Reality TV; Where Real Talent Goes to Die

I’m not a reality show fan.  And in the spirit of full disclosure, the most recent season of “Making the Band 4″ with Bizarro Qwanell and Cry-Baby Robert sucked me in.  Yes, as I type this, my head hangs in shame.  It’s okay if you don’t take anything that follows seriously.  Just had to be honest.

So knowing that I’m not a fan of reality television, you can imagine how upset I was when three things crossed my radar in a short span of time.

1. En Vogue wants to do a reality show chronicling the recording of their new album with the original four girls;
2. Tameka “Tiny” Cottle is in a reality show with some chick who was married to Lil Wayne; and
3. Kandi Burruss has joined the cast of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” – despite not being a housewife and actually, you know, having a career.

En Vogue on the cover of March 16, 2009 issue of Jet magazine

Let’s just be clear.  We are talking about 6 women who are members of the twin pillars of post-70s black female group singing — En Vogue and Xscape.

These women are so synonymous with a kind of vocal group singing – one in which all members can really sing and really sing lead – that there haven’t been any female groups like them to emerge in their wake.  It would seem other girl groups have just ceded that lane to En Vogue and Xscape and followed the Supremes model.

I go back and forth about whether or not that’s a good thing.  To that point, it’s been said that Kurt Cobain and Nirvana were great, but the genre they spawned?  Not so much.

So knowing all that, I ask you:

Why are these peerless artists squandering their talents on reality TV?

There’s something oddly fascinating about the way reality television has evolved over the last decade.  It has gone from turning nobodies into somebodies to taking genuinely talented, creative individuals and destroying any ability for the average consumer to take them seriously.

Tameka "Tiny" Cottle

I caught a few minutes of “Tiny and Toya” at a friend’s house and watching Tiny, who is clearly a sad sad individual, was depressing.  She’s clearly stifled in her relationship with T.I. and seems to wander about Atlanta aimlessly. 

I was watching her in the studio with her daughter wondering if people watching the show had any idea that they were watching a true talent (crazy accent and hair be damned). 

Tiny is the woman who, arguably, had the strongest voice in Xscape:

I haven’t bothered to watch “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” and the En Vogue show is more or less just an idea in crazy-ass (but so beautiful) Dawn’s head.

But I wonder if the industry pendulum has swung so far in the direction of style over substance that there is no way that any genuine artists can start (or re-start, as the case may be) a career.  We are living in the post-consolidation, post-download era where what the industry will sell is even more narrow than it was in the past. 

There is no black radio.

There are no boutique labels.

There are no more A&R men.

There is not even the pretense that any artist that comes out is anything more than what he/she appears to be.  I mean, Amerie, Ashanti, Ryan Leslie, and T-Pain are defined by their inability to sing.

Kandi Burruss

Where do artists like Kandi, Tiny and En Vogue fit in this world?  Do 13 year olds even know what notes and melodies are?  Or to be less of an old fogie, do they care?  Could they listen to a song these women will likely release in the next year and see any value in it?

What good is it that technology democratizes the consumption of music if the industry is socializing away any ability for a consumer to broaden his/her understanding of what can be consumed?

Drake's knee got a Twitter page

Mediocre rapper/actor Drake has a bad knee.  He tore his ACL a while ago and his doctor told him in no uncertain terms to stay off of it, not to perform for a few months.  Rather than listen to said medical professional, Drake decided on Saturday not only to perform anyway, but to skip across the stage like he was off to see the wizard.  Here’s the result:

Hours later, the Internet reminded you why you love it so much.  Not only was the video up on YouTube, but someone created a Twitter page called DrakesKnee.  It’s Drake’s injured knee rapping about some real knee talk– like how it is to grow up on the streets without an ACL.  It has close to 5,000 followers.  Here’s a few status update gems:

drizzy dragon breathin fire / take me to the wire i’mma show u true desire / too bad I didnt look down to see that speaker wire

haters…never see the end of me / just don’t play that Boyz II Men …. On Bended Knee / now go #drakesknee and lets get to trendin’ me

drizzy fall off? did louis armstrong put the trumpet down? / callin gramma so she can order me a hover-round

Anybody else mad Drake’s knee is a better rapper than he is?

