My Sistas, My Sistas…

See, when folks throw around expressions like “I’ll pray for you,” it really ought to be done with positive energy and good vibes, not in a condemning nature.

And it is with a sister like Lauryn Hill, who was sentenced today to three months in jail for tax evasion and who has since signed a new deal with SONY in order to pay off her $1 million debt, that I can sincerely say for her: “I’ll pray for you.”

So, this track, titled “Neurotic Society (Compulsory Mix),” was produced under duress, according to Lauryn’s tumblr:

Here is a link to a piece that I was ‘required’ to release immediately, by virtue of the impending legal deadline. I love being able to reach people directly, but in an ideal scenario, I would not have to rush the release of new music… but the message is still there. In light of Wednesday’s tragic loss (of former label mate Chris Kelly), I am even more pressed to YELL this to a multitude that may not understand the cost of allowing today’s unhealthy paradigms to remain unchecked!

Sigh. I really don’t know what went wrong, but I really felt saddened when I learned the news today of her sentence. See, I’m one of those folks who grew up, not just on soul, but on hip-hop, and her The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill album got me through some tough times when I was working on my dissertation as a doctoral student. Lauryn, for me, represented the “truth.” Her flow was so fierce, and she could sing. And she wrote powerful messages about love, about religion, about racism, about community-building, about politics. She was deep back in the day.  And, she was poised – poised I tell you! – to dominate the pop culture scene the way Beyonce is doing now. At the height of her popularity, after winning Grammys for her defining album, she had been offered movie roles in The Bourne Identity, The Matrix, Beloved, you name it. She was a dark-skinned beauty who wore her hair natural, and her beauty was recognized and celebrated in mainstream media!

But, something happened. It seemed like she couldn’t handle the fame, she got religion, got involved with one of Bob Marley’s sons, gave birth to six children, and just disappeared. You know how long we in the soul/hip-hop community had been waiting for her post-Miseducation album, which was never forthcoming? And, no, her Unplugged thing does not count!

We waited in vain, obviously. In fact, this year will mark the 15th anniversary of Miseducation. Never, while writing my dissertation with Lauryn’s voice in the background, would I have predicted that, 15 years after such demonstrable Genius!, that she’d be getting sentenced to jail!

Y’all, I can’t! I just can’t!

Why are my sistas messing up? I mean, last year, when waiting – again, in vain – for Whitney to get her act together, she ended up dead. And now, another sista, whose music meant so much to me, is going to end up in jail.

Meanwhile, Beyonce is “shocked” that the public reacted so angrily over her recent trip to Cuba. I hope she’s paying attention since she’s been making a few missteps this year.

Maybe it’s a good thing that the idols I’m now enamored with, like David, are safe enough to not make the same kinds of mistakes (or who won’t get targeted in the same way).  At least, we can only hope. Maybe it’s a good thing they’re doing their own thing under the radar.

I guess I’m just deeply saddened that someone I once admired would meet this kind of end. And while I’m glad we’ve finally gotten some new music, the idea that she signed a “deal with the devil” (y’all don’t know – SONY was called “the devil” by Michael Jackson, and Prince once called himself a “slave” when he couldn’t get out of a contract with them) and still couldn’t wrangle a “Get Out of Jail” free card after all that, just makes me really rethink this thing called Music and what it is doing to our artists.

Yes, they mess up and make mistakes, but why? How can they be saved? And if I buy Lauryn’s new music, am I supporting her or am I supporting SONY? She talks about our “Neurotic Society,” but is this simply a plea for help for her own neurosis or a play on everyone assuming she’s crazy/neurotic (when society is “crazy,” as she raps, what does crazy really mean)?

I’m just going to pray for all these sistas who seem to be having meltdowns, and self-destructing, so publicly. I wish the artists I admired had proven to be as strong as the music they gave us.

New Photo?

Looks like the “piecemeal” continues.

