Black & Country??

[anansi]

youtu.be/iGlLZ9jeqf0
Klik me^^

K lemme start off by stating emphatically, the country has been my least favorite music genre, I'd rather have metal music which usually sound like someone drawing their fingers across a chalk board or stray cats in heat, buut??? recently a lot of controversy popped about this kid lil Nas X, (never heard of him) so I checked out what's all the fuss about, seemed he made a county single and dropped some sick trap beat to it, and he was winning on the country chart billboard, but the gatekeepers of the genre, wasn't having they say it ain't country enough, so they pulled the plug on it, but it still hitting on Bill board regular.

Personally I'm feeling it regardless if they say it ain't, some folks say racism is behind the decision.. And maybe, like I said, country isn't my thing, those of you with some knowledge of the genre can judge, on another level it brings to mind of the AA experience in the west as most of the early cow pokes were blacks it bring to memory the book Black Indians A Hidden Heritage by Williams L Katz and The Black West same author.
Let's not forget the Banjo which was employed in the video and we could drop the Guitar in it for good measure.
But enough of me what you guys think..use it or lose it??

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Can't help much with this now.

Way in the past was Charlie Pride.
Ray Charles was into C&W for a while.
I recall a reggae cover of Country Roads.
The most famous R&B coverer of a
country tune would be Whitney Houston.
Lyrically, R&B and CW share a lot of
Love Ballad 'sentiment', something far
from iHeart radio play Hip-hop themes.

Miles Davis commented on Jimi's ocompositions
in 3/4 or 6/8 time as Hillbilly s hit.*


By taking on C&W, HipHop shows its
tremendous versatility and appeal.
On the technique end, engineering
mastering production, HipHop rulez,
period. All studio recorded genres
owe HH because of that fact.


Anti-blackism? Been part of W Civ now
for darn near 500 years. Ain't going
away nowhere never. It's a day to day
given, an operative dynamic affecting
every Hss on the planet, like other
crimes though much much more devastating.

Historically ytes play C&W like a bug
zapper to repell blx from yte private
spaces.



[*]
"But Jimi was also close to hillbilly, country music played by them mountain white people. That's why he had those two English guys in his band, because a lot of white English musicians liked that American hillbilly music. The best he sounded to me was when he had Buddy Miles on drums and Billy Cox on bass. Jimi was playing that [American] Indian

kind of shit, or he'd play those funny little melodies he doubled up on his guitar. I loved it when he doubled up shit like that. He used to play 6/8 all the time when he was with them white English guys and that's what made him sound like a hillbilly to me. Just that concept he was doing with that. But when he started playing with Buddy and Billy in the Band of Gypsys, I think he brought what he was doing all the way out. But the record companies and white people liked him better when he had the white guys in his band."

But of course. And they like Miles better
with a completely fabricated yte buddy
putting them into his false biography.

[zarahan]

I'll have to check out the vid, but from time to time, white CW types have used
some hip hop style in their rhyming- overlaid with heavy steel guitars, heavy
beat, and heavy clapping (stomp-clap style). There may be some racism but I think
the majority objection might be "country purism" that rejects "foreign" intrusions
in "our" music. It would be like a CM guy try to do hip hop and have his song get
some traction. "Hip hop purists" and even casual hip hop fans would be upset.
Understandable.. Just in skimming it, it looks like one of those one-shot "fusion"
efforts that took off unexpectedly.

Rock/Metal and hip hop style fusion seems more compatible than CM, like Rage Against The Machine
and similar groups. IN the early days of hip hop there was a lot of that type of "fusion"
collaboration. Anyone remember them days? Run DMC's "Rock Box" for example?
Or the BEastie Boys "Licensed to Ill"? There was some "fusion" ferment back in them days...

Hip Hop seemed more flexible back then, before the dominance, or seeming dominance of the
"thug" and "gangsta" styles..

