Tag: blacks in music

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The recent movie on Elvis Presley[1] is exceptional in its acting, script, and production. For those interested in such matters, it is also excellent as cultural history.

The movie deals to a significant extent with the African influences on Presley’s music. As a little boy growing up in a poor, integrated neighborhood, he was fascinated by the rhythms and gyrations of the blacks, including black gospel music. (more…)

Lizzo

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Melissa Viviane Jefferson, better known by her stage name of Lizzo, is the biggest black celebrity in the world. By “biggest,” I mean in the sense that she would be able to displace the largest volume of water were she to dive cannonball-style into a swimming pool. (more…)

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Ernest Greene, the solo multi-instrumentalist behind Washed Out, was born in the state of Georgia. This extended play, Life of Leisure, is a drowsy chillwave mark that has impacted spheres far beyond its initial scope, most notably for the use of its “Feel It All Around” as the main theme for the television show Portlandia. (more…)

Jay-Z and Rick Rubin.

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Part 1

Who is Rick Rubin?

If you asked in the early part of his career, he was a member of the provocative hardcore punk band, The Pricks. He would also stress that he was a nobody. Rubin’s purpose for being in the Pricks was, functionally, to piss off his rich Jewish father; (more…)

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I know, the fifty-fourth Super Bowl is old news. Who cares about something that occurred more than 24 hours ago? We might as well discuss a Babylonian sporting event. However, this Super Bowl averaged 102 million viewers, which makes it the eleventh most-watched event in US history — the top 10 are nine other Super Bowls and the final episode of M*A*S*H — and it is the pinnacle of Americanism. All football games are one elongated advertisement to consume more product, but this particular commercial, Super Bowl LIV, was blatantly hostile to its own consumer base. This seems unique and warrants dissection. (more…)

James Brown’s 1990 mug shot.

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I tell you, it hit me like a lead hammer. Knocked the wind right out of me. I sure wasn’t expecting that when I went to Facebook the day after Martin Luther King Day I’d find that several of my friends had posted laudatory bits in tribute to the serial plagiarizing, serial fornicating commie. I can’t get over it. I’m totally bummed out.

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