Before the 1990’s, it seemed one could find a million-selling Black male recording artist on other every corner, and, at least, 20 in every Black church. Today, it’s becoming more and more difficult to ignore the facts that Black men are headed to the bottom of, yet, another statistical chart.

Music, the savior of the Black race, made bearable the horrors of slavery, soothed during Jim Crow racism, and bonded in segregation. This type of Black love and togetherness ushered in the perfectly pitched passion of singers like Smokey Robinson singing countertenor (a male soprano), Michael Jackson a solid tenor, David Ruffin a baritone, and Barry White, the maestro, bass singer. Even now writing this article, name after name of remarkable Black male singers come to mind like Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Donnie Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Ronald Isley, Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross, Jeffrey Osborne, and singing groups like The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Spinners, Stylistics, Chi-Lites, Jackson 5, Earth Wind and Fire, The Moments, The Manhattans, New Edition, and Boys II Men. The list goes on and on. But today, where are the Black male singers that made Black women buy every Right On Magazine and scream with excited hysteria whenever their favorite artists appeared?

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In today’s world of rap music, the last solid genre created in the Black community, seemed to have seduced too many Black men wishing for their spot on the top of music entertainment fame, to speak rhythmic poetry instead of singing the melodies of love and longing.

The irony is that while the loving lyrics of Motown dominated the Black airways for decades, Black love was in bloom, and so was the growth of the music industry. Now too many Black men in the game of hip hop slop are volunteering to label Black women bitches and hos, promote criminality, excessive spending (bling), and speak of love making as purely a one night stand have contributed to the widespread decline of Black love and progress. It’s no coincidence that Black love is down at the same time Black music is at its lowest levels ethically and well as financially. This decline has little to do with the recession because these declines started to manifest 6 years ago, and ringtones along with 99 cent downloads just ain’t paying the bills.

Could the absence of Black male singers be correlated with the lack of decency taught in rap crap chants? Does it take the desire to love completely and thoroughly to enhance the singing style of Black men?

Throughout the history of television, there have been numerous talent shows, such as the competitions at the famed Apollo Theater and Star Search. But the last few seasons of American Idol have not produced one top Black male singer and I think Simon is in shock due to this! Season Eight of American Idol’s top 12 doesn’t have one Black male singer and only one Black male singer was in the top 36. Season two winner, Reuben Studdard and the like, are now extinct for six straight years. He was the only Black male winner in American Idol history.

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Black men have lost their way in so many more different categories, such as low high school graduation rates, high incarceration rates, high rates of low self-esteem or undeserved self-gratification, and too many Black men are not in the home taking care of their children and not marrying their baby’s mothers. There are simply prices to pay for not loving and respecting your women! Nature just wasn’t meant to fail like this! Perhaps, the Black male’s continual downfall spiral will be due to too much bad karma.

Have Black males lost their singing dominance with their souls and are now out of the emotional loop of wanting to give true love to a Black woman? What happened to lyrics like, “The Way You Do The Things You Do”, “Just My Imagination” , “Your Precious Love”, “Maybe Tomorrow”, “Try a Little Tenderness”, “Lonely Teardrops”, “Isn’t She lovely”, “Love Ballad”, “I Can’t Help Myself”, “Mighty Love”, “Reasons”, “Stop, Look, Listen to Your Heart”, “Oh Girl” and “Ooh Child”. Even later group like Boys II Men released hits like “I’ll Make Love to You” and New Edition’s “Can You Stand the Rain” seems like those were the last true love song that touched the heart in just the right place to make herds of girls run to the record store and lay out their, many times, strapped money to experience love’s possibilities through music.

Even, Michael Jackson, the best-selling artist in the world achieved his greatest heights when he was filled with Black pride and surrounded by Black people, especially his Black mother and sisters who lived at the family home with him, because all of his brothers had married and moved away. One might wonder if Michael Jackson still has Black fans. Well, as the owner of one of the largest and most successful Black-themed and Black-owned bookstores in Los Angeles (Eso-Won) told me that Thriller 25 was the best selling product in his store. Remember, the last women the world saw Michael with two Black women named Grace Rwamba (reportedly MJ was going to marry), his assistant and Raymone Bain, his spokesperson.

