Civil Rights Music by Reiland Rabaka

Author:Reiland Rabaka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-06-19T04:00:00+00:00

When Redmond and Goldberg wrote about 1950s pop artists avoiding singing about certain illicit or impolite topics, it is important for us to go back to Levine’s emphasis on the extra-musical meanings inherent in black song “in the face of the sanctions of the white majority.” As was witnessed with gospel and freedom singers, black pop, jump blues, and rhythm & blues artists during the Civil Rights Movement were in many ways lyrically muzzled and muted and, therefore, put into play myriad forms of musical protest that non-verbally or, rather, non-lyrically conveyed dissent and, however subtly, a commitment to civil rights and social justice. Clearly the pop music of the twenty-first century, including commercial or pop rap, echoes and continues to embrace much of the pop music formula of the 1950s, with the one important exception being that instead of “avoiding such topics as drinking, crime and associated societal problems, and overt sexuality,” everything except social problems regularly turns up in contemporary pop music, especially sexuality. In other words, even though it has evolved a great deal over the last sixty years to include topics such as drug use, drinking, crime, and sexuality, the raising of serious social and political problems, at least in terms of contemporary black popular music, has been left to conscious, political, message, underground and alternative rappers, neo-soul singers, or spoken-word artists—all of whom, in one way or another, seem to, however incongruously, correspond with Redmond and Goldberg’s definition of 1950s rhythm & blues. They insightful explained:

the R&B style employs a prominent, often intricate, background harmony pattern with distinguishable tenor and bass parts. The material is presented with an emotionally-charged reading reflecting the influence of gospel and blues music. The lyrical content of R&B songs is usually more representative of black cultural patterns of the period. Generally there are more variations in presentation and a greater tendency toward experimentation in R&B music—as opposed to the more stylized pop form. (23–24)

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