Lil Wayne reaches new heights of coonery with “Whip It Like A Slave”

In 2009, African-Americans reached new heights with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first black president.  Not to be outdone, niggas have struck back hard with a new song by Lil Wayne and Dem Franchise Boyz titled “Whip It Like A Slave.”  Observe:

I wake up in the morning take a shit, shower, shave
Stand over the stove and whip it like a slave
I whip it like a slave
Whip, whip it like a slave
Stand over the stove and whip it like a slave

Okay, new day, new yay
Bet I whip it like Kunta Kinte

If the notion of whipping it like a slave offends you, don’t worry, it’s just a metaphor.  For cooking crack.  And maybe that’s an intentionally deep connection.  Maybe Lil Wayne wants us to know that selling and using drugs is the closest modern-day equivalent we have to physical and mental slavery.  Maybe Lil Wayne wants to subliminally school his listeners on the evils of drug use.  Or maybe Lil Wayne just wants you to know that he wakes up every morning, takes a shit, showers, shaves, then stands over the stove and whips it like a slave.

For those who might think Weezy is just a simple thug who doesn’t know any better, consider this: he is college educated– which says way more about college education in America than it does Lil Wayne.  If you attended the University of Houston, you may want to look into getting a refund.

It used to be that slavery was a sacred subject– a nod of respect to our heroic ancestors and a testament to the power of our people to overcome oppression.  Now it’s a punch line in a song about cooking crack.  I’m thinking there is no further to fall than this.  But then again if anyone has the power to mine the depths of niggerdom for new levels of ignorance, it’s Lil Wayne– the man who earlier this year had a group of preteen girls dancing around the stage of the BET Awards while he sang “I wish I could fuck every girl in the world.” (Click here for pictures.)

Trust me, I’m the last person to get outraged over hip-hop music.  I think the people who blame hip-hop for one thing or another are ridiculous, and should worry more about fixing the conditions that create the music than the music itself.  I think “Grindin’” and “Ten Crack Commandments” are two of the greatest songs ever made.  I don’t get upset if a song is about drugs, I get upset if a song is about drugs and not creative.

But there is a line, even for me.  I don’t know exactly where the line is, but I know “Whip It Like A Slave” is on the wrong side of it.  If Lil Wayne wants to diminish his own generation by writing drug raps and putting naked girls in his videos, then whatever.  History will judge us by our words, our music, and the extent to which we either embraced or pushed back against this type of tomcoonery.

But I shudder to think that there is a kid out there somewhere who’s gonna sit in history class during the two days of the year they teach about slavery, and roll his eyes and start humming, “Whip it like a slave, whip, whip it like a slave.”  If this song in any way diminishes the respect we have for the struggles of our ancestors, then it deserves our outrage.

I’m not sure what the response from the black community should be.  It might be better to let the song die a quiet death at the bottom of the Billboard charts than whip up a frenzy and watch it rocket to number one.  But I will say this: we’ve marched and boycotted for less.  Maybe all that isn’t necessary here, but the least we can do is make sure this song doesn’t get played on the radio and doesn’t find it’s way onto our Sidekicks.

Greatest. Video. Ever.

Shakira debuted her new video “She-Wolf” on MTV at the end of last week.  And I admit, it was probably a bit premature to call it the greatest video ever, as I did in the title.

No, I was right the first time.

Eminem is too corny for words

So in case you missed it, Eminem is clapping at Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon now with a new song titled “The Warning.”  Add them to the long list of pop singers, celebrities, and other lightweights that Em has “battled.”  Here’s the Cliff’s Notes on Em’s new beef:

The feud between the two began earlier this year after Eminem namedropped Carey in the track “Bagpipes From Baghdad” from his latest album Relapse. “Mariah whatever happened to us / Why did we ever have to break-up?” he rapped. “Nick Cannon, you better back the f— up. I’m not playing, I want her back, you punk.”

Cannon later shot back on his blog, calling the rapper (who goes by the name “Slim Shady”) “Slim Lamey.” He added that Eminem is “still obsessed with my wife, the same female that wouldn’t let him get to second base from 8 years ago.” A month or so later, Carey got the last laugh by mocking Eminem in “Obsessed.”

And here’s the latest round– Em’s new song, “The Warning,” where he threatens to release sexually explicit photos and voice mails from the days when he and Mariah were messing around.  Apparently, he’s not embarrassed about the fact that they dated for six months and he hit once.  And busted early.  Where I come from, that’s an L.

