Before one can begin to talk about Black Music and its relationship to Mass Culture, one must define exactly what is meant by these terms. The term 'Black Music' is ideally an essentialist one, thus there is a major fault in its definition. There are two sides to this problem. Firstly, one must decide what is meant be the term Black.
Legally speaking, the definition as to what constituted a black person varied from state to state under the 'Jim Crow' laws. In Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi, anyone with a 'visible' and/or 'appreciable' degree of 'Negro blood' was subject to segregational laws as a black person whereas in Indiana and Louisiana the colour line was drawn at one-eighth and one-sixteenth 'Negro blood' respectively. Clearly, then, it was possible to change one's status – and therefore legal rights – by moving from one state to another.
This thought jeopardises the idea of Black music as it keeps the term 'Black' undefined or at best vague. The second problem with defining Black music is that of who makes it.
…If abilities are genetically related, the diminution or dominance of some would also seem to be the inevitable result of such racial cross-breeding, but the vast literature on race does not bear this out. Nor does common experience: in the jazz field, for instance, dark-skinned Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith or Charlie Parker are not rated as being the musical superiors (or inferiors, for that matter) of light-hued Jelly-Roll Morton, Billie Holiday or Lester Young; at least, not on account of the presumed 'blackness' of their genes.
So with these problems, Black music cannot be defined as music performed by Black people because the definition of Black is unclear and the idea that only Black people can perform it is incorrect. Realising that it is not a clearly definable term, for this essay, the term Black will be defined as those people descendent from African slaves. With this clarified, Black Music, for this essay, will be music historically related to Black people. This includes, but is not exclusive to Rhythm and Blues, Rap, and Reggae.
The next term to be defined would be Mass Culture. Mass culture often refers to the mass produced version of Popular culture.
Mass culture is therefore a culture which lacks intellectual challenge and stimulation, preferring the undemanding ease of fantasy and escapism…It equally encourages commercialism and celebrates consumerism, together with the virtues of profit and the market, and, just as it denies intellectual challenge, it tends to silence other opposing voices because it is a stultifying and passifying culture.
For this essay, Mass culture will be defined as Popular culture that has been commodified.
Music has been an important part of the Black culture since before slavery scattered Black people from Africa.
Music making was generally a communal activity involving the interaction of soloists or leaders with the group as the chorus. Music served not only in the conventional roles of enhancing worship rituals and providing recreational outlets, but also offered a means of communication and a way of sharing in collective experiences, whether of the past or present.
Music was and is one of the ways that Black people communicated with each other. For instance, rap music has been a way through which young inner-city people have communicated their experiences to each other over distances. Another example is the music produced during the Black revolution. Songs like 'We Shall Overcome' were known everywhere and when sung united Black people. Sometimes traditional hymns, like 'Amazing Grace' were taken and changed into Gospel tunes that many Black people related to better. Because of this, Music has become an institution in the Black community. Without it, the community would be in a completely different state.
By the definition stated earlier, the term Black music is very broad. One could talk about these forms of music forever, but this essay will concentrate on Rap and Hip-Hop music, and Rhythm and Blues and Soul music.
The movement of Black music into the Mass cultural spotlight has created a dangerous virus that is threatening to kill the quality of the music. Let us take, for example, Rhythm and Blues (artists such as Guy, Jodeci, and Lauren Hill) and compare it to Pop Music (artists such as Britany Spears, Five, Westlife, Boyzone, and so on). Pop music has increasingly become similar to Rhythm and Blues. These 'cookie cutter' groups have recently been dominating the music industry with their music. The problem that arises when the market is flooded with this type of music is cyclical. One part is the 'true' musicians are then seen as not selling enough in comparison to the Pop group. The chances, therefore, of their recording contracts being renewed are lower since they make less money for the company. Also, since these Pop groups are being seen as selling well, more are created. This problem can be seen as hegemonic. The record companies are forcing the listener to buy into their idea of good music by eliminating other choices according to their taste. These record companies control everything about the artist, so even though it may be the artist's music, his look, where and when he performs, and many other things are controlled by the company. Also, the distribution of the artist's work often falls into the hands of his recording company. Even many of the successful independent labels are tied to these larger companies through the distribution contracts they have signed.
Rap and Hip-Hop music has become one of the fastest growing areas of the music industry over the past decade. In 1996-1997, its market share grew from 8.9% to 10.1%. This music, which started out in the streets of New York (where exactly is an arguable point), was thought to be only a passing fad when it began in the early seventies. Top people in the industry gave it only ten years before they felt it would die. Strangely enough, the music survived and has become one of the most popular genres around. Throughout the nineties, however, different problems involving freedom of speech overshadowed the music. Some examples of this are Ice-T's 'Copkiller', 2 Live Crew being sued for cursing and Gansta Rap in general. These attacks, coupled with the success of artist like MC Hammer, only seemed to make the music more popular. Seemingly realising this, the music industry started to look to Rap and Hip-Hop for their next money making projects. However, in the process of the music becoming more popular and consumed into mass culture, artist that were more conscious about its influence on their listeners started to disappear. The industry started to push the music that was more about violence, drugs and had really nothing positive to say. Around the same time that all of this was happening, the pressure from the government for Rap and Hip-Hop music to 'clean up' dropped off.
Most politically thoughtful commentators wonder…whether the 'licensed release' of carnival is not simply a form of social control of the low by the high and therefore serves the interests of that very official culture which it apparently opposes.
This argument can be used in the case of Rap and Hip-Hop because it seems like the government has allowed the 'safe' (Will Smith, MC Hammer) artists a voice while silently quieting the more militant, 'dangerous' artists (Public Enemy, Sista Souljah). The music also started to show up in commercials and on television. Mass cultural institutions such as MTV started to show the music during prime time hours instead of off peak hours. This moved the entire Hip-Hop culture from the shadows and into the limelight. This move made it safe for the government and other authorities as well as easy for them to see what the music and the people behind it had as weapons against them.
To conclude, Black music has been increasingly drawn into Mass culture. This movement is not a completely bad one. It has given the music and the artists some of the admiration that has not been given to them in the past. However, it is not entirely good because of the controls that have been imposed on it from the state and the industry executives.
I might've failed to mention that the shit was creative
But once the man got you well he altered the native
Told her if she got an energetic gimmick
That she could make money, and she did it like a dummy
Now I see her in commercials, she's universal
She used to only swing it with the inner-city circle
Now she be in the burbs lickin rock and dressin hip
And on some dumb shit when she comes to the city
Talking about popping glocks serving rocks and hitting switches
Now she's a gansta rolling with gansta bitches…
This excerpt from Common's 'I Used to Love H.E.R.' is a commentary on the progression of Hip-Hop and Rap music into Mass Culture. It also summarises the danger of losing an institution as important to Black culture as music to the mainstream.
Bibliography & Discography
Common, Resurrection, Loud Records, 1994
Floyd, Samuel A., The Power of Black Music, Oxford University Press, 1995
Longhurst, Brian, Popular Music & Society, Polity Press, 1995
Southern, Eileen, The Music of Black Americans, third edition, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997
Stallybrass, Peter, White, Allon, 'From Carnival to Transgression', The Subcultures Reader, Routledge, 1997, pp293-301
Strinati, Dominic, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, Routledge, 1996