{"id":1936,"date":"2009-02-28T09:54:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-28T14:54:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-02-28T09:54:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T09:54:00","slug":"guidelines-for-the-appropriation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/guidelines-for-the-appropriation\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed Guidelines for the Appropriation of Black Musicocultural Devices in Rock &#8216;n Roll"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A9UvB-Ul83w?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Thanks to all of you who contributed to Rock Town Hall&#8217;s month of features <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2009\/02\/02\/rock-town-hall-bemoans-exploitive-black\">bemoaning exploitive black rock history<\/a>. Through our work, I believe we made important steps toward halting the cynical practice of pop musicians <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2009\/02\/04\/exploitive-black-rock-history-robed-choi\">employing an African American Robed Choir<\/a> at nationally broadcast performances. Was it a coincidence that last week&#8217;s Academy Awards ceremony was the first nationally broadcast event featuring musical performances that sidestepped this cheap ploy?<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wUITAWBj6Hg?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nWe honestly confronted some of the many gray areas in the exploitive use of black musicians in rock, including cases of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2009\/02\/08\/title-8\">old, obscure blues artists<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2009\/02\/18\/amy-winehouse-blackcredibility\">Amy Winehouse&#8217;s backing singers<\/a>. Comments indicated a full range of gray shades.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout our discussions, some themes emerged, such as a distaste for videos portraying wise, old black men on dusty porches while white rockers entertained &#8220;Pops&#8221; and other locals. Mentions were made of other questionable practices, including what a Townsman phrased as the &#8220;ubiquitous Black Guy On Bass In an Otherwise All-White Band Of the Classic Rock Era.&#8221; If fairness to other forms of cultural exploitation we even touched on <strong>Michael Jackson<\/strong>&#8216;s use of token white rock guitarists, <strong>Gwen Stefani<\/strong>&#8216;s exploitation of those Japanese lap dogs who&#8217;ve become such an integral part to her shows, and The Band&#8217;s exploitive use of Civil War imagery throughout their career. Nice work.<\/p>\n<p>If there&#8217;s one thing I regret from our discussions, it&#8217;s that we didn&#8217;t make enough time to explore what&#8217;s truly lost as a result of rock&#8217;s infrequent, sincere cross-fertilizations with various forms of &#8220;black&#8221; music and culture. <strong>Townsman dbuskirk<\/strong> touched on it regarding what he felt was lost when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band lost its initial African American and Latin rhythmic base, but there&#8217;s more work to be done.<\/p>\n<p>As we leave Exploitive Black Rock History Month, I am confident that our work will not be left aside until next February. For that reason I am leaving us with this open-ended thread, in which we may begin our work toward developing <em>Proposed Guidelines for the Appropriation of Black Musicocultural Devices in Rock &#8216;n Roll<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to all of you who contributed to Rock Town Hall&#8217;s month of features bemoaning exploitive black rock history. Through our work, I believe we made important steps toward halting the cynical practice of pop musicians employing an African American Robed Choir at nationally broadcast performances. Was it a coincidence that last week&#8217;s Academy Awards <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/guidelines-for-the-appropriation\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[147],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}