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Post by batmom on Mar 13, 2018 15:54:33 GMT -4
I swear I read somewhere that record execs didn't know what to do with him because he was neither black nor white and didn't want to sign him as a result. It seems to me that he didn't really benefit from the racism, but rather faced some unique racism of his own.
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Post by Babycakes on Mar 13, 2018 17:31:59 GMT -4
And, fwiw, even though I generally like him, I don't think it's offbase to examine how his not being black while performing a traditionally black style of music is advantageous to his career. Some might look at it from the angle that blacks need to support black artists more vigorously, but others might see it from the angle that the simple fact that he's not black makes him more palatable to a much larger, non-black audience. That plays into him acquiring a level of credibility (like winning a best album grammy) that eludes less popular acts. Not saying that he shouldn't be allowed to perform the music he wants to and it's great that he pays homage to artists that influenced him, but what's going on with him isn't that different than what has always happened with popular music. It may not be Bruno's fault but he BENEFITS from the racism. And that's the issue. The system is inherently racist. Black artists for decades have experienced some kind of exploitation and marginalization. From the days of white bands covering black music and selling it as their own, to the early days of MTV where black artisits had to kick and scream to get their videos played. This has always been the fight. The music industry wants to make the most amount of money by selling a product that's the most palatable to its major consumer--white people. Is it wrong? Hell yeah! But what should an artist like Bruno do? Not submit his albums and songs for consideration to the Grammys? Refuse the half-time show? Ban white people from buying his albums and going to his concerts, and watching his videos? Of course he has benefited from being racially ambiguous, but what is he as an artist supposed to do? He already credits those that inspired him. He's offered to curate next year's half-time show with only hip-hop artists. What else can he do? I guess he can give an interview saying that he acknowledges that he has benefited from the system, but that changes nothing as far as the system goes. He is a symptom of a larger disease. But it's not his duty to cure it. And if we're calling out the artists that have benefited from racism, we have to include Cardi B., Beyonce, Rihanna, and Chris Brown. No way any of them would have gotten as far as they have if their skin toned were 2 shades darker.
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Post by Ripley on Mar 13, 2018 17:57:08 GMT -4
I feel really dumb. I didn't know he wasn't black/mixed race including black. TIL. I didn't know that either. Nor did I.
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Post by eclair on Mar 13, 2018 21:05:46 GMT -4
I guess he's supposed to get signed to the Filipino, Puerto Rican and Jewish label, get played on the Filipino, Puerto Rican and Jewish stations, target listeners who are Filipino, Puerto Rican and Jewish and call it a career.
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Post by deeconsistent on Mar 13, 2018 21:52:49 GMT -4
The system is inherently racist. Black artists for decades have experienced some kind of exploitation and marginalization. From the days of white bands covering black music and selling it as their own, to the early days of MTV where black artisits had to kick and scream to get their videos played. This has always been the fight. The music industry wants to make the most amount of money by selling a product that's the most palatable to its major consumer--white people. Is it wrong? Hell yeah! But what should an artist like Bruno do? Not submit his albums and songs for consideration to the Grammys? Refuse the half-time show? Ban white people from buying his albums and going to his concerts, and watching his videos? Of course he has benefited from being racially ambiguous, but what is he as an artist supposed to do? He already credits those that inspired him. He's offered to curate next year's half-time show with only hip-hop artists. What else can he do? I guess he can give an interview saying that he acknowledges that he has benefited from the system, but that changes nothing as far as the system goes. He is a symptom of a larger disease. But it's not his duty to cure it. And if we're calling out the artists that have benefited from racism, we have to include Cardi B., Beyonce, Rihanna, and Chris Brown. No way any of them would have gotten as far as they have if their skin toned were 2 shades darker. I don't begrudge Bruno Mars any of his success or want any musician to not make the music they enjoy. What I took issue with specifically was the idea that anyone who notices what's going on with Bruno is the same thing that always goes on is just "butthurt" and the solution is for black people to support black artists. That just doesn't jibe with reality. He's entitled to make the music he likes, but to pretend like he's not benefiting from exactly the same type of "cultural appropriation" (or whatever you want to call it) as hundreds of non-black artists before him seems ludicrous to me. Several people in this thread have said that they didn't even know he wasn't black or black-mixed. I seriously doubt it would be so confusing if he wasn't constantly surrounded by an all-black backing band, not performing traditionally black music and used his given name (Peter Hernandez). At the end of the day, Beyonce and Rihanna are black women. No matter how light, no matter how well they fit into the traditional mold of eurocentric beauty, they can't really take those costumes off. Part of what gets me about this line of thinking is the implication that we've come too far for something like this to be an issue when, by a lot of very real measures, it's as big an issue as ever. If you look at this week's hip-hop billboard charts, 5 of the top ten singles are by white artists. At one point earlier this year, 8 of the top 10 singles were by white artists. You don't typically see that type of crossover on the pop charts. The hot 100 chart factors in all radio/streaming so you do see black hip-hop artists pop up, but this week's pop chart top two singles are by white hip hop artists. Number 3 is of course Bruno Mars and you don't see a black artist until #12. The first black hip hop artist is at #16 (Drake). I live in NYC. There are two major young-urban stations here. One is called Hot 97. It used to be the premiere urban/hip hop station in the country until the other station started. I don't really listen to terrestrial radio much anymore, but I have actively avoided Hot 97 because of their on-air talent. It is so frustratingly blatant how they've gone about excising as much blackness as they could from a station dedicated to a historically black artform. In a city with a huge black population. I'm gonna stop with those examples because I really don't go around looking for racial angles to upset me. And I really don't care if people like Bruno Mars' music and take it at face value. But these are examples of why people get apprehensive about cultural appropriation when it comes to art and entertainment. Because it seems to invariably lead to displacement and erasure. I just think it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that people who notice that he is benefitting from the same type of cultural racism as many before him have are the suffering from imaginary butthurtness.