All is not totally lost. There are a few Black male singers, but only one comes to mind. Usher, who is the last best selling new Black male singer, remains on the scene, but he is a rare reminiscent of days long past. Usher’s album and song, “Here I Stand” earned him the #2 best-selling Black male singing title of 2008 because that love song exudes the unrelenting emotion every Black woman needs to hear to believe that to be loved, honored, and cherished is attainable. By the way, Usher is married to a beautiful Black woman. It’s always been Black women that have purchased nearly all the recordings by Black male artists, period!

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Examine the recent careers of post-platinum selling artists Akon, Baby Face, Brian McKnight, John Legend, and Seal who are all good singers, but once they are found out to not chose Black women as their mates, those sales dropped like hot potatoes. No one else will have the guts to say this or ASK THIS SERIOUS QUESTION. Is it the Black woman who brings out the natural emotional PASSION in Black men or is it Black women that feel abandoned by the very artist they put in the rich house AND stopped buying their music because now it is difficult to imagine that singer is singing to directly to them? The answer to both is probably a big yes. Either way, the Black male singer is the loser in all this when he chooses to abandon the already abandoned, use the already abused, and fall prey to manipulations that tell him to be wrong is to be right.

Men are natural providers and protectors of their women, children and community, therefore, when Black men refuse to do their jobs as men, nature jumps in and creates a cataclysm of castigation. The Black race will not improve until Black men OVERWHELMINGLY take their responsibility seriously.

Even with the latest abusive disaster with singer Chris Brown against his girlfriend Rihanna, whose first albums attained platinum, one of Chris’ first music videos (from his second album) shows him chasing non-Black women and even jumping over Black girls to get to a non-Black girl. The highly publicized relationship between Chris and Rihanna jump started Chris’ quickly declining records sales, because sistas just wasn’t having it. Now, why would Black females purchase an album from a guy who blatantly disrespects Black females like that? They don’t and they won’t. Chris’ career will never recover from his felony charges for allegedly beating his girlfriend Rihanna-and Rihanna doesn’t even realize that she does not possess enough love to save him. Rihanna’s latest album has sold over 6 million copies worldwide, while Chris’ latest stands around 2 million. During their heavily publicized crisis, Rihanna continues to sell, but Chris’ sales are pretty much dead.

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It seems to be a trend for Black men to be with non-Black women in entertainment, but much of the Black female audience is tired of trying to be racially fair when it’s obvious that union is in direct contrast with Black love and the returning of Black men to their male lacking homes and communities.

This may be hard for many to hear, but it is the love between a Black man and a Black woman that unveils the often imitated, unique melodic beauty of Black music?

Yet, the Black female continues to deliver love songs at her emotional high, but Black men apparently, have done too much wrong to be righted by the God’s of good singing and good fortune.

As the author of the book, Black Women Need Love, Too, at a glance one would think this manual was written for the sole benefit of Black women, not so! It is basically for the savior of Black men via love for Black women. Isn’t it quite obvious by now, that not loving hasn’t rendered any real long lasting cultural benefits? Rap Crap artists are the biggest losers in the music industry-they lead in deaths, incarcerations, and lost fortunes.

It was always the Black woman that supported the Black male singer, but how many Black men appreciated it? So now, it has been taken away. When will the majority of Black men realize that to not love Black women, will only deliver more massive declines.

White women have the best PR because White men demand it and realize that if they don’t love their women and represent them as valuable; big declines will be the result. You see, men are innately motivated to thrive for success when they want to be loved by a woman–take that away and chaos is the consequence. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, named his autobiography “To Be Loved” because that is what motivated him to succeed. At that time, he only dated Black women and Motown was filled with Black married couples–a correlation that supports this hypothesis.

