Jonz

4y

How can anyone take this mf seriously

Goo

4y

People on KTT clowned on me for liking their comeback attempt album. It was A Tribe Called Quest-lite, I thought it was pretty good.

DonutHole

4y

I like this song ^ (idk if this is what you're talking about but this is what came to mind when you said "a tribe called quest lite" lol)

DonutHole

4y

· edited

It probably hurt that black female singer when they discarded her to be replaced by Fergie and see commercial succes...

Jonz

4y

How can anyone take this mf seriously

DonutHole

4y

· edited

It probably hurt that black female singer when they discarded her to be replaced by Fergie and see commercial succes...

Jonz

4y

How can anyone take this mf seriously

flipflops_

4y

They didnt kick her out. Stop with this narrative.

Just because they "sold-out" doesnt make them not black.

flipflops_

4y

They didnt kick her out. Stop with this narrative.

Just because they "sold-out" doesnt make them not black.

DonutHole

4y

Hmmm I think were looking at it from different perspectives (sorta like what came first , the chicken or the egg)

Correct me if I'm wrong:

you seem to think that the artist has a genuine expression that is labeled "less black" after encountering huge succes whilst I believe that the artist trades in a sound/image for another in order to go mainstream or remain on their label.

The Whitney example shows that she at one point felt bad for going pop and the reason people labeled her a sell-out for going pop is found in her music/image itself (the producers she worked with, the hair/clothes to the way that she talked) not the sales she racked up.

The black artist I'm talking about weren't considered sell-outs for selling alot of records they're considered sell-outs for the way they sold those records.

To your credit there are probably artists that get labeled sell-outs when they genuinely wanted to make the music they're making that got them in the successful position they're in (idk any of the top of my head right now)

if you believe that BEP is that group then... I disagree with you, they def were making hip hop tracks in the beginning of their career then sold out to be on interscope etc

I believe the initial singer (kim hill) wouldn't have left if they remained "they same" and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Ps: I truly think that artists that go out of their way to make "non-black" music don't get a fair chance either as most of the black community dgaf about them and their targeted demographic tends to pick the whiter version over them...

Ie: the black eminem's of this world like hopsin or even em precursors/ like masta ace, young zee, redman, canibus, esham (all mcs he is fragalanty"inspired by")

BRAVE

4y

Ok I see. To be clear I definitely don’t put BEP in the camp of genuine expression that is labeled less black after the success, I just feel weird in general when people word it like having success automatically means you can’t be black

Realistically tho, a lot of the black artists that went pop and went back on it changed their image for more mainstream acceptance (like the examples you used)

Hell, the only recent exception to any of this I can think of off the top is The Weeknd. Yeah he went full pop but his roots in where he started remain

DonutHole

4y

· edited

It probably hurt that black female singer when they discarded her to be replaced by Fergie and see commercial succes...

Jbreezyondeck

4y

Where Is The Love? 😔

DonutHole

4y

· edited

This is correct she (Kim hill) chose to leave cuz she was tired of "losing herself"

She has talked about having to grow up in both black and white environments where she had to code switch and was ashamed of it

Her mother once called her out saying "where are you" which haunted her even in her BEP days

BEP chose to go a route that was uncomfortable for her (she would have to play the sexy singer role and be more "mainstream" ) and chose Fergie to do so which made them more appealing to mainstream at the time (2000s pop music is characterized by a heap of white stars taking rnb/hiphop elements to sell to the general public)

Fergie def helped them get into the mainstream door with the help of interscope records who believed in them

Kim doesn't harbor any ill feelings towards Fergie and has never met her (she honestly dgaf and is very zen about it)

BEP knew what they were doing (selling out their sound and their image) to the mainstream and now act dumb as to why they're not considered hip hop ?

Gee maybe cuz y'all had a white woman cosplaying (from the makeup to the lyrics they wrote for her) as a black rnb singer like how they ushered in pink...

Ooo

4y

I feel you

I’d consider the Jimi Hendrix experience group as a black group because the main man is black and he made “black” music but he wasn’t accepted by the black community overall because of his band mates and because he was considered to be making “white” music ironically

DonutHole

4y

Also only one of them is black (found out today that apl.de.ap is Filipino, I thought he was east African )

Their thing was to be multi-cultural as multiple posters have stated, another reason why the initial singer feeling out of place with the direction they we're going in(prompting her to leave) and then being replaced by Fergie isn't accidental imo

DonutHole

4y

This would make sense if...

• withney didn't get booed at the soul train music awards for being "too pop" (after this ensued a whole "whitey houston" campaign that crushed her confidence and prompted her to date rnb bad boy Bobby brown whom she met that same night iirc)

• If MJ didn't feel like he had to make black music again (went a more rnb route with invincible and preached how black culture birthed all of modern music but labels be extra s***ty towards black artists)

• If Lauryn hill didn't express her feelings of being successful being tied to selling music to white people (she expressed that she didn't feel more successful for selling records to white people since her music is made for her black people (the environment she grew up in, not really her fault they segregated urban communities isn't it?) but got labeled a racist by... White people

• If country music wasn't gatekeeping the genre with labels discouraging black artists from putting out a country records

Ie: k michelle was told she should stick to rnb and cried on air about wanting to make country music but her label preventing her to do so despite her love for/knowledge of the genre since she grew up in Memphis ( streets still waiting on that country record)

• if black artists didn't regularly get pushed out of pop categories (expect for a select few) ie: the weeknd this year...

When the highest on the totem pole of black artists have been subjected to this "stick to black music" thing it might be realer than you think,

I'd like to point out that the general public understands this dynamic and is quick to put a black artist in their place either by accepting that they crossed over successfully (when said artist fits the mainstream mold of that era à la Whitney Houston) or by ignoring/underating them when they don't (ie: beyonce isn't considered a pop artist by many but lady gaga is despite both using other less popular genres (rnb for bey and house for gaga, ) to peddle to the general public...

Tl:dr : your sentiment of "not making "black music"" would make sense in a post-racial world where the cultural exchange between different cultures would be almost equal.

A black girl from Memphis would have the same opportunities to become a country star (today, viewed as white music) as a white boy from Detroit would have to become rap superstar...

Smacked Voodoo

4y

J Rey Soul is her name. They added her and then made a whole like afrobeat, latin, reggaeton world music album. Got J Balvin, Shakira, Ozuna, and French Montana on it.

I haven't been listening to them just did a quick Google on what's been going on with them

Smacked Voodoo

4y

J.Rey Soul bad af though