I wouldn’t describe myself as a music historian but I do have a pretty expansive taste of music

One thing I’ve noticed is that there aren’t a lot of black men who operate in the modern day pop/rock scene.

Rock and Jazz are genres created by black people and even the “King of Rock” is someone who got lots of his style and influence from black culture

Back in the 80s there were many to choose from such as MJ, Hendrix, Prince etc.

In modern day music, I’d say Lil Nas X, The Weeknd, and Anderson Paak (more or less)

Would be the best example, I don’t feel like I’m mis-categorizing the past but I’d like to hear wat y’all think

the short answer is hip-hop is pop now

as far as rock, yeah it's scarce

Everybody wanna be a rapper. Simple as that.

First thing that comes to mind is hip hop being extremely accessible and convenient genre for the creative disenfranchised.
Another thing , that might be more of a universal issue is the arts being taken out of schools. Kids arent playing instruments like they used to. Not just black kids but across all American sub cultures.
So black kids especially just don’t have the access, time or care to make rock music especially if there isn’t a cultural demand for it

Hiphop has been the standard of black masculinity in pop culture in general for the last 25-30 years. Got even more pronounced with hiphop fully taking over music

But there’s a bit of a surge with young black male artists who operate in that pop/rock space: Ty and Deoindre from Blackstarkids, Jean Dawson, Kenny Hoopla and many more

Shid, idk

Carti is more punk than a lot of white punk artist now days. It’s there it’s foundation is hip hop tho

plenty of black men do pop, the industry just decided to call it r&b cause they want pop to be a white space

Really wish Lupe picked this project up again tho

If you want to break it down, pop music literally is short for popular music.

There no real structure or sound for a pop song beyond it having commercial appeal.

As someone said hip hop is a form of popular music especially in the last 15 or so years.

What about rock brother

That’s facts

rock is dead

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literally like no new rock artists have popped off since like the 90s

It’s a dead genre like jazz

not saying there isn’t decent jazz being made or whatever but it’s not gonna pop

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Rock is a different animal all together. I can’t really talk to about that cause all the artists I’ve heard that were black and do rock or a variant of rock were in the 70’s-90’s. I’m sure that there would be artists that are doing it but I just haven’t heard of them.

Even Prince whose rock output (let’s say from Come to love symbol era) is pretty much washed over for his 80’s funkier output.

Rock isn’t dead at all

It’s just what happens when “alternative” rock became the main sound of rock and there’s nothing to alternate itself from anymore.

Is that even rock?

it’s just “indie”/“bedroom”/ whatever the f*** n like 90% of it sounds the same

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Because y’all determined to make excuses for Niggas not being able to rap so y’all call Lil Uzi/Yeat/Carti type music rap when it’s closer to rock/pop and really is damn near a whole new genre as is all of that super melodic trap type music

Imagine how both genres would be flourishing if we kept Hip Hop/Rap Hip Hop/Rap and all the “Imma rockstar” niggas just went ahead and claimed that genre instead of killing off mainstream lyrical rap lol

Carti and Yeat the perfect examples of people who would be having way cooler careers and probably would be more artistically interesting if they were considered rock acts

yes its a variation of rock

just like theres millions of variations of “hip hop”

Rock in essence doesn’t have a definition though

When you say rock do you think of rock and roll era Elvis, heavy rock like Queen and Pearl Jam, morose electronica of Radiohead etc etc.,

There’s just too many sub genres to classify as rock as a homogenous genre.

Fwiw, the difference in indie rock and indie pop is just the harshness off the sound.

racism and economics

it’s more and more expensive to teach a child an instrument

you have to be very hands on with youth music education

if u don’t have the time to push your child at home, you simply need to get them lessons. this is on top of the rising price point for instruments

of course you can argue that rock has a DIY culture but it’s DIY culture is dominated by white guys who are rich/privileged enough to get in the industry

it’s more economically feasible to be a hip hop artist, off the strength that you can get on with a mic, interface, and laptop

you need beats and a voice

for other genres you really need to be able to practice with others. there’s great services like pirate studios where you can rent studio space but they’re only in a select few cities. idk how much it costs to get studio time in general but it’s not cheap lol

i have a lot of feelings about this as an artist in the diy scene in new york and i can safely say the simple answer is systematic racism whether or not people want to roll their eyes at that lol

also genre is kinda irrelevant tbh

music is music

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This a cop out homie

This is a great point, Carti’s definitely jumped into the rock scene

D**** you should try by Travis is by all intents a psychedelic rock song with an interesting delivery.

It’s just people lump it with hip hop as that’s what expected from him