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Can we discuss this? Can we also discuss that it's unfair how blacks are looked down upon when we enter a genre that we created, and that whites barely acknowledge us as the creators?
Looking for metal? Not "apples-to-apples" enough for ya? This is one of my all-time favorite black metal songs and I was blastin' this in my Datsun 280ZX before some of you were even born:
Animals As Leaders are one of the bigger bands in the whole "djent" scene, which is the newer hotness in heavy music. Internet dorks cream their jeans all the time over Tosin Abasi. As for influence he's got tons of endorsements and signature guitars and whatnot already. So obviously there's a market for emulating him.
Tosin is not only an amazing player, the videos of him explaining his technique can keep me occupied for hours and I don't even play a musical instrument.
Back in the 80's it was interesting for about 30 seconds to see a black guy in a rock band and then the music took over. My favorite band happens to have dUg Pinnick singing for them. Now the only thing said about dUg (that's how he spells it) on You Tube is "He looks great for being in his early 60's" and "Hey. A left handed bass player."
Another example is Memphis' own Eric Gales. I happened to see him on the Arsenio Hall show (that long ago) when he was 16. He's left handed and plays that way but the guitar is a right handed model strung for a right handed player. He can play the blues because his is living it. His drug issues have landed him in jail more than once. Hopefully he is one the right track now.
Wow... just wow... thankyouthankyouthankyou to the peeps who GOT IT, and posted examples of black musicians playing ROCK music!!! The posters insisting that Stevie Ray Vaughan or Led Zepplin paid homage to their influences are missing the point. In the second case, as I understand it, it was under duress that LZ began to give credit to their influences, and in the first case, blues musicians are sometimes, but not always, ROCK musicians. Albert King, B.B. King, Muddy Waters and even Buddy Guy are hard to bury. It has been much harder to sustain a dynasty of black rockers the way blues, jazz, R&B and more recently Rap and Hip Hop have been able to nurture generation after generation of new black talent.
I've got no links to offer, but back in the day, a bit before Living Colour, black musicians with a taste for ROCK found work backing George Clinton in the various outfits he put together. Eddie Hazel, Michael Hampton, Bernie Worrel, Bootsy Colins. They were playing funk, but it ROCKED a lot of the time. I am happy to have found this thread and managed to hang with it long enough to find the later posts linking the sister singing death metal and the power trio singing "Big Brother". I now a few more sources of inspiration besides back in the day pioneers!!
Corey Glover (Living Colour) grew up in my church. I was his choir director. I didn't teach him to sing but I used his amazing voice in the youth choir for several years. Then his career took off and he left us to make history. I wanted to rock too. Black churches are great places to learn R&B but they won't give you much exposure to a ROCK format. I still don't know where Corey got the bug. The particular black church we grew up in was practically all Caribbean and very, very Classical. There are even fewer black musicians working in Classical Music than ROCK. What few there are, are nearly all vocalists. There has only been the one pianist, Andre Watts and there is a principal Horn player in a major symphony somewhere, and a conductor. I now work in an all white church where I am the organist and also the bassist in the ROCK band. I found it hard to transfer my thoroughly classical approach to keyboard playing to rock music so I started fresh with a new instrument and its working well. I'm still a freak. Jimi was a freak. Whoopi. Living Colour didn't last.
It gets old, finally getting to be what you've always wanted to be but having to live like some kind of zoo exhibit. I'm longing for the day when it won't be newsworthy that blacks can, and do, ROCK OUT!
Clapton...God? Alvin Lee (white guy) blows him away. Yet, 10 Years After takes a back seat ticket to Clapton and Cream. In fact, many band take a back seat to Clapton and it is not just blacks - Steve Windwood and Traffic, The Guess Who, and Steppenwolf to name a few off the top of my head.
The idea that to elevate Clapton as God is bogus.
Janis Joplin....do people even listen to her anymore?
Set aside any "God" hype and Eric Clapton is very high on my list of great musicians and guitar players. I most appreciate that he doesn't stray far from the blues and his Stratocaster work just sounds right.
As for Janis - I listen to Janis every week. She is one of the musicians I most wish didn't die before their time. Stevie Ray is another on that list.
Can we discuss this? Can we also discuss that it's unfair how blacks are looked down upon when we enter a genre that we created, and that whites barely acknowledge us as the creators?
Can we discuss this? Can we also discuss that it's unfair how blacks are looked down upon when we enter a genre that we created, and that whites barely acknowledge us as the creators?
I was watching this on yt, and was shocked at the comments being made by whites.Are they really that oblivious?
They didn't "create" R&R. Music evolves from past music.
BUT, I do wish more would get into R&R. You also cant blame the small % on just on whites, though. A lot is probably due to peer influence as well, which would push them towards hip hop.
Personally, my favorite artist ever is Hendrix. Has been for a long time and I don't see it changing, so I have no problem with blacks in R&R. The more people that get into Rock/Blues the better IMO.
....thought you were talking about REAL Rock'nRoll......
yeah. Not bad but definitely not my style.
Here's one of the better songs from the late 80s/early 90s rock scene:
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yeah. Not bad but definitely not my style. 