I remember back when rappers used to battle other rappers.  I remember when they used to call out politicians and other powerful figures on record– think of Pac’s beef with C. Delores Tucker or Kanye going off script at that Katrina telethon to call out Bush.  Eminem is one of the most technically gifted rappers in history, yet he has decided instead to build his reputation by going after Christina Aguilera and Kim Kardashian.  Maybe he needs to stop browsing the magazines at the supermarket checkout line so hard and getting his feelings hurt.  He definitely needs to stop dropping diss records on every female in Hollywood who he can’t get to sex him.

In 1995, Biggie released a track called “Warning” as a B-side to his “Big Poppa” single.  It went something like this:

Call the coroner
There’s gonna be a lot of slow singin’, and flower bringin’
If my burglar alarm starts ringin’

Whatcha think all the guns is for?
All purpose war, got the Rottweilers by the door
And I feed ‘em gunpowder, so they can devour
The criminals, tryin’ to drop my decimals

Damn, niggas wanna stick my for my cream
And it ain’t a dream, things ain’t always what it seem
It’s the ones that smoke blunts witcha, see your picture
Now they wanna grab the guns and come and getcha

In 2009, this is the new “Warning,” courtesy of TMZ Us Weekly Eminem:

Yeah, what you gonna say? I’m lucky?
Tell the public that I was so ugly that you f***ing had to be drunk to f*** me?
Second base? What the f*** you tell Nick, punk?
In the second week we was dry humping. It’s gotta count for something.

Dry humping?  Yeah.  Hip-hop is deader than Michael Jackson.

UPDATE: I’ve been thinking about whether or not Nick Cannon should respond to this.  On the one hand, he’s a grown man with a family and a 9-5 now (don’t sleep, America’s Got Talent is serious money).  I assure you, he has better things to do than deal with this playground nonsense.  On the other hand, he’s got some dude calling his wife out her name.  It’s not easy to let something like that ride.

But at the end of the day, this is the bottom line: Nick is sexing Mariah Carey and Eminem isn’t.  And Em mad about it.  That’s game, set, match right there, no matter how this all plays out.  I don’t care if Eminem got pictures of Mariah’s fallopian tubes, he lost already.

This new Mary J is superior to everything on the radio

So why haven’t I heard it yet?  Please get that Katy Perry nonsense off my radio immediately.

[The One - Mary J. Blige featuring Drake]

Good Morning Forbes

Michael Jackson died 37 days ago. Still not buried. Enjoy your morning.

Is Kanye West is the new King of Pop? Kanye West thinks so

The new King of Pop is Kanye West, according to sources named Kanye West.  Apparently, this was said a month ago– on June 29– but Bossip picked it up off an obscure website yesterday, and it’s just now making the rounds on the blogosphere.  It should be noted that there are some doubts that this story is for real.  But there are also some legit publications running with this, publications that have a better fact-checking department than we do.  Anyway, here’s Kanye on Kanye:

“You know everyone loves and respects Michael but times change. It’s so sad to see Michael gone but it makes a path for a new King of Pop and I’m willing to take that on.  There’s nobody who can match me in sales and in respect so it only makes sense for me to take over Michael’s crown and become the new King,” said West. “First there was Elvis, then there was Michael, now in the 21st century its Kanye’s time to rule. I have nothing but respect for Michael but someone needs to pick up where he left off and there’s nobody better than me to do that. I am the new King of Pop.” …

West has reportedly tried to make contact with members of the Jackson clan to obtain official permission to use the title but has thus far received no response. It is believed the family is mourning the death of their loved one and have given little thought to the line of succession.

I promise you, I Googled and re-Googled this, I even checked Snopes, because I just can’t believe this nonsense went down four days after Michael Jackson’s death.  On June 29, I was still in a daze, with Human Nature playing on a loop on my laptop.  Apparently, Kanye was busy phoning the Jackson family in the midst of their funeral arrangements to lay claim to a fake title.  Put that autopsy on hold and wipe away those tears, Janet, I’m calling you to confirm that I’m the new Mayor of Munchkin City.

It’s true that Mike likely bestowed the title King of Pop on himself (according to his Wikipedia entry, Elizabeth Taylor popularized the term at an awards ceremony).  But when he did it, it was already obvious that he was.  There were no challengers.  No one had the ammo to say, “Yeah, you made Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad, but I made…”  When Michael Jackson took the King of Pop title in the late ‘80s, everyone’s reaction was, “Oh. Well, yeah, obviously.”

Which brings me to the King of Pop Rule for all future applicants: If it isn’t obviously apparent who the King of Pop is, then there isn’t one.  This isn’t a title that should be awarded by default; I say Mike keeps the title until someone takes it from him.  And that someone is not Kanye West– a talented rapper and performer (though not the best in the biz at either), but a horrific singer, even with the aid of Auto-Tune.

