Rock-n-roll is supposed to be rebellious. It's supposed to upset the powerful and scramble the default settings.
Yet I often find myself gravitating back to establishment defaults in my selection of music in the car and to accompany my morning runs. And those defaults in my case largely consist of the generally accepted white guys as the icons of rock. The concerts I've attended in arenas and theaters have been overwhelmingly put on by white guys, with an overwhelmingly white audience.
When I get intentional about it I seek out music beyond the defaults, and I'm richly rewarded. My fondness for Living Colour goes back to my college days when they lit up MTV and then rocked my school gym. dUg Pinnick's soulful voice in the band King's X does things to me no other voice does in rock music. I sit in awe of H.E.R.'s songwriting/multi-instrumental gifts. Yet it sometimes takes that push, my thinking “I haven't listened to a Black or female artist in a few days. Let's work out that muscle today.”
Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone Magazine and founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, recently inserted his foot in his mouth on the subject in an interview with the New York Times. When asked about a list of only white men as “masters” he answered that the most accomplished Black and female artists didn't “articulate” well enough for his purposes. He jammed his foot so deeply in there that he managed to get himself dismissed from the board of directors of the Rock Hall that he had founded. My diverse, artsy hometown's Montclair Literary Festival also rightly canceled an event with Jann as a result of his deeply un-rock-n-roll statement.
Aside from playing into well-worn racist and sexist tropes, Jann also missed a glorious opportunity to upset the apple cart in a much more useful way - the way rock-n-roll is supposed to do. Had he answered that the industry holds built-in advantages for white men to run the table in rock culture, which arose from Black musical traditions, and that even Jann, a powerful industry tastemaker himself, is not immune to those defaults, that could have been thought-provoking.
A Nuanced Conversation
Bruce Springsteen, one of Jann's “masters” from his book, and one of my strongest musical influences, held a nuanced conversation with former president Barack Obama in their “Renegades: Born in the USA" podcast in their episode on Race in the United States. They discussed the intersection of race and music as part of a larger discussion of race issues. Together they explored what it meant that the E Street Band was integrated and that a white guy was the frontman, a composition mirrored in my own band. They also held a meaningful conversation on American music in the same series.
My Big Takeaway
Jann's revealing blunder revealed something about me as well - that I've consumed the same pop culture that advantages white men. MTV, which I consumed voraciously as a pre-teen, stuck to a diet of only White artists until CBS Records challenged their default. I would learn much later that the record label pushed MTV on the matter, withholding videos by Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel until MTV agreed to play Michael Jackson's ingenious videos.
So for me to experience the broader, richer spectrum of rock (and related genre) artists, I need to go beyond the obvious defaults - my “go-to's” like Bruce, The Killers, Van Halen and The Foo Fighters. I cherish these artists and yet I can hold space in my playlists for more of the music of H.E.R., The Black Pumas, Alabama Shakes, Miss Jill Scott, the entire Clemons family and so many other artists who speak to me.
One great resource to check out is the Black Rock Coalition, a group Living Colour strongly advocates for. Its Artists A-Z section is a goldmine of legendary artists and those who may not yet have crossed your radar.
Some will dismiss my claim of white guy privilege or get angry at it. But let's get this straight. This is not about guilt or self-loathing. Not even a little. It's about getting mindful and expanding what we listen to beyond the defaults provided by the establishment. Now that's rock-n-roll.