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Post by Babycakes on Mar 13, 2018 23:40:16 GMT -4
The system is inherently racist. Black artists for decades have experienced some kind of exploitation and marginalization. From the days of white bands covering black music and selling it as their own, to the early days of MTV where black artisits had to kick and scream to get their videos played. This has always been the fight. The music industry wants to make the most amount of money by selling a product that's the most palatable to its major consumer--white people. Is it wrong? Hell yeah! But what should an artist like Bruno do? Not submit his albums and songs for consideration to the Grammys? Refuse the half-time show? Ban white people from buying his albums and going to his concerts, and watching his videos? Of course he has benefited from being racially ambiguous, but what is he as an artist supposed to do? He already credits those that inspired him. He's offered to curate next year's half-time show with only hip-hop artists. What else can he do? I guess he can give an interview saying that he acknowledges that he has benefited from the system, but that changes nothing as far as the system goes. He is a symptom of a larger disease. But it's not his duty to cure it. And if we're calling out the artists that have benefited from racism, we have to include Cardi B., Beyonce, Rihanna, and Chris Brown. No way any of them would have gotten as far as they have if their skin toned were 2 shades darker. I don't begrudge Bruno Mars any of his success or want any musician to not make the music they enjoy. What I took issue with specifically was the idea that anyone who notices what's going on with Bruno is the same thing that always goes on is just "butthurt" and the solution is for black people to support black artists. That just doesn't jibe with reality. He's entitled to make the music he likes, but to pretend like he's not benefiting from exactly the same type of "cultural appropriation" (or whatever you want to call it) as hundreds of non-black artists before him seems ludicrous to me. Several people in this thread have said that they didn't even know he wasn't black or black-mixed. I seriously doubt it would be so confusing if he wasn't constantly surrounded by an all-black backing band, not performing traditionally black music and used his given name (Peter Hernandez). At the end of the day, Beyonce and Rihanna are black women. No matter how light, no matter how well they fit into the traditional mold of eurocentric beauty, they can't really take those costumes off. Part of what gets me about this line of thinking is the implication that we've come too far for something like this to be an issue when, by a lot of very real measures, it's as big an issue as ever. If you look at this week's hip-hop billboard charts, 5 of the top ten singles are by white artists. At one point earlier this year, 8 of the top 10 singles were by white artists. You don't typically see that type of crossover on the pop charts. The hot 100 chart factors in all radio/streaming so you do see black hip-hop artists pop up, but this week's pop chart top two singles are by white hip hop artists. Number 3 is of course Bruno Mars and you don't see a black artist until #12. The first black hip hop artist is at #16 (Drake). I live in NYC. There are two major young-urban stations here. One is called Hot 97. It used to be the premiere urban/hip hop station in the country until the other station started. I don't really listen to terrestrial radio much anymore, but I have actively avoided Hot 97 because of their on-air talent. It is so frustratingly blatant how they've gone about excising as much blackness as they could from a station dedicated to a historically black artform. In a city with a huge black population. I'm gonna stop with those examples because I really don't go around looking for racial angles to upset me. And I really don't care if people like Bruno Mars' music and take it at face value. But these are examples of why people get apprehensive about cultural appropriation when it comes to art and entertainment. Because it seems to invariably lead to displacement and erasure. I just think it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that people who notice that he is benefitting from the same type of cultural racism as many before him have are the suffering from imaginary butthurtness. I don't disagree with anything you've stated. I didn't mean for it to come across that I thought that people that have issues with the level of Bruno's success were just jealous because their faves weren't winning. The butthurtness I was referencing was to the individual in the reference video that claimed that she'd bake a cake if Bruno mars died. The level of vitriol for someone who has benefited from a rigged system, seemed over the top and out of proportion. She not only hates the game, she hates the player. And I still believe that Bruno is just another cog in the system. He's doing his thing, and it just helps that he can be marketed to the masses. I can't blame him for winning. I don't know what the solution is to the industry problem. Wait it out? Let the older, whiter executives and Grammy voters die off? I don't know. But maybe I'm too far conditioned to just shrug and move on. I seek out what I find appealing. It may be harder to find, but it's there. Or I listen to old stuff. Right now it feels like yelling into the wind. Executives at record labels aren't going to wake up and become decent people. They're looking at the bottom line, and if they can sell an Adele, Sam Smith, or Macklemore, over a black artist, they'll do it in a heartbeat. I don't begrudge them their success, I just don't support them. That's all I can do.