True story: I downloaded Love Lockdown (*cough* legally) back when that song was blowing up the air waves.  I listened to it for ten seconds and stopped.  Kanye was so badly out of tune, I literally thought I had downloaded an MP3 of some dude singing in his basement and trying to get some shine by labeling his song under Kanye’s name.  I went back and downloaded another (*cough* legal) version of it and it sounded exactly the same.  Slowly, the realization hit me.  Kanye West is a really terrible singer, and we simply do not have the technology to fix it.

Anyway, back to the King of Pop title.  Some people think it’s Usher.  Chris Brown’s name was thrown around the discussion before he threw Rihanna around his car.  I think Justin Timberlake has a legit claim to the throne– if the ladies and gentleman of the jury would consider his brilliant musical and comedic work on Saturday Night Live.  But if we’re being serious, the new King of Pop is most likely a Queen of Pop.  ‘Cause Beyonce is probably the most current artist who’s even approaching the sales and swagger and artistic diversity of Michael Jackson.  But is she “Oh. Well, yeah, obviously” the Queen of Pop?  Not as long as Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey are alive.

New Music – Ledisi, Teedra Moses, Usher

There are a few songs floatin out there that are just dope.

Ledisi, Trippin

This song is produced and co-written by Chucky Thompson (of Mary J. My Life fame). Song’s gotta nice midtempo groove and Ledisi’s vocal is tight as a whip. Looks like she’s really gonna switch things up on the new album, which drops in a couple of weeks.

Teedra Moses, Everybody Rock

Teedra Moses is that chick everyone seems to love and yet she’s still an “unknown.” Teedra been rockin this 80’s synth thing for a year or so now, and this song is good, but doesn’t quite match the dopeness of last year’s So Kool and Put It In The Wind.  Here’s to hopin the new album drops soon.

Usher, Certified

Yup, this is Pharrell giving Usher the MJ treatment, but really Ursh is the only one who can get away with this — even though at this point he really doesn’t need to. Song is good though. Now that wifee is bout to get gone, I’m sure women will forgive and make Monster, you know, a monster.

Lost in Translation: What Exactly Did We Learn from the Greats

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of popular music in the weeks since Michael Jackson died, trying to wrap my head around why we are where we are and how we got here.

We have all watched the news and read the articles about how much of a huge impact Mike had on an entire generation of artists. It has been repeated ad nauseum.

And yet, while I see it, it feels like something is missing.

Michael Jackson, Thriller era

I can hear Off The Wall repeated over and over in Ne-Yo’s three albums, but though the song structures are very very similar (damn near ripped off wholesale), the feeling I get when listening is just different.

I can listen to Lloyd, Chris Brown, Mario, J. Holiday and hear elements of Mike’s phrasing, but none of his nuance or preternatural ability to wring pure emotion and joy out of a lyric.

And it’s not just Mike.

Early Britney videos ripped off whole sections of Janet’s choreography and video persona, but never managed to convey that pure sense of joy in discovering one’s sensual self and youthful determination to challenge popular assumptions that Janet had. And Britney’s recent makeover into Madonna hasn’t yielded any sense that she’s holding a mirror up to her audience and daring them to see the best and worst of themselves in her music the way Madonna did.

This all begs the question:

What exactly did my generation and the millennial generation hear when they were listening to Mike and Janet and Madonna, and to a much lesser extent, Prince?

My sense is that younger generations think the power these artists wield lies, not in their artistry, what their music was designed to convey or what their personas were designed to portray, but in the trappings. In the spectacle that was built up around their art.  In a sense, to an entire generation Mike is nothing but the Moonwalk, Janet is nothing but a slut with some dude’s hands on her breasts, and Madonna is a vain provacateur. 

This has never felt right.

In our quest as critics to decipher how Mike, Janet and Madonna rose to heights that no one else had before, I think we failed to adequately assess and appreciate the strength of the music. The art. Even, to a lesser extent, the artistry of their videos.

Madonna performing Like A Virgin

This irony of this fact is greatest, I think, with Madonna, who is probably the most interrogated, discussed, and thought provoking artist ever.  And yet, you don’t get any sense that these young women, like Gwen Stefani, Lady Gaga, late-era Britney, listened to a single word that Madonna wrote.  Or compared what she was singing with what she was doing in the videos. 

