It’s so funny going backward in music.  Going back to the roots, so to speak.  I once saw a mural that said,”From Be-Bop to Hip-Hop Respect your roots.”  To that, I say, “AMEN!”

It’s so funny how people forget so quickly while only holding on to the easiest bits of the past.  Once I heard a rapper say, “Rock ‘n’ Roll is for old people .”  My question is, “Where the hell do you think what you do comes from?”  You sample from Rock, Jazz, Funk and even Classical but do you even respect it?  I once asked a friend, “Why do you like Rap music the best?”  His response was that Rap music was the purest form of African-American music around today.  That it most accurately expresses the African-American experience today.  Once again, I say, “Amen!” but  . . . with some qualifiers (and I think my friend, Mo, would agree). Sometimes, it is commercial pimping and whoring (the same applies to rock and a lot of other forms of music whose only agenda is profit).  I admire people like KRS One, Chuck D, and Ice T (I can throw a lot of other names, but you get the point).

When Ice T formed Body Count, he got a lot of criticism for “selling out” by doing Rock.  But his response was the same as Living Color’s which was, “Where the hell do you think Rock came from?”   Rock descended from the Blues.  Where did the blue descend from?   European Folk and African Folk.  The rhythm came from the African folk songs that gave the slaves comfort while being stolen to a strange land and ripped from their families.  There was a storytelling tradition that helped them to remember where they came from.  Though they were ripped from their families, at least in song they can still feel as one with them.  This is the power of music no matter what culture it comes from, but when you are so forcefully ripped from your own culture it becomes more intense and the loneliness goes deeper.

The Last Poets took their name from an African legend and took the storytelling to the streets.  It was not only their way in the mid to late Sixties to tell the story of the African American plight but also to state the case from the streets.  They did this without electronics.  Their roots? Poetry, story telling, rhythm, conscience, purpose and communication.

Then you get Love and Sly and the Family Stone, both integrated, both led by musical geniuses with strong personalities (and egos), both bands rich in musical diversity (especially Love) and neither one bowing down to pressure from pro/anti black or pro/anti white groups.  Their message is growth and change.  Sometime you have to draw the line, sometimes you have fight oppression by any means necessary but you need to do so with a clear mind, not fueled by hate but by purpose. There really is no black or white or left or right . . . only the points in between.  This is what I think Prince was getting at with “Controversy.”   (Side note: on Hit and Run Part One I love his reference to Ritchie Havens who is also my musical hero.  I can write a whole other entry on Ritchie Havens).

Along Electric Light and Gas, they got a lot of pressure for being integrated.  Electric Light and Gas got death threats galore and were almost killed on several occasions.  Bix Beiderbeck and Louie Armstrong were good friends but they were not allowed on the same stage because of the prejudice of the times.  Nowadays, a lot of people would give anything to hear a recording of those two playing together.

We need to expand our musical horizons.  We need something more than empty gestures and lip service. We need to live together and be comfortable with it.  We need to look at EVERYBODY with open eyes and hearts.  We need to look at each other as human beings not as cardboard cutouts.  This is not only for the expansion of music but for our only chance for existence as a species.  This is not for black and white but yellow, red and brown as well.  People whom we think dress funny, wear their hair in a way we don’t like.  We talk of freedom so much but contradict ourselves every day when we open our mouths,  Yes, lines have to be drawn every day but what is the thinking behind those lines?

We need to let our reason supercede our fear.  Fear is not always tempered with reason.  Personally,  I don’t understand greed and racism.   I can only see it as fear without reason.  There is no reason to hate all white people.  There is no reason to hate all black people.  There is no reason to hate all brown, yellow or red people.  I am Ojibwa, is that a reason for pride? Yes.  Is it reason for hate? No.   We know who we are.  What more confirmation do we need?