David and Cousin: “Roller Coaster”

Most of you have already seen this since it was posted on David’s Twitter over the weekend:

You wonder what other “gems” his team has hidden and slowly rolling out to keep his fans holding on.  Why is David looking so shy here?

The Great Gatsby

Anyone else excited to see this?

I’m amazed, with all the promising tracks on the soundtrack (like Lana Del Ray’s “Young and Beautiful”) they chose that godawful “Bang Bang” song (replete with what looked like blackface minstrelsy? Really?!) to promote on Idol.

But I was going to see this Baz Luhrman Romeo + Juliet meets Moulin Rouge version of one of my favorite modern novels anyway.

Come Back, Comeback Soul

It’s interesting that the most recent comments on this blog have been addressing David “rumors” – whether from back in his Idol days or currently, on Twitter, as everyone tries to predict his next direction post-Mormon Mission.

However, one of the most interesting rumors (to me at least) that I had heard during David’s Idol season had to do with his “soul music” tendencies and his and his team’s deliberate attempts to move away from these as he tried to advance in the competition.

Yes, I had heard a rumor suggesting that, after the popularity of “Imagine” (compared to his prior week’s performance of “Shop Around”), #Manincap and Co. decided to push David’s “inspirational” persona over the “soul man from Utah” persona since, they allegedly calculated, this was a more strategic way to advance in the competition, given American Idol’s mainstream audience and voters.

Obviously this paid off since David transformed during the course of the season from a captivating, bouncy teen shooting off a Motown classic so effortlessly in Top 24 week to an awkwardly positioned “white guy” (as he self-deprecatingly acknowledged) trying to sing Chris Brown’s pop R&B hit “With You” during Top 3 week. The judges (and so many others) agreed:  R&B “soul” was soooooooo not David’s “cup of tea,” everyone reasoned – as his Top 3 performance seemingly indicated.

And all I have to say is: What the heck happened?

How did David go from soulful and fun “Shop Around” to ballad boy jeeringly mocked for being cheesy when given awful schlocky ballads like “Longer Than” to sing (even though David chose  for himself Chris Brown’s song as a reminder of the soulful musical roots that he preferred)?

Alas, if the rumors were true, the plans of David’s “team” have created a quagmire, in which we have a vocal masterclass seemingly stuck with an “inspirational” image that has created unnecessary distance from his “soul man from Utah” persona. The question I’ve always asked on this blog is:  Will David ever get his soul back?

See, that’s the real musical damage that Idol has done: in an effort to cater to “mainstream” tastes, one often has to “sell one’s soul” (quite literally).

So, here’s the thing: regardless of these strategies (and I know some of David’s fans don’t like to think of our idol as “calculating” – but let’s be real: one has to be to even acquire something as lofty as Idol runner-up status), David’s “soul” tendencies often leak out at unexpected moments.  Like when he let loose towards the end of “Angels” at Tulsa, or when he caresses the word “alma” (Spanish word for “soul”) in “Contigo en la distancia,” or when he adds those gospelesque, testifying runs in a Christmas carol like “Joy to the World,” or lays on a smooth lower register in “This Christmas.”  And how about that falsetto in “Beautiful“?  And need I mention his a capella version of Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbon in the Sky“?  And for all the jeering he got for taking on Chris Brown on Idol, he offered a far superior rendition when he dueted with Jordin Sparks on “No Air.”

I could go on. I hear in David’s “Voice” that soulful soul, which had been banished and is so waiting to breath air. Whether it’s Idol or his “mainstream” fans or maybe his “inspirational” and “religious” audience expecting David to “stay in a safe lane,” I so want him to move out of it and to engage the risks soul music often requires: improvisational style, unexpected runs and changes, the deep desire to “never play the same note or tune” the same way (which is why David never sings a song the same way, which of course is why everyone values the joy of hearing David perform live).

Besides, without David embracing his “soulful” tendencies, we’re left with wannabe “blue-eyed soul singers” like Justin Bieber (gag me!) and Justin Timberfake (slightly more tolerable but nonetheless  irritating).

