So I’m looking through the list of the recently announced 2011 Grammy nominees for the Urban/alternative category and I don’t see it.  Why? Because it’s gone.

As the PR folks from the Grammys told me, it was “merged and renamed: Best Alternative Music Album  or Best R&B Album”.

To say the least, that’s a bummer.  So, thanks, R&B Committee, for making it that much harder for black music artists who color outside the lines to break into the industry’s inner circle.  At issue here is not whether they can become part of the industry machine.  Rather, a Grammy nod helps boost sales and opens doors to other kinds of opportunities that can help black alternative artists further their careers.  Think of the Oscars and the post-event sales bump that usually happens for the winners.

Of course, the category was never perfect. Back in 2009, I wrote “Alternative Compared to What?” as a critique of the category.  What was apparent was that it was being used as a farm league for the larger, more prestigious R&B category.  Populating the Urban/Alternative category were, by and large, indie soul & R&B artists who couldn’t compete with the mainstream, corporate-financed folks in the main category. “Alternative” just meant that these were black artists who weren’t getting on the radio or didn’t have a major label financing.

In 2010, for example, there was Janelle Monae and Carolyn Malachi, Bilal, Eric Roberson, and Cee-Lo (not that he needed to be in this category!).  Except for Janelle Monae and Carolyn Malachi, it was largely an unimpressive representation of what’s happening in black alternative music. Bilal’s album was weak. Roberson is a neo-soul singer, and Cee-Lo was slumming on his way to the stratosphere.

In 2009, the category was comprised of India.Arie, The Foreign Exchange, Robert Glasper and Bilal, Eric Roberson (again) and Tonex.  Of these, The Foreign Exchange’s “Daykeeper” was the most interesting song, although the Glasper/Bilal version of “All Matter” was far superior to the lackluster version on Bilal’s album. Tonex is a gospel artist posing as an R&B singer and, therefore, had no reason to be in that category.

Now, unfortunately, any black alt artists have to either compete in the R&B category or in the alternative category.  I don’t really mind the latter, but there’s a predisposition on the part of the industry towards white, indie rockers, so it’s going to be even tougher going for black alternative artists.

To be fair, to get into the nomination process, you have to be a member of the Academy.  I’m not sure how many black alt artists, their producers or labels are members.  But that speaks to the degree to which they don’t find it relevant.

The good news: If ever there’s a time for an artist (any kind) to develop an audience and a business outside mainstream, it’s now.  Black alt artists have access to a wide array of tools and audiences like never before.  True, production, marketing and distribution have been democratized.

However, it’s also true that it’d be nice to get some recognition for being a driver of the future–an indicator of where the audience is going–rather than a steward of the past.

Great photo of Bobby Hackney rockin’ out last weekend at Lincoln Center.  Here’s what the New York Times had to say about their show:

Death made the concert’s most genre-defying music. It’s a taut, precise trio, with the brothers Bobby Hackney on bass and Dannis Hackney on drums; Bobby Duncan on guitar replaced David Hackney, the original guitarist, who died in 2000. Death’s songs from the early 1970s — which were not released until 2009 on “…For the Whole World to See” (Drag City) — were neatly structured, multipart compositions. Some rode bass lines with guitar interjections, anticipating the Police as well as punk; some were garage-rock tirades against ex-girlfriends and politicians. The band said it would release more material this year.

Read the rest of the article here.

Additional link:

• My SXSW interview with the Brothers Hackney

Hendrix in the studio in 1968 (credit: Eddie Kramer Archives)

The Hendrix estate–in conjunction with Sony Legacy Recordings–will be releasing the guitar legend's Valleys of Neptune on Tuesday.  According to the NY Times, it's "the first album of previously unreleased studio recordings by Hendrix in more than a decade."  Perhaps there's be more we can hear without the 10-year wait: The article also quotes Janie Hendrix, president and CEO of Experience Hendrix, who says there's "about 10 more years of music" in the company's vaults.

The album documents Hendrix's creative output in 1969.  While many people feel that Hendrix tried to stay above the fray of all the turbulence going on in the country at that time, Living Colour's Vernon Reid–who's part of the Experience Hendrix tour that kicked off yesterday–has a different take:

“He was the Movement, his very existence,
without his having to put his fist in the air,” Mr. Reid said. “When
you hear ‘Machine Gun’ or ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ there was much
more said in those tunes than if he was a speechifying dude. In the
world of great guitar solos, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ just stands in
this weird other place. He created, he was, the soundtrack of the
nation at that time.”

