fat albert was more blues than these guys.
Sorry to disagree and sorry if I said anything offensive.
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2012 8:49 AM
Lyrically I see a lot of similarities between rap and blues: the bragging, the violence, the misogyny, the fatalism. What's missing from rap is all the "woe is me" stuff.
Musically, you can draw a direct line from blues to rhythm and blues to soul to funk and modern (70s on) R&B and then to rap. The earliest rappers rapped over instrumental versions of their favorite R&B songs. Especially during the "breaks" which would basically be a few bars of just bass and drums which the deejay would play over and over using two turntables. Then there was the late 80s, early 90s fad of practically every rapper rapping over either a James Brown or P-Funk track. That's straight blues right there, in the broad sense of the word.
I was digging all this stuff as a teenager, listening to BB King and Howling Wolf one minute, Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC the next. :-)
When rap took an overtly violent turn lyrically in the late 80s is when I tuned out.
"the stuff that many of us would celebrate (and for good reason) as real blues, vital blues, was music made by creative geniuses who were also violent, braggartly, quarreling men, men who carried guns and knives, used them on each other, and talked about using them on each other."
Adam the difference between those you mention here and the ones in the video you posted is that the old masters had talent, those wannabe'e in the vid have none.
"They're quoting snatches from, rephrasing, the best-known raps of the day."
I'll bet almost everyone on here has done this, but with lines from movies,tv programmes or songs. Monty pythons Flying Circus is probably the most quoted in the UK.
Mentioning lines from The Dead parrot sketch will always get a laugh Does this make me a comedian ?
"you'd be well advised to pay attention to the video and absorb the lessons it has to teach."
The only thing I take from this is that you must have been drinkin!! ;o)
@ Lynn - "Musically, you can draw a direct line from blues to rhythm and blues to soul to funk and modern (70s on) R&B and then to rap. The earliest rappers rapped over instrumental versions of their favorite R&B songs. Especially during the "breaks" which would basically be a few bars of just bass and drums which the deejay would play over and over using two turntables. Then there was the late 80s, early 90s fad of practically every rapper rapping over either a James Brown or P-Funk track. That's straight blues right there, in the broad sense of the word."
Your time lines are a little skewed, rap (rather than hip hop) didn't come after soul, it existed before "Soul music". It's only a little younger than the blues. The earliest rappers rapped accapella, or over instruments they played, or were vocal groups singing over live musicians.
I listen to a lot of soul, as well as blues. In the 60's some blues artists adopted soulier stylings & syntax for awhile, but as soul declined & gave way to funk & disco this seems to have waned.
Otherwise, there was not such a huge crossover between the 2 (though there was some for sure)...blues & soul might have some common ancestry, but soul is not a direct descendant of blues.
5F6H: "Your time lines are a little skewed, rap (rather than hip hop) didn't come after soul, it existed before "Soul music". It's only a little younger than the blues. The earliest rappers rapped accapella, or over instruments they played, or were vocal groups singing over live musicians"
If you are speaking of the phenomenon of people speaking/chanting on top of a beat then yes, rap is older than hip hop. However, I'm not aware of it actually being called "rap" until hip hop came along in the late 70s. In black slang "rapping" just means a synonym for talking. But the use of the word as a musical genre in and of itself didn't come about until hip hop. If I'm wrong, please show me an example of this usage -- the Last Poets don't count!
"This smacks a bit of 'authenticity romanticizing -- a social/intellectual/aesthetic attitude not uncommon among well-to-do people often removed from the actual context, the 'true life'"
...is directed at me, then you're 100% incorrect. I posted the video and offered the long second comment I offered precisely in order to DE-romanticize the music. I'm trying to reconnect the music to its actual social and material context. There's nothing the slightest bit romantic about violence--except insofar as the blues musicians themselves heightened their own personas, made themselves more saleable, by depicting themselves as badmen.
EDITED TO ADD: Martin, It occurs to me that you're speaking about my original comments in the very first posting on this website, rather than my long explanatory second post. In that case, I'll concede that I was trying to be provocative by using that word "real," and I'll further acknowledge that you are correct: My original post DID smack, in some sense, of "authenticity romanticizing." I did that in a calculated way, hoping that some here would call what they assumed was my bluff and say "Those are just a bunch of young Mississippi hoodlums drinking, drugging, and talking trash and they have NOTHING to do with my beloved Muddy, Hooker, and Walter."