These white boys of course don’t hold a candle to real blue-eyed soul singers like Michael McDonald, Robin Thicke, or the late Teena Marie (someone who I didn’t even know was white until I saw her on TV when I was a kid!). But why these pop stars tend to be much more successful than authentic singers (and therefore more marketable) is their swagger. 

Justin Timberlake, more than that other Justin, certainly has this in spades, and his performance of “Suit & Tie” is all about “dressing up” R&B even while relying on the “street dressing down” that hip-hop offers with his collaboration with Jay-Z.

Let’s not forget that Justin Timberlake went from the Mickey Mouse Club to boy band N’Sync.  He needed “black music” to make him cool, which is why so many black audiences haven’t forgiven him (thanks for that link, D-Rat!) when he left Janet Jackson hanging in the wake of the Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction” controversy. Janet Jackson was worth collaborating with for “cool points” but not worth standing by, even though it was his offending hand that revealed her breast to the world!

JT subsequently came off as a user and exploiter, not unlike his fellow Memphis resident, Elvis Presley, who basically stole from black music while being pronounced “King of rock-n-roll.”

Racial politics and music are complicated. On the one hand, Elvis Presley, as a “cool white kid,” was needed to make black music accessible in a racist society like 1950s America. After all, it can be argued that, without Elvis Presley, we could not have had the popular demand for the music of Motown and R&B soul that came later in the 1960s, music that influenced rock musicians like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, and of course later R&B singers and even hip-hop, which started out by sampling soul music.

These developments would also, of course, influence David’s own soulful style.  And, perhaps like an Elvis Presley, JT is being positioned, once again, as a “cool white kid” making classic R&B more accessible in this age of hip-hop and electronica. His 20/20 Experience album has certainly brought back a sound that has been missing for a while, and which Beyonce actually tried to bring back with her 4 album. But if JT succeeds in selling R&B more widely, when Beyonce couldn’t, what does that tell you about white male privilege?

So, I can’t be continuously mad at a JT for facilitating the production, the distribution, and the popularity of soul music. I just would like folks to recognize the difference between “swag” and real “soul.”

Our beloved David is probably never going to get the “swagger” thing down, but that’s what I love about him. He’s not going to pretend to (unlike some other Justins I can name). But all he has to do is open his mouth and let the Voice testify.

JT performs “soul,” David represses his.  Perhaps, though, JT can help create an environment in which “comeback soul” does make an official comeback, performed by authentic soul singers. When that climate is reached, perhaps David might one day release his inner “soul man.” I know he’s still got it in him.

Four-Year Anniversary of Soul David

Can you believe it’s been four years since I’ve been blogging about David? No, I can’t believe it either.

And yet, I’m still here, and you’re still here!

Thanks for visiting this blog, everyone.

Why I Still Watch Idol (and Why I Still Post on It)

As bored and fatigued as I am by American Idol (as my previous post indicated), you can pretty much guarantee that I still am and still will watch this ridiculously contrived show. Bad habits die hard, I guess.

Besides, I might as well chronicle to my readers what I’ve been up to and what I’m tuning in to (or, I could really let loose and tell y’all why I am sooooooo not feeling current “cool” artists like Justin Timberlake – Hmmmm, on the other hand, maybe I should do a whole post on why his vanilla-style version of R&B is so not my cup of tea as an R&B fan who was conceived by and raised on the music and why, in all seriousness, David Archuleta’s vocalized hints of R&B will always, always, always be superior to my ears).

Gee, readers, do you all want me to go in on why I think Justin needs to have several seats while I plead with David’s team to let him show folks how real blue-eyed (or hazel-eyed in his case) soul-singing should be done? That post is coming!

But back to American Idol…

I’ve been watching Idol since its inception. And remember those days when it dominated television.  It came on the heels of some real dramatic moments. First, when CBS’s “Survivor” introduced viewers to a whole new way of getting invested in “real” people going through interesting competition.  Then, in the wake of the Elections 2000 debacle and the September 11 disaster, it gave us a light-hearted way to tune out of “wars on terror,” to vote in a way that our votes mattered (and couldn’t be taken away from us by the Supreme Court), and introduced us to some new talent – and a diverse array of talent at that.

I tuned in and out during the first season, got sucked in by Ruben Studdard’s promise of bringing back the Luther Vandross-style of R&B during Season 2, got extremely excited when other contestants like Kimberly Locke and Clay Aiken gave him a run for his money, and cried my eyes out when Fantasia overcame the shock boot of Jennifer Hudson to sing the cheesy coronation song like it was meant for gospel during Season 3.

Season 4 was all about Carrie Underwood, and while I didn’t care for country music, couldn’t deny her obvious beauty and talent and thought she was a nice contrast as the next Idol winner after Fantasia. And Season 5 gave us such an eclectic group of personas: Taylor Hicks, Elliott Yamin, Chris Daughtry, Kelly Pickler, and Paris Bennett. And who would’ve seen a Taylor Hicks winning just from pretending he had anything to do with “soul,” as his “soul patrol” fans would have us believe?

But no matter, because Melinda Doolittle came on Season 6 and just shut everyone down in terms of how you do and demonstrate vocal masterclass. And other black “divas” – Jordin Sparks, Lakisha Jones – held their own that season, with the young Jordan winning. And while I was totally invested in a Melinda Doolittle win and promised to shut out Idol forever!, David Archuleta happened the following season.

And the rest, as they say, is history!

And again, my favorite Idol didn’t win, and again, I tune in to see what new contestants have to offer us. And again, there is promise, some manipulation, some drama. But mediocrity really came into play.

The after-David era of American Idol, which produced generic “white guy with guitar” winners and forgettable also-rans, really demonstrated how lightning really doesn’t strike twice.  Once you’ve found your idol, that’s it! So, I know better than to think there will be another David Archuleta or another Melinda Doolittle or another Fantasia.

But at least give us a good show!

The judges have really lost the spark of entertaining criticism (Simon Cowell was always great at that), and the producers were foolish not to let the diva showdown between Mariah and Nicki play out in the competition. It’s clear they have their favorite contestants. Why didn’t they think to let them mentor their favorites (the way The Voice and X-Factor does) so that their catfight could be felt in the competition itself? A Mariah-endorsed Candice Glover versus a Nicki-Minaj-endorsed Amber Holcomb showdown would’ve been epic, IMO. But the producers know nothing of parlaying behind-the-scenes beef into on-screen entertainment.

Beyond that, pick some new songs! After 12 seasons, you mean to tell me Idol hasn’t broadened their song selections? What is their problem?  And no, I’m not one of those folks who believe in singing “current songs” (which mostly suck!).

With all the ’60s music they’ve done, they never do a whole range of music. Just Beatles and Motown. Why has no one ever sung “Moon River” or a Bob Dylan song?  Why, when they sing Broadway, have they never featured songs from the Rodgers and Hammerstein songbook?

And, here’s a concept! Why have we never heard any patriotic or traditional songs? What would a contestant sound like singing “America the Beautiful” or “Amazing Grace”?

And, here’s another concept! Why can’t we get an a capella theme, where all contestants sing without the band?  If this is a “singing competition,” prove it!

And if we must have accompanying music, what about real “current” music, like electronica and – gasp! – hip hop? You mean to tell me you’ve got Nicki Minaj on your judges’ panel and not one hip-hop mentor to do a hip-hop theme night? (You know, in which the contestants have to sing along with a rapper’s collaboration.) That would be epic!

If the producers can’t keep the show from being anything but a show, then yes, it’s time to wrap up. Because, let’s face it: No one needs to find the “next American Idol,” when we’ve already got 12 of them running around, not to mention all the other runner-ups and finalists doing their thing.

I watch out of habit, but for god’s sake, I want a show that doesn’t bore me to tears. Is that so hard to do?