My classic rock music phase was a few years ago, back in 8th grade. I woke up one day and decided it was a good time for me to expand my musical horizons. I spent hours every single day after school streaming the classic rock playlist on Amazon Music. I did not like it at first until I heard “Come Together” by The Beatles. That song radicalized me and sent me down a winding path of reading countless wikis to learn rock history, writing down lyrics to memorize songs, and researching family trees. Two years have passed since then, and all I have to show for that dedication is a heavy heart. You see, I am a black girl before I am a lover of rock. And the sad reality that comes with blackness is having to grow up fast and recognize race everywhere. So, what do you say when you wake up one day and realize that you stan racists? What do you say when the very fandoms you indulge in prove themselves to be anti-black? What do you say when they proudly admit that they don’t like/respect black people/art? I like to think of my heart like a sponge that holds pain. I do not shatter. I absorb and expand. But the time has come for me to wring out my heart, so let’s start from the beginning.
The first red flag I picked up was when researching the infamous copyright case between Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” and Queen & David Bowie’s Under Pressure. As I was sifting through articles and blogs I stumbled upon the 1991 interview “POP MUSIC: 10 QUESTIONS: Brian May of Queen.” In it, May was asked about Vanilla Ice and offered up this opinion on rap: “I’m not the best judge of a song like Vanilla Ice’s because rap doesn’t really appeal to me. When it comes to music, I’m really narrow-minded and bigoted. I like real songs, with singing and music and loud guitars, not what rap has to offer.” I chose not to take it seriously back then because I was young, but let’s revisit it. Sentiment like this is very common in rock music. Just stop what you are doing right now and read the comments under RUN DMC’s “Walk This Way” music video. I promise you that you’ll find many metalheads offering their unwanted opinions on how rap could approve as a genre in order to be respected. If you still don’t believe me just look up any Reddit discussions covering hip hop vs rock. In these threads, you will find so many people claiming that hip hop is a very uniform genre lacking the variety of rock. And while this speaking point may be valid to some, to me it reads as stereotypical. Black people and our music genres are not allowed the same luxury of diversity as white people and their genres. Hip hop will forever and always be known as ghetto and lazy because in the eyes of the oppressor, all we will ever be is ghetto and lazy. To say that hip hop is a generic genre is to admit that the only hip hop you listen to is the payola on radio shows. Y’all are so comfortable with denying the artistry behind black music so I’m gonna pull an Uno Reverse card. When I first heard Badfinger, The Monkees, and The Beatles I thought they were all the same bad. I obviously don’t believe this, but the way my petty attack will never be taken seriously and widely approved the way thousands of “All hip hip sounds the same” discussion boards all over the internet is messed up. And it makes me feel stupid because I spent so much time trying to understand rock even only for the very people I admire to see me as one of the few smart negroes that listen to real music.
The second red flag I noticed was when I looked into John Lennon’s activism and found his song “Woman Is the N-word of the World” with Yoko Ono. The song is so very flawed it’s embarrassing. I already have an essay in my drafts covering it that’ll get published as soon as I get this essay out, but for no we will focus on general context. It was already bad enough that I found that song. It was already bad enough that song existed. So when I read YouTube comments and Reddit threads on the song I was expecting to find people with common sense that could admit that the song aged horribly. Instead I found bigots complaining about cancel culture and telling me (a black girl) why I should be thankful for “representation.” It’s tragically hilarious how John Lennon stans defend a man 40 years dead. It’s concerning how they are screaming “CRY ABOUT IT SNOWFLAKE” when all I said was “This song is performative and stupid.” It is very enlightening how the only thing they find problematic with this song is Lennon’s use of the n-word. As much as they make me hate everything, I’m glad that I learned sooner than later. You see, they really like you when you go to their concerts. They really like you when you proudly wear their merch. They really like you when you recite lyrics with them. But the moment you stop to acknowledge your racial identity you’re an obnoxious whiner.
My third and final red flag is the fear. For months these words have been at the tip of my tongue just waiting to spew out. For months these words have been forming themselves in my brain. But I’ve been afraid because they really like me when I bond with them over our favorite songs. And I know they won’t hesitate to ghost me as soon as they finish this paper, if I assume they’ll even bother reading this far. It’s such a shame that I wasn’t born one of those white metalheads that never have to think about these things. Every day I wonder what my life would be like if I could be one of those happy naïve kids that go around happy as can be in their band merch. Every single time I pull out the beloved shirts I’ve wanted for years all I can see is this invisible sign over my head that reads “I’m an idiot.”
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