Additional link:

• Wikipedia entry on Valleys of Neptune
• New York Times: "Beyond the Jimi Hendrix Experience" by Anthony DeCurtis, February 28, 2010

by Marcus Dowling

If he could,
Chuck Berry would slap DeWayne Carter in the face with his dingaling
for this one.

It "leaked." And it damn sure doesn't make me think of Lenny Kravitz.
Or Jimi Hendrix. Or Rick James. Maybe it made me think of Eddie
Murphy. But "Party All the Time" even laps the Eminem duet "Drop the
World." Black men invented rock music. But Lil Wayne successfully
attempted to take the entire concept back 75 years to its conception.

Facing a one year jail sentence for criminal weapons possession, Lil
Wayne certainly isn't looking for more bad press. But he's knee deep
in it now. Rebirth, literally
a rock album release in every way for hip hop's most prolific
wordsmith, an expected first quarter of 2010 release, "shipped
inadvertently," and is not the pride and joy of the internet. And as
expected, it's bad. No worries, it's not bad in the sense that it's
offensive to the eardrum. It isn't. Whomever the session musicians
were that were hired to play with America's favorite codeine consumer
are more than capable. In fact, on tracks like "Prom Queen," they
salvage victory from the jaws of defeat, actually creating something a
bit more than tolerable, hence it being the only single Universal
Records reluctantly cosigned from the new direction of one of their
cash cow artists. It's bad in the sense that it was unwarranted,
unnecessary and a far better idea in theory plagued by slipshod
execution.

Even more ignominious about the release is that it features a lack of
something quite key to they success of a "rock album" by someone from
FAR outside the genre. Rock producers. "Prom Queen" has a hook, but
with lyrics like the eminently and sadly unforgettable "I love her
fancy underwear," Weezy doesn't even make an attempt to approach rock
music with even the slightest modicum of well honed, rock based
preparation. The track is produced by yes, DJ Infamous and Drew
Correa, who produced the amazing "Mr. Carter," but when it comes to,
well, rock songs, appear to know a significant amount, but not even
close to enough to be producers of note on a rock release from an
artist who dominates the public eye. Cool and Dre, who, yes, produced
one of my favorite hip hop jams of all time, "Hate It or Love It," for
The Game and Mary J. Blige, are on this album, too, which is quite
unfortunate. It's one thing for hip hop and rock to collaborate on an
artistic level. Rap/rock collaborations are exciting this year, as
Damon Dash's Blackroc album proved. But rappers and rap producers
without a true rock mindset doing rock collaborations? A poor idea in
theory, a poor idea in practice, and on this record, a poor idea in
execution. It's almost as if Weezy's hubris as being the only
"Martian" to reach the top of the charts went to his head and this
unfortunate, unfortunate–yes, did I say unfortunate?–concept came to
life.

And to think what does this do to the hardworking core of what exists
of the "black rock" movement. Weezy's not a rocker by ANY stretch, but
he does purport to play "rock music," and has a higher profile than
the entire Afro-Punk  and black rock movements, save Living Colour's Corey Glover,
combined. Amazingly, I tend to
think the release would've been far better received even if the
content weren't so well put together had there been elements of the
movement that Weezy haphazardly stumbled into. There's no nod to Saul Williams here for a
duet. Niggy Tardust and Weezy on a track together is a phenomenal
idea. How about a reworking of a TV On The Radio track in a manner
consistent with some of the remixes The XX has done this year for
other groups with a hot sixteen bars from the faux rocker in question?
You're telling me Weezy doesn't have the money to contact Danger Mouse
for this concept? I think you're a fool if you do.

There are African-American based rock bands in this world that due to
the domino theory nature of the music industry need a lot more from
this album to assist their valiant and critically acclaimed marches to
mainstream credibility. Doron Flake of The Smyrk, for instance, has a
once in a generation voice that if this were forty years ago would
leave women drooling and quivering in love. Jacksonville, Florida's
Whole Wheat Bread are cosigned and perpetually name dropped by Lil
Jon, but since he's too busy spending his financial largesse and
cosigning David Guetta, Diplo and DJ Class and not standing in a
studio with Will Frazier's ass kicking bass and Aaron Abraham's vocals
backing him on a track, they're still locally renowned and
internationally respected, but still flying entirely too below the
radar of financial and critical respectability.