I don't romanticize. I know, for example, that B. B. King specifically defines himself AGAINST the sort of violence and posturing represented by Muddy and Walter and John Lee Hooker. He was trying to upgrade the public personal of the blues, trying to take the violence out of it. He writes in his autobiography about this--and specifically about cringing when Pete Townsend trashed his guitar. B. B. believes in stroking women, and his guitar, with great affection. He writes about both things in his autobio, in exactly that way. "Next to making love to a woman," he writes, "nothing gave me as much satisfaction stroking Lucille and hearing the notes pour out of her mouth." That's not a verbatim quote, but the verbatim quote is pretty close to that. B. B. hated the violence that was a part of blues culture.
If you think I'm pointlessly glorifying violence, then you need to read my book SEEMS LIKE MURDER HERE: SOUTHERN VIOLENCE AND THE BLUES TRADITION. More importantly, if you're able to think I'm glorying violence after reading the last paragraph of my post above, in which I say that this bunch of guys help you understand what the church people were worried about, then you're not really attending to what I'm saying. I'll restate: This particular crowd doesn't strike me as a friendly, hospitable bunch of guys, and I'm quite sure that I wouldn't want my 13-year old son--if I had a 13 year old son--to fall in with this sort of crowd. But they've got culture. And although many here might want to say "They're into rap, not blues," they've got a whole lot in common, as a group of men, with the men who made the music that many of us here celebrate--and, even more pointedly, with the audience that embraced and partied to that music when it was a living force. Read Michael Haralambos's SOUL MUSIC. He talks about three different strata of blues clubs in Minneapolis back in the early 1960s. The lowest was the familiar "bucket of blood." These guys strike me as the contemporary equivalent of that sort of audience. I'm not romanticizing their violence. I'm trying to accurately assess them as a cohort.
In answer to your question: Yes, we're absolutely eliciting something true about the blues with this comparison. The blues is many things. A lot of what the blues has been about, historically, is the way in which southern-born black men live, enact, share, broadcast, celebrate, their masculinity. This is inarguable. Blues has of course spread outward from that core function, and of course women were always a part of the conversation. I'm simply trying to remind people of the social context that produced a lot of the music that we celebrate here. I don't romanticize that social context in the slightest.
@Jim Rumbaugh: Exactly.
@Miles: Thanks.
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2012 11:04 AM
kudzu:>>except insofar as the blues musicians themselves heightened their own personas, made themselves more saleable, by depicting themselves as badmen.<<
Yet another thing rap and blues have in common. Many rappers with middle class origins fabricated growing up in the projects, drug dealing backgrounds, etc. to make themselves more marketable.
Sorry Adam, I don’t see the blues in this video. I see a bunch of posing and posturing. The South lost a lot of it’s soul through the 60’s 70’s and 80’s. I’m white and was born and raised in Memphis, with most of my family in living in small town Arkansas. I was a minority in my high school and spent my share of time around the macho and hard living.
I’ve woke up hung-over on park benches in WC Handy park before it was fenced off and “safe”. I’ve party in West Memphis, raced motorcycles on the country roads between the bean fields in Mississippi, sat at many a picnic table eating BBQ next to a falling down shack and been the only white person in many a club.
I think the video you posted lacks several key elements of the blues, self respect, ambition and courage being the main ones. How many of the guy’s in the videos you posted would have the courage to go stand on a street corner and play and dance for tips? Probably not one. I expect most of them would think it’s below them to do so.
The blues greats had enough self confidence and self respect to do whatever it took to make it. They were weaned early from mama’s tit and let their hardships and rage fuel their ambition to make something of their life. They were adventures and entrepreneurs. They lived hard but, they also worked hard. They walked, hopped trains and took buses to find work and inspiration.
The music and is as different as the violence. Think about it. A knife fight is intimate, close contact. You feel the blade go across the skin of the other man or penetrate his body. You feel the hot breath from the scream after the cut and you leave with the blood and weight of that experience on your hands. That is so much different than the drive by shooting and random violence portrayed in today’s culture.