Madonna was a provocateur, but her music always seemed to be saying something. To be reflecting, to some degree, the values and mores and idiosyncracies of American culture.

But Lady Gaga just seems to enjoy being a visual conundrum, missing the sense of irony that made Madonna’s visual persona, at its best, so beguiling and complex. And Gwen has got Madonna’s propensity to rip off minority cultures down, but it feels truly violent and paternalistic because she does it earnestly, failing to capture Madonna’s (albeit inconsistent) ability to be completely conscious of her whiteness.

Janet Jackson’s early success was tied to her dogged desire to destroy America’s idea of what a young  Black female pop artist was supposed to be. It may be hard to imagine, but there wasn’t anything like Janet before Janet. Here was a woman who declared her independence (Control), turned around and made a message /dance record (Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation, 1814), discovered that she was hot and invited you to discover it with her (janet.), and then let you see just how painful and sad being a Jackson truly is (The Velvet Rope).   Her artistic points of reference were Marvin Gaye and Joni Mitchell.

I don’t think any of these young ladies performing in Janet’s shadow now would even know that. 

Because there is none of that audacity, none of that lyrical nuance or conceptual daring in any of the young women who are biting Jan’s style. Ciara came close with her brillliant Like A Boy song and video and Aaliyah would probably have been able to do that had she not died so young, but none of these other young women seem to understand that what made Janet unique was that she always felt like a real person even though she was Janet Jackson.

Rhythm Nation remains a peerless pop oddity; a shining example of one woman’s attempt to make sense of the world she lives in. No other female artist like her has done anything like it, before or since.

That’s sad.

But it is no different from the countless young men who think they will be the next Michael. In a way, that no one gets the soul of Mike is precisely what makes him so singular. Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, J. Holiday, Mario, and the like can ape his phrasing, his vocal tics, even some of his dancing flair, but they only make it abundantly clear that who and what Mike was was intrinsic to him and him alone. He seemed to do what he did for the sheer love of it.  These new jacks seem to just want to be like Mike.

That’s clearly an oversimplification, but the point I’m trying to make is that Michael Jackson had his influences and you knew what they were, but you didn’t immediately see it when he performed or sang. He didn’t take Fred Astaire’s dance style wholesale.  And his voice, especially post-Off The Wall, seemed to spring fully formed from his imagination and exist outside of any vocal lineage. Even the Moonwalk, which was popularized by street dancers on Soul Train years before, didn’t look like its forebearer.

But you see all of Mike in these young cats, even Usher, who is the closest thing this generation has to a Mike-like, Janet-like, Madonna-like, pop star.  None of them is vocally anywhere near Mike and though their dancing is good and well-rehearsed, it feels workmanlike and you find yourself wondering who choreographed it. 

You never wondered who did Mike’s choreography.  Didn’t occur to you.

Something got lost in translation for us or we weren’t listening or watching closely.

Janet performing Control

None of these artists heard in Billie Jean or Smooth Criminal an artist who wanted to fuck with your assumptions, they just heard catchy songs and loved the cool videos.  None of them heard The Knowledge or Rhythm Nation and thought that dance music could also be deep and, in doing so, wouldn’t detract from the urge to dance.  And none of them seem to get that Madonna’s blond ambition was about deconstructing the myth of pure white womanhood.

All of this isn’t to say that there isn’t good music in these artists or in my generation.  Usher and Aaliyah (at least who she was starting to be) are the closest thing to full-bodied, artistic geniuses in the Mike/Jan/Madonna tradition, but it may be too soon to truly tell.  Ne-Yo is worth listening to because when you do, you realize that at least he understands how to write a melody.

And I don’t write this to lionize Mike, Janet, and Madonna, all of whom have more than enough crap in their catalogues.  Because, to be fair, they each bought their own hype too (particularly Janet who is ruining what little goodwill her fans have with vapid attempts to be 21 again).  But, in their own way, they earned the right to rest on their laurels; they changed the fuckin game.

But the point is: it doesn’t feel like any of these new jacks have learned to take a damn chance.  It doesn’t feel like any of these artists I’ve mentioned are really interested in shocking their audience.  They don’t seem at all concerned with making a statement, or reflecting their times (other than by riding the latest trend), or commenting at all on what is going on in the world.  They confuse outselling their peers with achieving greatness artistically.  And we aren’t challenging them as a record buying public or as critics. 

But maybe we aren’t supposed to ask for more.  Maybe we got our fill with Mike, Janet and Madonna.  I don’t know.  I don’t think I have. 

Have you?