In case you didn’t know, BILLY SUNDAY grinds for the Evil Empire.
I try not to subscribe to the simple minds that view music through the prism of color. It’s always coded racism which is ultimately coded supremacism. Avoiding this is proving as difficult as walking down the street and not seeing any signage for McDonald’s or Starbucks. I mean, what exactly is white music. What exactly is Black music and most importantly, who the fuck cares?!? They only people that need to make a distinction are the nazis and klansmen who can’t enjoy themselves in diverse settings. The best experiences I’ve had listening to live music were in crowds that looked like auditions for Benetton ads. I saw NaS and the Roots perform live inside a park in New York City (not on the same day), in both instances the crowd was a veritable we are the world of ethnicity and so called race. I’d also like to add that the so called white cats were the only ones that let me hit their blunt too. White dudes always be holding that piffy piff. Anyhoo…
Bol raised the issue the other day that many of you so called Black people have trouble identifying the paradigm of so called white music. It’s not your fault Black man, it’s a white thing, you wouldn’t understand it. I figured I should create a short list to help some of you cats that are stuck on stupid add some new shit to your iPods. Do yourself a favor and buy this shit too since I don’t want the RIAA kicking in the door to your momma’s basement because you are downloading some Elton John and the whatnot. Keep in mind that white don’t play when it comes to his paper. You see how they did Drama? And they LIKED Drama. Your ass will be going under the jailhouse.
The Police – Not the real police that shot Sean Bell you dumbasses, the group whose lead singer is a seventy yr. old sex addict. Back in the day The Police were like the best ska band evar. Their drummer is talented as fuck and Sting and the other dude on rhythm guitar weren’t too bad either. For all you hopeless Hip-Hop heads The Police have a few songs that have been sampled be some of your favorite rappers. Check out the song ‘Roxanne’. The guitar strums were used on what might be Cam’Ron’s greatest track.
Kraftwerk – This band of crazy Germans gave birth to the techno craze. Except when they did it the shit sounded cool and not so teh ghey. Afrika Bambaataa was a big fan of their music and he sampled them for some of his epic classic B-boy jams. Timbaland is also a huge fan of their sound and if knowing that makes you not want to listen to these dudes then you are really missing out on some hot shit.
Sonic Youth – This band is far from young but they are innovators of music that has been impossible to define from the outset. Their not official punk rockers although I saw them perform at CBGB’s alongside straight edge punk band Fugazi. They certainly aren’t new wave because they’re far too edgy and they aren’t grunge either since they don’t commit suicide. They’re just a bunch of indie rockers who fucked up by being indie rockers before there was an indie rock scene. Sonic Youth still did their thing as alternative rock goes but I thought these dudes should have been bigger news than Nirvana. I also wish Hip-Hop parties had real mosh pits so that some of the frustrations that rap fans have with their lives could be expressed during the thirty minutes that you bounce off people.
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Don’t get it twisted, despite all the glitter and constant rotation in the MTV networks these dudes can get down. They might even be more true to the O.G. Hip-Hop aesthetic than most of the people performing that shit right now, especially cats from the south. Hell yeah they spit fire about parties and bullshit, but they also make joints about drugs, love, the price of fame, the loss of family and yeah, drugs. Someone told me that my real problem with Hip-Hop is the lack of balance that the commercialized music eschews. Whoever said that was right. These niggas got balance, and they got game. I still fucks with ‘Californification’. Word to Rick Rubin.
The Clash – I put The Clash on my list for greatest musical band of all time along with the WU and P.E. The reason The Clash was so fucking dope to me is because they were in the forefront of spitting about class struggle and racism. These dudes were taking on the British government like it was nothing. They came to New York and they saw Hip-Hoppers in Harlem and the Bronx do their thing with all forces against them and it inspired their music. Rock critics call them a punk rock band, but I consider them to be Hip-Hop’s first band. They performed with a graffiti drenched curtain as their backdrop. The Clash represented the streets and their only desire was that everyone be given equal treatment and equal protection under the law. A theme like that is nothing new for the so called Black band Bad Brains. That’s heavy shit when it’s being posited by a so called white band.