You’ll never hear a story about one of these guys plucking a live chicken in a bathroom in Europe like Sonny Boy Williamson. For Little Walter, Howlin Wolf, Muddy and that generation, it was a style of life, not a lifestyle.
5F6H: >>When discussing "rap" I am talking about a rythmic rhyming, not simply talking (colloquially rapping) over music.<<
Gotcha. In my post I was using "rap" as a synonym for "hip hop music," which is the most common usage for the word today.
And certainly, those earlier examples like the ones you posted were not called "rap" -- although those guys were indeed "rapping." Maybe to prevent further confusion we could name the earlier forms of rapping "proto-rap" or some other geeky music-critic type term. :-D
@smwoerner: You might be surprised to know that your particular critique, which essentially translates to "Young black people today aren't what they used to be," has a very long history in this country. People--and not just white people--said exactly the same thing about young black men in the 1890s and early 1900s. A black Memphis minister named Willie Councill said "Make the young negroes turn from coon songs and go to the songs of our mothers and fathers." He was talking about songs that featured tough-talking young black men who carried and used razors. That was more than 100 years ago. When blues came in, 10 or 15 years later, blues was seen as the problem; it drove young black people to drink and fight--and dance, of course. The words "self-respect," "ambition," and "courage" were not the words that social critics of the time were applying to blues performers and their audiences. Both were considered to be trouble.
I think you're romanticizing the blues a little in order to beat hip-hop--and today's good-timing young black men--over the head.
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2012 11:33 AM
"I know, for example, that B. B. King specifically defines himself AGAINST the sort of violence and posturing represented by Muddy and Walter and John Lee Hooker"
I don't think you're being fair to Muddy Waters, Adam. I can't think of any "violence and posturing" in his songs that wasn't an obvious parody.
"I'm Ready," like "Hoochie Coochie, Man" is a joke -- it's intentionally over-the-top. And, yeah, I suspect a lot of rap is supposed to be funny, too.
Here's a quote from an interview with Elijah Wald about his book on Robert Johnson:
Ned Sublette: You told a wonderful story in the book about Dave Van Ronk and Muddy Waters.
Elijah Wald: [laughs]. Oh boy. Yeah, one of the things people forget these days about blues, because we have this idea that it's this dark, mysterious, dangerous, Rolling Stones kind of music, is that a lot of it was meant to be funny. And just like rap today, a lot of the most violent lines were meant to be funny. And there is a story that Dave Van Ronk told me, about going to a blues festival up in New England. He arrived late, and didn't know who else was on the bill. And he finished his set with a version of "Hoochie Coochie Man," which he did - you know, full macho performance, shouting, you know, the whole bit. And he walked off stage and there was Muddy Waters, who had originally done the song. And Dave sort of, you know, cringed. But Muddy went over to him and said, "That was very nice, son." Then he paused, and said, "But you know - that's supposed to be a funny song."
I think one of the useful ways, if you want to understand what blues was in the '20s and '30s, the way to do that is to think about these days and rap music. Because when people talk about, you know, "was it folk or was it pop?" A lot of people resent some of what I say, saying "No, he's saying it's pop, it really was folk music." It's like rap! I mean, rap has as deep folk roots as any music could possibly have. And yet, we're really conscious of the fact that when we listen to Snoop Dogg, he isn't some back-country folksinger. And that's exactly what blues was in 1930. It was a deeply rooted music. But it was also the hippest sound of its time.
Thanks very much for posting, Adam. I'll comment freely and plainly, hope that I am not taken the wrong way.
This is an interesting and educational video on many levels and many topics. They seem to have their own language, style, and attitude, and a sense of solidarity and group re-affirmation, much as did the jazz musicians in Harlem and the blues musicians of the '50's. The difference being that in the previous eras, there was at least SOME class, some education, and some humility. And dare I say, much more talent. It is unfortunate that this bunch has been socialized to accept the easy road, fueled by alcohol and drugs, and grounded in misogyny. And, quite frankly, the people who brought these children up did not transmit close to the same traditions, history, and moral standards that the black youth in the aforementioned eras were exposed to. There are few values to build on, and the result is what we see on the video.
All of this being said, I do see and hear the blues - in what they are saying and doing.
Adam, thanks for your reply. Please note that in the first sentence of my original post I noted “in this video.” Later I mentioned self confidence, ambition and courage when referring to the blues greats. I feel the same way about the current rap and hip hop greats; the ones who are innovators, inventors and promoters.
