Why is it 'urban' music, exactly? Because it’s non-white? | | | | Jamie XX at Outside Lands, San Francisco, Aug. 11, 2018.
(Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Why is it 'urban' music, exactly? Because it’s non-white?”
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| | rantnrave:// Country music is urban music. Or, to be more specific, that’s where its audience lives. Nashville. Dallas. Atlanta. Los Angeles. That kind of urban area. The big kind. I learned this when I was at MTV. Early on, our partners at CMT invited me and my team for a visit, and I quickly realized that was basically the entire reason for the invitation. To challenge our assumptions about who made the music and who listened to it. To check our prejudices. To remind us we are more alike than we are different, and to make us reconsider how we market music and who we're marketing it to. I thought of all that as I read this story about a chorus of calls to stop labeling a certain kind of music "urban." A lot of music tends to get called urban these days. Hip-hop. R&B. Grime. Pop. But not country. The music industry, like many culture industries, has long struggled with issues of nomenclature. At various times over the decades, BILLBOARD has had charts called "The Harlem Hit Parade," "Race Records" and "Hot Black Singles." As if a certain neighborhood in Manhattan, a certain ethnicity or a certain color can describe how music sounds, or how it should sound. The intentions weren't necessarily bad. The Race Records chart, published from 1945–1949, borrowed language from inside the African-American community of the era. Hot Black Singles was a way of either celebrating a community or segregating it, or perhaps both. What none of these labels did is attempt to describe music. "Urban," musically speaking, is a word that no one can pin down and yet everyone knows what it means. It's a euphemism. It's "a lazy, inaccurate generalization of several culturally rich art forms," says radio presenter and SONY MUSIC UK executive DJ SEMTEX. "Is it a quick ass way of not having to say hip-hop and R&B?," asks KOBALT's SAM TAYLOR. "Sure. But, let’s think of another word.” How about "hip-hop" for whenever that's what we're talking about, and "R&B" for whenever we're talking about that? How about "pop," which a lot of the music we tend to call urban undoubtedly is in 2018? How about "country"? How about "TEYANA TAYLOR made this song"?... P.S.: "Country" isn't all that great a name either. It beats "hillbilly," though... BILLBOARD's top business managers of 2018... Judge rejects plea deal in 2016 GHOST SHIP fire, saying the primary defendant has not demonstrated remorse... Math-rock alert: Fibonacci series drumming... Sunday afternoon, I listened to DEPECHE MODE's VIOLATOR on the sound system that I'm pretty sure it was meant to be heard on. It was a very good Sunday afternoon... Sending love to the QUEEN OF SOUL... RIP WILLIAM "BLUE" MILLER. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| As analysts race to meet investor demand for music-industry knowhow, direct input and perspectives from the industry itself are often left out. | | |
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| In response to Citigroup's report on the state of the music business: At the end of the day, artists should make as much of the pie as possible in a way which maximizes their long-term earning potential.What constitutes the best path for long-term earning potential is often not black and white, but rather grey. | | |
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| The New Age star has managed to be something almost impossible these days: a very private celebrity. | | |
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| How many ways do we love Queen Bey? A superfan explains how Beyoncé gives her followers permission to take control. | | |
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| A new crop of companies are offering a shortcut for artists to land on popular Spotify playlists. | | |
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| With the threesome-themed “Do Not Disturb,” Halestorm have hit on a unicorn: a heavy-metal sex song that’s not embarrassing. Can other bands feel the love? | | |
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| As Roger Daltrey prepares to publish his autobiography and release his compelling new solo album, The Who's singer opens up about how his recent brush with death altered his attitude towards mortality. | | |
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| Merch has become a crucial part of a musician’s rise. Here’s how it’s evolved. | | |
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| The rap duo featured in Drake’s new hit song are all about women getting their paper, period. | | |
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| Music IS social, and it always has been. We talk (and argue!) about it; we watch concerts together; go clubbing together; experience it as a communal soundtrack for birthday parties and religious worship and much, much more. | | |
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| As the smash hit that changed the musical landscape turns 20, Britney and her collaborators discuss the creation of a pop masterpiece. | | |
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| After surviving another hurdle, music trade groups are rushing to drum up further support as SiriusXM and Music Choice fight on. | | |
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| The chicken/egg dilemma of dark music and clinical depression. | | |
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| Manipulating the feelings of togetherness from group singing rewires how your brain works, further isolating you from the world outside of the cult. | | |
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| Pete Rock is one of the greatest producers in hiphop history. How’d he do it and what launched him? He tells all. | | |
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| No other band has maintained such a level of dominance for so long, a notion that becomes soberingly evident as you scroll through our ranking of Iron Maiden’s songs below, with dozens of fan-favorites appearing well beyond the 75 mark. Up the irons today, tomorrow and for all eternity — even if eternity should fail. | | |
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| Quick: Name a defining musical trend that has dominated pop music this year -- a sound, whether it be a genre-flipping style or a musical wrinkle as small as someone coughing distinctively on a beat -- that listeners can easily identify as taking over the charts, airwaves, and general pop consciousness. | | |
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| The music business has changed -- and continues to change -- at an exponential rate. That being said, I think it’s important to look at all of the ways that the music business is exactly the same as it has been for the last several decades. There are plenty of moving and changing parts that we have to deal with in our industry, but the aspects of the business listed below aren’t among them. | | |
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| From Lil Ugly Mane to Mutant Academy to Satellite Syndicate, Virginia’s capital is poised for a breakout moment. | | |
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| Explore the halcyon era of a sound that once ruled hip-hop. | | |
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