Around the country, other rock bands with black members are emerging. “Return to Cookie Mountain,” the second album by the group TV on the Radio, a band in which four of the five members are black, was on the best-album lists of many critics in 2006. THE recent attention given several bands with black members - like Bloc Party, Lightspeed Champion, and the Dears - could signify change. But rock is still largely a genre played by white rockers and celebrated by white audiences. The next few decades saw several successful and influential black musicians who crossed genres or were distinctly rock, such as Prince, Living Colour and Lenny Kravitz, and rock melodies and lyrics have been liberally sampled by hip-hop artists. Black musicians gravitated toward genres in which they were more likely to find acceptance and lucre, such as disco, R & B and hip-hop, which have also been popular among whites. Music splintered into many different directions and, for the most part, blacks and whites went separate ways. That made him anathema to many blacks.īy the early ’70s, “you began to have this very strict color line,” Mr. Yet his trio included two white musicians and his audience was largely white. Paul Friedlander, the author of “Rock and Roll: A Social History,” noted that Hendrix became popular just as the black power movement emerged. By the time Jimi Hendrix became the ultimate symbol of counterculture cool, with his wild wardrobe and wilder guitar playing, the racial divisions were evident. But that began changing in the late ’60s. In the ’60s, teenagers were just as likely to stack their turntables with records from both white and black artists - with perhaps a little bit of Motown, another musical thread of the time, thrown in, said Larry Starr, who wrote “American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV,” with Christopher Waterman. Rock was created by black artists like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, and Elvis Presley and other white artists eventually picked up the sound. Spooner’s new film, “White Lies, Black Sheep,” about a young black man in the predominantly white indie-rock scene, has been played upward of 40,000 times. “But they know they can connect with someone who’s feeling the same way on the Internet.” “They walk outside and they’re different,” Mr. Thousands of black rock fans use ’s message boards to discuss bands, commiserate about their outsider status and share tips on how to maintain their frohawk hairstyles. But some fans and musicians say they feel that a multiethnic rock scene is gathering momentum.Ī 2003 documentary, “Afropunk,” featured black punk fans and musicians talking about music, race and identity issues, and it has since turned into a movement, said James Spooner, its director. It is not the first time there has been a black presence in modern rock. The Internet has made it easier for black fans to find one another, some are adopting rock clothing styles, and a handful of bands with black members have growing followings in colleges and on the alternative or indie radio station circuit. Martin, now 23, who lives in Seattle, where he is recording a folk-rock album.īut 40 years after black musicians laid down the foundations of rock, then largely left the genre to white artists and fans, some blacks are again looking to reconnect with the rock music scene. “For a long time I was laughed at by both black and white people about being the only black person in my school that liked Nirvana and bands like that,” said Mr. Martin was happy to discover music he enjoyed and a subculture where he belonged.Įxcept, as it turned out, he didn’t really belong, because he is black. Like many young people who soothe their angst with the balm of alternative rock, Mr. WHEN Douglas Martin first saw the video for Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as a teenager in High Point, N.C., “it blew my mind,” he said.
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