There has always been a difference between “good timing young men” be them black or white and thugs, miscreants, hoodlums and the like. Do you see a hard man in this group or a creative geniuse.
I do not see 50 cent, Tupac, or Eminem represented among this crowd. There is big difference between living the street life and coming from the streets.
I see no romance in poverty or violence having been a victim of both. All I was saying was that the blues and rap greats, like most great artists did more than revel in the lifestyle, they live a style of life that took them out of their “hood.” The big differences being that they worked as hard as they partied.
I’m not going to say that LW and Sonny Boy weren’t bad men. But, to compare the violent of talk of LW and Sonny Boy with Leonard Chess when they are fighting for their artistry and their livelihood with the violent ramblings of street corner thugs is a big stretch.
Timeistight, I was just rewatching some of Alanis Morissette's harp playing. It's nothing to write home about in 'One Hand in My Pocket' but better than I remembered. There is another one of her songs where she is just flat out making noise, but I don't remember which one that is. I had to listen to this video a couple times before I realized where I knew the melody from.
I would take a much more evolutionary approach. The clip you put out as an example is typical of any group of young human males in any culture with all the testosterone overload that comes with that age. Lot of bragging, but dangerous bragging, because some of them really don't give a f-ck if they die or somebody else goes down in the process of them showing they have the shit. That is why we have wars. It is why old men can whip young men into a frenzy and get them out and kill people. That is why gangs work so well. Basic human nature.. we need less males to propagate the species because they are sperm machines and a 50/50 male female mix is not relevant. They can be helpful in pushing individual families, tribes, nations, sports teams or whatever forward. They can increase power, and evolutionarily speaking if they go out and reproduce can spread genes more effectively.
I think the deeper question is why do young African American males become so dominant in shaping world culture? Much of the global music business is dominated by influences of blues, jazz, soul and hiphop. Why, over the last 60 years, does that influence take over what the entertainment business and the general public choose to be the most exciting, innovative, and enjoyable music produced anywhere? What is it about the crucible of American culture that leads one suppressed group to be so creative and influential? Is it the need of a dominant culture for new marketable ideas that the comfortable class needs? The video was the guys that did not make the pro sports teams or get the big rap contracts.. You need a million of those for every one that does.
To throw a wrench in the works, we played a biker bar with fights and all that other braggadocio the other night that was mostly middle aged white guys; and they were talking the same shit, different culture, maybe some residual testosterone?
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2012 6:17 PM
"I think the deeper question is why do young African American males become so dominant in shaping world culture?" i always believed it was the suits that shape the culture. they find what stone will kill the most birds at one time and let it rip.
From being around many of those older bluesmen and even in playing in clubs in black neighborhoods, the video has more accuracy than you think. Many of those old black bluesmen often told me that back in the day, in front of whites, you had to act a certain way because that is what was expected and witha ll the macho stuff you hear, stuff about beating on women, the violence and the guns along with drinking and drugs, those were ALL true with blues experience in the ghetto back then when it was right before me.
Many whites dissing on rap saying it is too different than blues, it may be at times true in the musical sense of things, but truth be told, with the kinds of things depicted in the neighborhoods like in this video, and the way things are put, it very much IS the same as it is with the rap/hiphop thing and also very much the same thing with reggae as well, tho with reggae, they go for the "happy sound," as an old Jamaican reggae musician friend of mine told me, to disguise it, wheras blues and even more so with rap/hiphop, this is 100% out in the raw, and even with the predescessor of blues, known as reels.
Change the music, but it is basically the same thing. Besides, how many of you have EVER been in black neighborhoods playing in black clubs?? I'll bet the vast majority of you have NEVER done so and all what's said on the video feels much like I'm still among those old black bluesmen, Even go to Paul Oscher's website http://www.pauloscheer.com, and read those stories of his experiences with many of those old black bluesmen, and if you pay close attention to the details, it is not much different than the experiences of a rapper at all.
Some of those old black bluesmen could be called scumbags just as much as many white people think of rappers, and believe me, some were drug dealers, pimps, and other sorts of unsavory characters, but there were plenty of similar characters back in the day with even white immigrant populations from Italian mafias, Jewish mafias, you name it and those are products of the those ghettos back then and that's giving people a reality check here.
