REVOLVER:THE HEATED debate around this year's Music of Black Origin Awards is just another example that no one anywhere knows what they're talking about.
The Mobos, to be held on October 5th in Glasgow (see mobo.com), have been running, albeit mostly under the media radar, since 1995, and each year they throw up the same two arguments. Thick people are the first out of the blocks, with their “This is racist; why isn’t there a Music of White Origin award?” question. To which the only answer is that such an award ceremony would only yield a few classical and country music categories, and does anyone want to sit through that?
There are also those who view the Mobos as a “whitewash”, and this year’s nominations have provided them with their strongest cache of ammo to date.
Leading the Mobo pack with a record five nominations is Jesse J, followed by Adele (four) and Katie B (two). All three are white.
The argument presented is that by lauding Jessie J and Adele, the organisers hope to get a higher media profile for an awards show that always seem to fall through the cracks. A journalist on the Voice newspaper asks if the Mobos are “all white on the night?” and says they organisers are letting down unrecognised black artists.
All of this is very stupid. The particular skin pigmentation of whoever is nominated for (and wins) a Mobo has nothing to do with it – they’re being recognised for the music they make.
If the criticism of Jessie J’s inclusion is that her music is too pop- inflected and that the Mobos should be highlighting urban music on the margins, then that would stand up.
However, while I have no time for Jessie J myself, even a cursory listen to the din she makes reveals it to be a modernist take on soul and r’n’b, albeit updated for today’s popular tastes. She’s an Essex Missy Elliott. She’s not racially black, but her music is culturally black, so she thoroughly deserves her place at the top of the Mobo pack this year. That’s why Justin Timberlake and Mike Skinner have also both been feted at previous Mobos.
There has always been a racial divide in popular music. There was apartheid in the US music circuit for many a year, and the received wisdom was that the funk, soul and r’n’b genres were for black artists and guitar rock music was best left to white people.
There is also the historical fact that the term “cover version” comes from the days when record labels would source material from black artists (who weren’t given airtime on white radio) and get a white act in to do their own version of the song and make it a hit – thus “covering” the fact that the song was by a black artist. Some will tell you that Elvis Presley and The Rolling Stones (two of the biggest- selling artists of all time) built their careers by refining this process.
Racism is as much a part of the music industry’s history as payola and “fruit and flowers”. The emergence of hip- hop and its subsequent dominance of the charts changed everything. While originating in black culture, it was a sound that was embraced by white suburbia, and in Eminem you had a cross-over star.
Today’s musical practitioners alight on the musical genres that inspire them as artists. The industry’s shameful past can’t be their primary concern when it comes to composing and performing music. And doesn’t it say it all about how much the old divisions have crumbled that this year’s Mobo nominations look like a mirror image of The Brits.
The past is another genre.
LOVE:Been listening to the new Florence & the Machine material (album due in November). It's rather brilliant indeed.
HATE:The edge was taken off my heroes, King Creosote and Jon Hopkins, not winning the Mercury this week by the results of a public poll that found we, the people, thought they should have won. And they should have.