The old divide and conquer methodology, used by the non-Black music executives who have hired too many uneducated weak-minded sell-out thug-able young Black male performers to do their dirty work, has succeeded once more. How else did despicable words like the “N” word get into Black music? Motown
didn’t use it, Casablanca Records didn’t use it and both these companies that Black men had ownership and control of hired tremendous Black talent and made lots of money. My man is the son of music executive and part owner of Casablanca Records, Cecil Holmes, who also worked in the record business and was kicked out in the early 1990’s with a group of others, because they were too nice and decent for the massive mental corruption that was on the horizon. The Rap Crap Treason Act then took full effect. Now, the Black male singer seems to be a relic of the past.

How many trick bags are we going to jump in?

Do right by Black women, and Black men will see their own lives massively improve, which is attached to the upward mobility of the Black race! Hopefully, what was lost will one day be found again!

By Pearl Jr.

I saw this group one night on Carson Daly. Carson Daly and Last Call with Carson Daly show are one of those things where if you put a gun to my head and asked “why do you like this guy?”, you’d have to shoot me because I couldn’t tell you. I never watched Total Request Live, don’t think he’s all that cute and wonder what grade of crack that he smokes before booking his musical guests but… I watch.

So one night I’m watching (September 19, 2007) because Jeff Goldblum is on, and like every night Carson announces his musical guest and I sit down to watch how bad this nights act is going to be. This group comes on, the crowd starts screaming like Carson has shared the crack with them. The band starts playing and my eyebrows start doing that thing that people say my eyebrows do when I’m like WTF???!!! I could not describe the sound the group was making. I couldn’t even figure out what language they were singing in. Then I caught myself, looking at myself, asking myself, um… are you enjoying this? to which I answered, I don’t know.

It was really weird. I don’t do crack and don’t believe I possess the ability to enjoy any group that Carson Daly would describe as great, but next thing I know I’m trying to find a pen to jot down the few words that I could understand so that I could find the name of the group and/or the song they’re playing. I found the note weeks later and went on a search for the group. I thought I could look on the Carson Daly website but I couldn’t remember what night the show was on so I went to yahoo and typed in the few words that I could make out and this song called Jenny Don’t be Hasty by Paolo Nutini came up. I press a link to a YouTube video of them live at Glastonbury in 2007.

I can’t tell if it’s the same group because I don’t remember being able to see the face of the guy on Carson Daly then the song starts slow with that no, no, no chant and then I realize it’s them and again I’m enjoying. Disappointed with myself,  I immediately head over to iTunes and click the sample first because I’m still not ready to admit I like this song or this group. I press the link and I’m not getting that same feeling, then I notice that there are different versions of the song, namely a live version, so I press that link and there it is again, that sound that I can’t describe except to say that I feel the same way when I drink rootbeer.

I buy both versions (just in case I’m wrong). I am. The studio version is doing nothing for me so I play the live version. It’s the live version that’s most like the performance on Carson Daly and everytime I play it I like it more and more and finally I realize why… It’s a HOT MESS! like the Rolling Stones but not quite as sloppy. Sorta rocky, sorta rolly, sorta reggae, kinda souly. Just a beautiful trainwreck with a nice beat. Imagine being a straight boy and seeing a porno with Craig Ferguson having sex with Gerard Butler and being completely disgusted but you look down and realize you have a hard on. That’s Paolo Nutini.

Enjoy?

I was watching an episode of ReGenesis ( S02E05) called Massive Change. During the episode a wonderful song came on called “Misguided” by a group I had never heard of called Hush Hush from their album Fake. The episode was good but I couldn’t get the song out of my head and immediately went on a search to find the haunting song. AdTunes was a letdown but pressing a link here and a link there led me to a website where they have podcasts of the music from the TV series.  So I’d like to give a shout out to the guys over at ReGenesis : Remixed.

ReGenesis : ReMixed explores the music of ReGenesis. Hosted by music supervisor Andrea Higgins, ReGenesis : ReMixed focuses on the artists, the songs and the underscore heard on the show, and features exclusive interviews with some of the people involved in putting ReGenesis together.