Rebirth is a mixtape concept.
It's rough hewn and full of possibilities, but flawed. Almost fatally
flawed. It's a confection for the true Weezy enthusiast. Should this
have been a rare Japanese reprint with extremely limited US
distribution to 100 people who could tell you what Weezy eats for
dinner on the third Sunday of the month only when Baby is hanging out
on the tour bus? Yes. But as a major album with full distribution,
it's a misfire for his musical development of the highest degree. For
the future of blacks in rock music, it's a failure of the highest
degree. Lil Wayne has become wrapped up in his own universe and can't
see the forest in spite of the trees. Let's imagine that in an ideal
universe that Rick Rubin (available, and well within the price range,
and likely interested for the right price) produced this. He produced
Jay-Z, he produced Johnny Cash, what about Lil Wayne? It's not as far
fetched of a concept as it seems. Heck. Let's let him even sit with
the producers of note on this album.

Likely a different story.

I just hope the concept of black men with rock guitars isn't shelved
or good in the American mainstream. If we all remember, the concept is
the absolute lifeblood from which American music flows. Sure, we've
advanced far away from it, but there are people who still remember and
like to be reminded. Let's let Rebirth re-enter the abyss it was unearthed from.
Though my site often proves that true genius does require insanity,
sometimes insane ideas are just that. Insane.

Marcus Dowling is one of the premier music journalists in the DC Metropolitan area. His writing can be found here and at other premium sites around the internet as The Couch Sessions, DC megablog Brightest Young Things, and Atlanta's soon to be print Art Nouveau Magazine. He has interviewed everyone from established legends like Teena Marie, Darude, Rakim and Warren G, to rising names like DJ Blaqstarr, Nadastrom, Miz Metro and a plethora more of all levels of note in between.  His blog is True Genius Requires Insanity and he can be reached on Twitter at twitter.com/marcuskdowling

Additional link:

• Meet our newest black rocker: Lil Wayne

Have you taken the Boldaslove.us black rock audience survey? It only takes 5 minutes!  Click here to start.

No, I’m not going to make this post about Chris Brown.  Except to say that it’s interesting to note when R&B singers start clutching guitars on album covers, it’s a sign that rock–that bad four-letter word to black folks–is seeping into our consciousness.

Nah, Chris Brown is just actin’ white, right?

Have you taken the Boldaslove.us black rock audience survey? It only takes 5 minutes!  Click here to start.

Thanks to Dburt over at Afronerd for reaching out and inviting me to join him on Sunday for a discussion about the state of black rock.  From the looks of his write-up, I guess I'll have a chance to expand on my comments on The BlakRoc Project.

So, the show will be airing live this Sunday, November 1 at 7pm EST.  You can listen by clicking here.

Additional link:

• Afronerd

Mos Def (l) and The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach

Yes, it took me a few weeks, but I finally collected my thoughts on project.  The result is my first piece on The Huffington Post.  For me, it comes down to this question:

How can you call something “BlakRoc” when the black folks on the project only rap and the rockers are all white?

BlakRoc is the
name of Damon Dash’s upcoming project, a collaboration between white
rockers The Black Keys and rappers such as Mos Def, Q-Tip, Ludacris,
and Raekwon, to name a few.  Ordinarily, I could care less what Damon
Dash does.  But in choosing this name for the project, he crossed a
line: You can’t match black rappers and white rockers and call it
“BlakRoc.”

No, BlakRoc has nothing to do with black rock,
something I’ve spent nearly the last three years championing on my
blog.  The conflation of the two is offensive. There’s too much history
there. It’s like he’s acknowledging the existence of black rock with
his middle finger.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-fields/dashs-blakroc-disses-blac_b_326420.html

Read the full article here.

If you're inclined to share your thoughts on this subject, please do so over at the HuffPo.

The Noisettes (l to r): Dan Smith, Shingai Shoniwa, Jamie Morrison

From today's Arts & Leisure section:

The band’s rapidly growing audience has a special significance for Ms.
Shoniwa, who said her father wanted her to be an ambassador. “My
private achievement is when I look out at the crowd and see a rainbow
tribe, all different ages and colors,” she said. “Music should be about
breaking down contrived divisions.”

Read the full article here.

