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An interesting if late-arriving story in yesterday’s New York Times discusses how the often-strict racial lines in the rock underground—namely, that black people by and large don’t dig rock music–have started to shift. The story contends that starting in the late 60s, just as white audiences were embracing Jimi Hendrix, black listeners gravitated to R & B, funk, soul, disco, and hip-hop, despite the fact that rock was largely a black creation. But apparently the popularity of TV on the Radio, which is 4/5 black, as well as Bloc Party, the Dears, and This Moment in Black History, all of whom have one or—hold tight—two black members, partly signals a reversing of the trend. These new black rock fans? People have dubbed them blipsters—black hipsters. Ugh.
The Times piece does include a few good quotes that use humor to temper the humiliation and exasperation one must feel as a black person in an overwhelmingly white culture. Nev Brown, a photographer and blogger from New York, says he’s often mistaken for a security guard at rock shows. But it’s Chicago’s own Damon Locks—his band the Eternals is idiotically labeled “hardcore,” which is sort of like calling Tortoise heavy metal–who’s the funniest:
