Bobby Rucobo
Period 1
12/1/13
Abstract:
In this research paper you will read about racial judgments on music preference. You will read about why there is a racial judgment on musical preference and how it has made an impact on the music industry and culture of today. Music is universal, everyone knows what it is and everyone loves it. But people tend to view music in categories, categorizing those to only listen to certain genres of music do to racial stereotypes. Which in my opinion isn't okay because I am a young Latino male who happens to love all forms and genres of music ranging from Reggae, to Rock, to Rap, to even EDM and so much more. people assume off of looks that they would think someone listens to a certain type of genre when it could be the complete opposite. This paper exposes the judgment of musical preference by race to be false and to not judge those for what music they choose to listen to, because we all hold our own preferences for we are all human and are no different from one another. I looked through many different resources from major record labels like Motown Records to the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). I found a lot of different things looking up these sites, a lot had good racial points in them like the discrimination Motown Records had endured do to their diverse group of black musicians and artists.
Introduction:
If you were a music manager for a top record label and a young African American male were to walk into your studio to audition for a contract, what form of music genre would you think they would perform?...Rap, Hip Hop, or R&B right? But what if this young man pulled out an acoustic guitar and began to start singing Country Music, I began to notice a lot of judgment on one another for what kind of music they prefer to listen to. For example, this year in my Music Production & Songwriting class I made a comment about an old 80's Thrash Metal band known as Metallica, now a student in that class over heard my comment and responded saying "what do you even know about Metallica?" Little did he know I have been a dedicated Metallica fan since I was 6 years old and know practically everything about the band, I ask him "well what is it that you know about Metallica?" I begin asking him a series of questions, which included, "what was Metallica going to originally name there first album before naming it Kill Em All?" He was confused by the question so I began to laugh and responded with "Metal Up Your Ass or M.U.Y.A. for short", then told him to not judge people on what music they know by how they look. Another big example I have witnessed about miss judgment of music taste was when I watched the movie "Ray" it was a movie based on the musical life of Ray Charles. There is a scene in the movie where a young white man brings young Ray Charles too a Country band rehearsal where another white man immediately stands up and tells Ray Charles to leave, because he's black and that they play only gospel and not black slave music. The white man that brought Ray Charles pleads to the other man to just listen to him play, Ray then finds his way to the piano and begins to play, almost simultaneously the rest of the band begins to play along to Ray's melody and the band let's him in to perform. I'm not exactly sure if this moment ever happened, but it is still a great example of racism affecting others just by how they look they are expected to play certain genres of music when in reality looks are very deceiving.
Methodology:
I am going to investigate my topic by asking others' views on it and even possibly partaking in some experiments to see how this topic can be expressed with racism. I will also like look up multiple sources for my investigation, like researching record labels, looking up music managers, reviews from music critics, and consumer data. After reviewing some sources, one that stood out to me was ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). On this site they display a lot of information about the music industry on songwriters, composers, lyrics, etc. I have also looked at a few record labels such as Mau5trap Records and Motown Records, to see if there has been any racial issues involved with either of these labels. And yes there has been, mainly with Motown Records. These approaches are affective, because they give me a bit more sense of direction in my research. It is a bit hard to look up exact information for a topic like mine, but I do still find a great deal of information just by looking up these sources, because they all talk about the diverse culture of music and basically shows many different forms of racism being displayed whether by the record label itself or by the musician. I am also looking at different racial sites such as racialicious.com to see if there are any articles about racial stereotypes involving music genres or any other articles of subjects similar to my topic. Looking at this source I began to understand the story is a bit different for each race but all with the same outcome, expressing how people constantly judge without thought or realizing what they're doing and saying, all though my topic isn't thought of as much, it is a huge factor in the music industry professional critics constantly criticizing artists and musicians by their racial ethnicity as they come out with their music like, Eminem in Rap music or Jimi Hendrix in Rock 'N Roll, even though technically African Americans created Rock 'N Roll, when fusing Blues, Jazz and others genres of music.
Part 1: Finding:
In my research I expect to not honestly find much about my topic because it is a bit different. My topic focuses mainly on judgment of one another over music preference and how it segregates each other, categorizing by race saying they can only be seen producing or listening to certain genres of music. If I were to expect to see any information related to my topic, it would probably be something over a certain person whose race usually isn't seen in the genre of music much, like Vanilla Ice and Eminem in Rap/Hip Hop.
After doing a bit of research, I was surprised to find some very interesting information on my topic, because I wasn't the only one with similar questions and ideas. On the website www.psychology today.com, I read an article called "The Psychology of Musical Preferences", although this article doesn't speak much about the racial side of the topic, it still does raise a few good points on how music preferences are viewed I two ways, one being that song preferences are completely random and or that musical choices reflect important aspects of our personality. Which the author favored more, the personality side of music preference, with which I agree with completely. As a music lover I listen to a lot of different genres throughout the day depending on my mood, the weather, or how I am feeling at the moment. Another article I found was on the website www.racialicious.com, where the article is titled, "Who Racialized the Music?" With such a bold question for a title, I began to read and understand the author's views and I noticed we both shared the same views and ideas on this topic, the only difference was I am Latino while the author is African American. although I read more of the "black perspective" of my topic, I did notice it was still similar to the same views I had on how you can judge so easily for listening to music genre that is remotely different to what is usually played, which is what the author wrote that he endured this as he attended a Historically Black College/University in Washington D.C., while being the only known black person at the school as it seemed holding more interest in rock, dance, and alternative music other than Hip-Hop or R&B. I have been through the same experiences being around friends and the only one who favored Rock, Old School, Reggae, EDM, and so much more over Chicano Rap and Mexican music, although I do like certain Mexican music songs even though I may not understand what the singer is saying. The last thing I discovered in my research kind of came by accident. Back then when Vinyl Records were the hip new gadget of the day, there were special vinyl records called "Race Records". On these race records, displayed music generally and a bit stereotypically races other than white people would enjoy. These records mainly targeted African Americans, which proves a point that races were categorized by listening to only certain genres of music at the time. Which in some ways still continues today such as on the Television station BET or Black Entertainment Television. For example whenever I turn the channel to BET when they play there 106&Park show, they only display Hip-Hop or R&B music videos or videos involving Hip-Hop or R&B artists, there isn't very much diversity of music genres except for generally Hip-Hop or R&B promoted on the show, which in my opinion should be more open minded, when African American musicians are constant changing their sounds just like other musicians of today.
Implications for Future Research
As I continued to do research on this topic I began to find more and more ideas that also seem to come up for question. Such as this little article called "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics", It talked about how people are at times afraid of Rap music do to it's very explicit and graphic lyrics. Which stirs up the question maybe some people don't listen to certain music out of fear of judgment or being made fun of for liking a certain song, mainly in teens and young adolescents. Or even having parents not allowing their children to be exposed to certain music out of fear of judgment or being made fun of for liking a certain song, mainly in teens and young adolescents. Or even having parents not allowing their children to be exposed to certain music out of fear it will cause them to get a hold of bad habits. It surprises me honestly to see how people can judge upon a certain genre of music claiming its bad when there are also multiple styles like East and West, East having more lyrical and intricate rhyme patterns and flows, like in a Tribe Called Quest, while West had more of that funky, edgy, more in your face and raw lyrics filled with expression and facts or emotions and feelings on subject happening around them like, NWA. It goes to show how some styles and forms of one type of music genre can have an effect on the whole genres reputation, the reputation even carries on to the artists and musicians themselves such as when former President George W. Bush invited rapper Common to the White House, Common was immediately judged for being a thug and hoodlum just because he was a rapper, yet little did the person who said these comments know that Common is actually a well respected artist in the music u industry saying more positive and uplifting lyrics, yet back in the 90's, NWA's rapper Eazy-E was invited to the White House by President George Bush Sr. and yet Eazy-E with the actually label as a Gangster Rapper received no back lash for the invitation. So it makes no sense to judge an artist or musician on what they may look or perceive to be seen as because what people see and who people really are, are two completely different subjects. Another idea I came to question is the judgment that just because different subjects. Another idea I came to question is the judgment that just because you are a certain race you're not as good enough at a certain genre of music like for instance Eminem in Rap, he is white and typically white people don't rap, but he is an amazing freestyle rapper,his cyphers and bars are well said and written in majority of his songs although his best work was his older music, to be honest. The same goes for a white Dubstep music producer known as Zeds Dead, he originally was a hip hop producer, but when he began to create Dubstep he and another artist known as Omar Linx, a rapper who they both created Dubstep and Rap music having Zeds Dead create the well produced dub step/hip hop beat and having Omar Linx spit rhymes and rap to the flow of the beat until its pounded by the usually heavy bass drops. This shows the multiple diversity of music and how different races can contribute different music genres and styles and mix them together producing amazing tracks. Flux Pavillion a European Dubstep producer and Childish Bambino a young black rapper also collaborated together to form dubstep/hip hop music, creating amazing tracks with heavy bass drop like "Do Or Die".
Conclusion
In conclusion, racism in music comes in many different forms of judgment, racial judgment of music preference is just one of these. But it's an important subject, because there are thousands of young individuals like myself who hold love for all forms and genres of music beyond the stereotypical views. It's another small way to show that no matter what race you are, we are all equal, we all like the same things, and have and share the same views and ideas. We are all the same we are all human, there is only one race in music and that's the Human Race.
Work Cited
www.ascap.com, (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers)
www.psychology today.com, article "The Psychology of Musical Preferences"
www.racialious.com, article "Who Racialiazed the Music?"
www.Wikipedia.com, article "Race Records"
www.mau5trap.com
www.motownrecords.com
Fried, C. B. (1999), Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics. Journal of Applied Social Psychology
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