The trend spotted by the NY Times in 2007 has finally gone mainstream

Remember back when the NY Times published the now (in)famous "blipster" article?  Folks in Black rock circles took it as a pejorative, partially because the tone of Jessica Pressler's article was kinda like, "OMG! Black people like indie rock!".  Fast forward to a few days ago, and this is how writer Dayo Olopade, in focusing on the fashion aspect, describes things:

Problem is that the writer misses the larger point by overemphasizing fashion in his analysis.  Moreover, while he references "indie music", many of his prominent music examples tend to be hip hop ones (hipster rap, courtesy of Lupe Fiasco and Kanye), so it feels like the implication is that skaters and rappers got together and spawned this trend.  Maybe that's true.  From a certain perspective.  But you and I know that there was a lot of rock influencing this trend.

The upside of this article is that it shows that this black hipster trend has gone mainstream.  And because TheRoot.com provided a platform to discuss this, even more people will learn about it, as evidenced by some of the feedback on Twitter.  What we're seeing is the way that trends move across the landscape.  As I wrote in a comment to the piece:

Moving this idea of Black rock forward–and I mean far beyond its current enclaves in NYC, ATL and other cities–requires that many more people start talking and writing about it.  Together, those impressions will add up and we'll get to the point when Black rock and Afro-punk are no longer strange concepts.

Additional link:

• TheRoot.com: The Rise of the Black Hipster

The singing's terrible and the guitar-playing ain't great, but we should still applaud Lil Wayne's rock effort.

So Weezy is wading into the rock waters.  Pretty wild, huh?  The best selling rapper of 2008 is switching genres.  At least for the moment.

A day or so ago, i asked people on Twitter and Facebook what they thought.  There were a range of responses from "Why not?  Rock on!" to "He looks real cool with his guitar" to "Bullshit" and "I'm sorry, but that's not rock ."  Reflexively, I was in the camp that just dismissed this as simply something he's dabbling in.  Now, until I hear the entire album, I can't make a determination as to how "serious" he is about this musical direction.  That said, I think it's important for us to get past our knee-jerk reactions and really look at what's happening here.

Let me get this out of the way: As someone who listens to a lot of Black folks who rock well and hard, Wayne's singing is nothing to write home about.  And, yes, his guitar playing is amateurish.

But that's okay.

No, I'm not talking about setting the bar lower.

Isn't Wayne doing exactly the thing that most of us in the Black alt scene have been demanding of popular Black artists?  Namely, we've often wondered aloud why they don't stretch, why they don't push themselves artistically.  Well, here you have someone doing just that.  As the audience, we've also got to manage our own expectations when someone does this.  We shouldn't expect that, if they're really pushing themselves, that the effort will be as perfect and polished as what we'd grown accustomed to them doing.

This is a Woody Allen moment for Wayne.  Woody Allen got to make a lot of films.  But he had to make some bad ones (Bananas, Curse of the Jade Scorpion, anyone?) in order to get to those gems such as Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters.  That's part of the process.  We may end up looking back at his career and see how this foray rounded him out.

And let's not have double standards here:  I was talking to Mr. Muhammad this morning and said, "Wow, dude cannot sing."  To which he replied, "He never said he could."  True.  And, frankly, we put up with white rockers (Dylan!) who don't have great voices.  But let a black person step to the mic and we're expecting instant mellifluousness.  Let's mind the double standard here.  And let's not forget the countless rockers who made forays into other genres and were applauded for it.  Remember when The Talking Heads' David Byrne decided to do the Afro-Brazilian and Latin music-influenced  Rei Momo?  Brilliant! the critics swooned.

We shouldn't be too judgmental with Wayne.  The example the many black rockers have set–particularly the part about exploring the music that you're feeling, whatever that may be–is being taken to heart by one of rap's leading lights.  And that's a good thing.  We can't want to break boundaries and defy conventions on one hand, but then look down the nose at a rapper who tries to do just that.  Can't have it both ways.  Artistic freedom for one means artistic freedom for all.

This is an opportunity for our Black rock community to take the attention that's being paid to Wayne and further the discussion about Black folks exploring, both as performers and as audiences, the full spectrum of music that's out there.

I'm ever the optimist, so I'm hoping that this foray into rock sends Wayne in some new directions creatively.  Is this the best the Black rock and Afro-punk communities have to offer?  Of course not.  But if Lil Wayne playing a guitar pushes a discussion of Black rock and all it represents closer towards the mainstream, closer to "normal," I'm all for it.