This afternoon, I'm doing a little bit of thinking about Me'Shell Ndegeocello and her music. Rather in the vibe of my last post about Speahead, I'm thinking about the fate of the art of hiphop from the perspective of the vibe between those I considered the best and their critical acceptance by the masses and the elites.
Like with Spearhead, even moreso, I found Me'Shelle's music overwhelmed by her message. Or another way to put it is that if I could get an instrumental of her stuff I'd be quite relieve, instead I have to suffer through lyrics I find objectionable. If anybody wants to come at me with the hardline about whether Conservatism closes my mind, this would be a good part to start. Cause I had a serious problem with 'Cookie', more than 'Bitter'. On her first album, I had no such qualms. In fact, it was a breath of fresh freshness, that came swinging with the funk and deep soulful stuff that's blue as all getout.
I'm not certain about anything about MO's sexuality except that it's not certain, but the more I listen to her songs, the more unclear things become. It's hard to imagine anyone so 'alternative' on every perspective. She sings songs taunting Jesus from the perspective of the cursed of Ham. She sings of longing for marriage to a man she knows has other lovers. She questions the fidelity of her man in a stunning reversal of 'Who is He and What is He to You". We can only guess if she was 'studio gangsta' in that regard. I mean she can write a song like that begins:
My mother used to whore herself
And my father would reap the benefits of her labor
It was almost as if she was absent
Absent form her own life.I remember she would scrub the floors
for the white folks
Just to come home
To cook and clean for the man who broke her.
In her debut album with the slammin' hit "If That's Your Boyfriend", she cut a daring hottie profile. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought, man she needs a man like me, as we "hets" often brag. But what kind of expectations are brought to the surface or subliminated when a rocker goes ambidextrous on us? To pose the question a bit more broadly, what if anything should we expect from gay artists? Is there something fundamentally alienating about obscure sexual preferences that feed the rebellion of rock? If so aren't we begging the wrong questions of art or people? I approached this from a sorta different angle before:
But as an old conservative, not simply because I have a brain, I am a critic of the youth with poisoned and empty minds. Furthermore I am a critic of Rock for the sake of Rock. Permanent rebellion, permanent sensitivity to the injustices that plague us is not growth. And one has to ask how long is that dangling cigarette and caustic cynicism useful? Sure Mick Jaggar and Bob Dylan are in their 60s and people still come back for more. I say that there's something wrong with that - something's wrong with the person who remains a bleating sheep for a generation instead of becoming a sheepdog. Rap and Rock both are at their best when they are ragged and renegade. There is something Papa Roach has that outdoes Punk. There was something Marilyn Manson did that unseated all before him. Rock always needs a more jagged little pill. But after a while it gets hard to swallow. What good is all that rebellion?
More importantly what state of mind does it take to preside over an artform that at its best brings forth the raw emotions righteous indignation and contempt for the status quo? This manifest in a social disease of chronic dissatisfaction. There is nothing quite as sad as an old hippie whose revolution never happened. And you cannot listen to 'Give a Monkey a Brain' without feeling the strains of a grand dissolution of society.
And Shay presents Andre Perry who asks:
"While today's black indie rockers don't have much of a black-rock tradition to plug into, we do have considerable freedom in defining the poses black musicians can assume in modern rock. When a white frontman emerges from the underground, he will undoubtedly have to weather references to his predecessors (David Byrne, Mick Jagger, etc....) If Aristotle questioned how many new stories could actually be told, then consider how many new white rock n' roll icons can their actually be? No matter how hard Coldplay's Chris Martin tries, Radiohead's Thom Yorke will eternally have beaten him to the punch. In contrast, the black modern rocker moves in a space where expectations of certain racial performance have yet to be erected. People simply don't expect to see black people playing rock and roll. It defies racial expectations.
So are we supposed to be defying racial and sexual expectations through Rock & Roll or are we just more of the same commercialized rebellion? Don't we just engrain the alienation of Gay by doing gay rock? Don't we just reinforce the idea of blacks on the outside of society when Black Rock means "anything but Hootie"?
Nobody quite embodies such questions as Me'Shell Ndegeocello who is practically a musical instantiation of Audre Lourde's 'Sister Outsider' idea. Because her talent is undeniable, she forces us to look at stuff. We want her to be one of ours, but is she? Does she want to be? Is it us or is it her?
I don't have to have a conclusion right now for a couple reasons. I'm sure to revisit the subject. I'm still at work and I have a lot of things to do. Art doesn't require closure, just undismissable symbolism.
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