After finding out the title/artist of the song I was looking for I headed straight for ITunes and again was disappointed. They didn’t have any song by the group. So I hit the next spot on my list – Amazon.com and they did not disappoint me but now I was stuck. I REALLY liked the song but what if the rest of the album sucked?

Well one great think about Amazon.com is that you can sample music from the album and I did and took a chance and was pleasantly surprised how GREAT the album was. After I played Misguided about 20 times I let the CD continue to play and discovered that I loved the title song Fake, Razor Girl and You’re Not My Man too.

Most of the songs on the album (at least the ones I like) are kinda dark and moody. The lead singer has a wonderful smokey, angelic voice and the band is pretty impressive too. I love the droning guitar on Misguided and what sounds to me like a violin. I love good music. I love to discover good music. And I would highly recommend this entire album

You can hear the song Misguided on the podcast from the above mentioned ReGenesis :  Remixed Episode 5 Massive Changes. The podcast also includes the song Could It Be Real by Soma Sonic.

If Amazon is out of stock try MapleMusic.com.

BTW, I have to say that Peter Outerbridge is a cutipantz. His character on ReGenesis, David Sandstrom, is an arrogant, self-centered, genius, slutty assed whore but in a hot Captain Kirk kinda way. Oh and the show is good too.

Star Spangled Banner

Dubs

Sergio’s Last Stand

UPDATE

Sergio finally got that movie blog!

http://www.shadowandact.com

Who?!?

That would be Queen Latifah, born on March 18th.  So I decided to do it in your ear hole with a cut from her “The Dana Owens Album disc.  BTW, she went back to using Queen Latifah since few of y’all knew (or cared) who Dana Owens is.  As my boy Court sez, “it’s all about marketing”…

Enjoy!

California Dreamin’

Dubs

Lyrics from Living Colour’s Solace of You; on the Time’s Up album, which, by the way, won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Album.  Don’t freak all you dawning AARP members!  I’m not going to hurt your tender ear holes.   Living Colour had a lot of range; punk, jazz fusion, rap, metal, delta blues, funk, etc. as you will soon hear.  This cut didn’t get a lot of air time in the US, but it did fairly well in the UK and in Dubs’ crib.

On another note,  the ripples from pebbles I’ve cast in the pond of life are beginning to return.

Dennis reminded me of one of the heaviest musical (and political) brothers of our time, Gil Scott Heron.  He included a link to several YouTube videos, you might want to check out; then again… you might not.

Rhonda is threatening to create a Dubs’ Cut blog (whatever that is…)

… “knowledge to knowledge”.   -Ghost Dog

Enjoy!

Solace of You

Dubs

So having been to church today, I have a confession for you, faithful Dub’s cut victims.

A confession, secret really; so dark and repressed even Ira doesn’t know about it.  Like Mr. Brooks, the need comes back periodically.   I try to fight it, push it back, but once a junkie, always a junkie.   So I put on my headphones,  go to my bottom dresser drawer waaaay in the back and pull out my… Donna Summers disc.  <Insert scream here>

Donna Summer was my first fantasy diva.  And it crushed me, back in the day, when the rumors surfaced that she was a man.

So this week’s cut will be doing it in your ear hole with a little known DS cut, but one of my favorites nonetheless.  Check out the strong afro-carrib beat sitting on top of the heavy electronic disco beat of the day.

Enjoy!

State of Independence

Dubs

Both of them are singing (or at least trying to) on this cut.  Didn’t think I could do it did ya?

It is actually from the disc (Funk This, Sept. 2007) for which Chaka won a Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a DUO or Group with Vocals.

Enjoy!

You Belong To Me

Dubs

www.pandora.com

you can put in an artist and they will pull other artist songs and the music genome project will create a free radio station with music….all like the artist that you asked for….it is a web radio station, free and just worth looking at…if you want music while you work that you might not have and is FREE, also, great for traveling and just keeping up with the technology that is available.