Something that’s been getting on my goat this year is the often uncritical defining of musical forms by colour. Take Blissblogger recentlyon this board equating nu-Britrock and grime as ‘white and black versions of the same landscape’ or Woebot on his blog today praising ‘bohemians not cleaving to movements, feebly trailing behind black music’ - with the implicit suggestion that bohemians can’t be black. Obviously there is a lot of substance to such a divide but there are important exceptions (David Narcizo, Kele Okereke and Gary Powell in indie rock for example). To me it shuts down possibilities and contradicts these writers’ positionings. Indeed, some of my favourite music (eg Tricky, The Specials, AR Kane, the Slits, TV on the Radio) problematises and plays on these racial categorisations.
Is this being too sensitive? Do we need divides to stop things like grindie? Is it more a class thing? (like the fact that bloke from the Ordinary Boys is the grandson of landed aristocracy).
Is this being too sensitive? Do we need divides to stop things like grindie? Is it more a class thing? (like the fact that bloke from the Ordinary Boys is the grandson of landed aristocracy).