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save lilo!
Blueblood
Posts: 1,195
Jul 25, 2007 17:38:37 GMT -4
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Post by save lilo! on Mar 14, 2018 0:28:18 GMT -4
This has been brewing for some time now, especially with him winning ALL of the Grammy’s and black artists getting shut out one by one.
I also really find it questionable to say that artists and music is just not as good as Jodeci and Boyz II Men days. I love that stuff too but all art — film, music, paintings, etc — need to innovate and change in order to be considered groundbreaking. I think rock and alternative has been pretty stale and as I’m growing older, I find the current mix of pop + hip-hop to be much more interesting! All the genres are combining together in fascinating ways and that makes sense as a result of globalization, no? Like trap for example. And reggaeton being mainstream. And rappers like Kendrick Lamar and damn, even Eminem making political statements.
That’s also why I didn’t quite understand all the hype heaped onto Bruno Mars. But now considering all the Grammy wins while they overlooked black artists, it made more sense to me. Cat lady moms think they’re not his demographic but yet they are—he’s just harking back to music that used to be innovative and novel, and playing on everyone’s sense of nostalgia. He really hit that sweet spot of looking cool but still comfortable enough for everyone, like how Maroon 5 used to be. Which is totally fine that he’s into that! I just feel like it’s almost a bit parallel to the Oscars continuously awarding films made about WWII, which will continually reward mostly white filmmakers and actors.
This was a big mashup of random thoughts floating around in my head after midnight. Bruno is a hard worker but he’s not like Beyoncé or Rihanna levels of cultural influence, and I think it’s fine that people have opinions about how anti-black racism rewards him in ways that it would not otherwise reward black artists.
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celerydunk
Sloane Ranger
Posts: 2,521
May 3, 2005 21:57:59 GMT -4
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Post by celerydunk on Mar 14, 2018 11:37:51 GMT -4
The music industry wants to make the most amount of money by selling a product that's the most palatable to its major consumer--white people. Is it wrong? Hell yeah! Why is it wrong? If I have own a bakery and my biggest seller is oatmeal cookies, guess what I'm making? I hate oatmeal cookies, but if that's what my customers want... I don't understand why anyone cares about Oscars or Grammys. It's a bunch of insiders giving themselves awards (Weinstein's wife built a career for herself by cashing in on this). If you want to see more black artists buy their albums, see their movies (Madea doesn't count). Support independent artists. Buy paintings from the guy set up on the sidewalk. Bruno Mars is successfully playing the game. Good for him. And his music is better than many other artists who had their turn on the hype machine (some of their threads can be found a few pages back on this forum). Babycakes, I'm not coming at you specifically. I just quoted you because you summarized the problem in one sentence.
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Post by Babycakes on Mar 14, 2018 13:40:02 GMT -4
The music industry wants to make the most amount of money by selling a product that's the most palatable to its major consumer--white people. Is it wrong? Hell yeah! Why is it wrong? If I have own a bakery and my biggest seller is oatmeal cookies, guess what I'm making? I hate oatmeal cookies, but if that's what my customers want... I don't understand why anyone cares about Oscars or Grammys. It's a bunch of insiders giving themselves awards (Weinstein's wife built a career for herself by cashing in on this). If you want to see more black artists buy their albums, see their movies (Madea doesn't count). Support independent artists. Buy paintings from the guy set up on the sidewalk. Bruno Mars is successfully playing the game. Good for him. And his music is better than many other artists who had their turn on the hype machine (some of their threads can be found a few pages back on this forum). Babycakes, I'm not coming at you specifically. I just quoted you because you summarized the problem in one sentence. No worries. When I stated that pushing palatable artists to white consumers was wrong, I meant it in the marginalization of black/authentic artists. Business wise, it isn't even an argument. Morally, and culturally it's gross. But business is business.
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Post by forever1267 on Mar 14, 2018 13:58:31 GMT -4
I only listen to Bruno Mars because his songs are fun and catchy. I didn't know I was doing it wrong.
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