Many of the black bluesmen I've been around dressed to the nines on gigs because the really old school of old school guys images back in the delta was the drunk who carried a gun with a 5th in his pocket, gambling, wearing raggedy overalls, was the kind of image they wanted to leave behind and part of the image that was so bad that even the heavily religous blacks were ashed of (and part of the reason why blues was often referred to as "the devils's music."
BTW, the description of "rhythmic singing" is probably the closest to a correct description of things, which totally is different than what mwestern music is used to (and breaks the rules of western music much in the same way as the "blue note" did by playing a minor 3rd or 7th in a major scale altho a real blue note is somewhere betweeen major and minor. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I'm sorry, and don't wish to offend, but this thread is just a load of stereotypes and garbage. Come on now my white niggas, don't get down in tangent town.yykfww
this doesn't look a whole lot different to the sort of gatherings i used to be a part of when i was that age. i know there is a bunch of different detail but we were a bunch of rural kids on an island, in a community where education seemed not very relevant, growing a crop and selling it seemed the way to get the things you wanted, violence was the way to attain status among the peer group, police were the enemy, musicians were heroes, women were trophies...we were white kids though...descendants of people sent here as convicts, and thats a real long story and i haveta get ready to attend a wedding right now...who gets married on a tuesday? weird! ----------
For my nickel, I'll go with smwoerners interpretation. I was expecting cops to show up, and arrest them for stupidity, or inciting a drunkin party in the streets. Thanks for sharing...just the same...mufuh! ----------
This is the "dirty south blues forum" under the "modern blues harmonica forum". Modern dirty south. Now, 'dirty' refers more to a kind of musical tenor than a cleanliness issue. I think. History be damned. What is now, is what it is. Forebears had their woods. Dudes have theirs. Not to get lost in. Music gotta talk to these bears, take 'em somewhere beyond. Or nothing changes. Ever.
Last Edited by on Apr 23, 2012 9:47 PM
I had a look, and I agree with e-harp. That's a group of friends posing for the camera, enjoying some reality alteration, and talkin' shit. Excellent fodder for studies of the current state of masculinity in America (btw, everyone should go watch the documentary film "Tough Guise"), but almost useless for gaining a better understanding of either hip hop or blues.
I was just in Memphis, and I saw about 20 gadzillion of these guys walking around on Beale street at night. Probably about 3 of them were actually "dangerous". ---------- == I S A A C ==
Interesting thread. I have always drawn parallels between Blues and Hip Hop. Both forms have emerged from the same cultural group, for similar reasons, just a few years apart – a group who have for one reason or another felt disenfranchised and are finding a creative outlet, a way of expressing. I guess the main difference is that the world has changed around them.
The world which Muddy Waters and Little Walter existed in would not have tolerated black men publically proclaiming "F**k the police" or "Fight the power", although I'm sure they would have if they thought they could.
I think what Adam's video shows is the type of world these guys grew up in. The modern day equivalent... not even equivalent, what that world has now become, and listening to what barbequebob has to say, it sounds pretty similar.
Of course there will be people talking them selves up, acting "big". Of course there will be members of this culture who "accept the easy road, fueled by alcohol and drugs, and grounded in misogyny". That is part of the culture (of any western culture I guess), and of course there will also be members of this culture who have "self respect, ambition and courage". and make money and a name for themselves, talking from within and about this culture.
I live in the UK, in an area of London where similar issues and similar solutions have arisen – gang culture, drug dealing but also music.
The majority of the black population here came in the 1940s and 50s, after the war, from the West Indies and brought Reggae music so we didn't have blues, but a similar culture to the one shown in the OP exists here. And out of it smart, creative and ambitious people have made a name for themselves. However they still talk about and exist in this culture.
Dizzy Rascal comes from East London. Here is is on one of the biggest chat shows were have in the UK. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dizzee_Rascal
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Plan B (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_B_(musician)) from Forrest Gate in East London, another hugely successful artist in the UK. He more politically motivated work. He he is talking about the London riots last year.
Adam, isn't there an etiquette rule about being provocative? And someone probably once said that the truth can be provocative. ---------- Andrew. ----------------------------------------- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000874537399
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2012 9:47 AM