[zarahan]

One website details how Lil NAS gamed the memes and social media to hit it big. QUOTE:

nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/lil-nas-x-was-a-popular-twitter-user-before-old-town-road.html



"To say that the rise of Lil Nas X has been meteoric is an understatement. His hit song, “Old Town Road,” flew up the charts, hitting No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and No. 1 on the country charts before it was deemed not country) before he had even been signed to a record label. Radio stations, eager to play the song, ripped it from YouTube because it wasn’t available through official channels. The YouTube copy, by the way, is set to a montage of footage from the video game Red Dead Redemption 2. The ascendance of Lil Nas X on the back of “Old Town Road” feels very DIY, a web-native breakout hit happening entirely outside of the record-label and radio-DJ gatekeeping systems. The musician, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, is by no means finished. After a bidding war, he signed to Colombia Records, and a remix of his hit song, featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, was released last night.

Lil Nas X’s understanding of pop culture and how it travels online is visible in various parts of this story. For instance, to facilitate his rise up the charts, he listed the song as country on iTunes and SoundCloud. He told Time that the track is a “country trap” genre-straddler. “He was going to these spaces, gaining a little bit of traction on their country charts, and there’s a way to manipulate the algorithm to push your track to the top,” Danny Kang, the co-manager of viral country-music kid star Mason Ramsey, told Rolling Stone. “That’s favorable versus trying to go to the rap format to compete with the most popular songs in the world.”

In addition to X’s careful planning, “Old Town Road” got a little lucky. It arrived during a moment in which black cowboy culture is having a bit of a resurgence, in the form of the “Yeehaw Agenda”. It benefited greatly from becoming a meme on TikTok, featured in clips where teens are transformed into cowboys, sometimes after drinking mystical yeehaw juice.

It also got a boost being the soundtrack to a serendipitous love story in which two teens (one with more than a million TikTok followers) share a moment while passing each other on an escalator at the mall. The multi-video saga surely boosted the track’s prominence.

An underreported part of Lil Nas X’s success, however, is his history operating a popular Twitter account. By trafficking in memes, viral threads, engagement bait, and Nicki Minaj stanning, Lil Nas X was able to create a six-digit follower base on Twitter, and it was that platform that served as a springboard for “Old Town Road.” Lil Nas X may seem like an overnight success, but his breakthrough is the product of a years-long, 21st-century marketing plan — one which has been banned from Twitter for its reliance on spammy tactics and copying others..

.. activity on Twitter is instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with “tweetdecking”: networks of popular accounts that coordinate retweeting and promoting each other, and rip off viral tweets from less prominent accounts. In other words, it is forced, gamed virality... "
--------------------------------------------

BUt hey, it could be said in his own way that he worked today's marketing formula to success.
I hope later on he can parlay at least a part of the cash down to street level in the hood
like Nipsey Hussle, and do some positive things that way..

But what's this black black cowboy culture resurgence they talking bout?

[zarahan]

Finally listened to the vid. It sounds just as "country" as a lot of "young country" tracks
out there. Lil Nas does not sing in any "hood" style. He affects a deep voiced "country"
style, complete with subtle "twang." His lyrics are not that unusual for the range of
"young country" i.e. "Wrangler on my booty.." If he were not who he is people would have
accepted the track with little controversy. But the CM honchos & some fans perceive him to lack authenticity...
I think they should have let the track stay on the official charts and let the MAJORITY of fans decide.
As word got out about Nas' background and tweet-decking, well then the fans would have or can lower
the boom, just as various artists perceived to lack authenticity, like Vanilla Ice, got a
hearing, but eventually fans forsook him as they learned more. IN other words, it wasn't
Music award "guards" that pulled the plug- an audience majority decided. V-Ice STILL had the
opportunity to make his musical case. HE was never yanked from the Billboard charts.

[anansi]

I thought the whole bruhaha was Billboard Country dropped him, but not Billboard pop.
Anyways the kid worked it smart, they know how to market.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Lil Nas X is a <<ahem>> multilevel genius.
Haven't heard the original but the "assisted"
remix vocal is def C&W. In my opinion the remaining
sound is HipHop. If getting airplay, I'd expect
Country stations.

I know Pride and Charles charted CW no hitch.

Other than Black CW artists few blacks outside
Kenya or the Caymans listened to the genre.


Precursors to Lil Nas X CW fusion
• the Rappin Duke (aw naw naw naw)
• Buffalo Girls (go round the outside)

But seriously, Sly Stone laid some down
for underground FM radio heads back 1971
• FUNKY Africa Talks to You 'the Asphalt Jungle'
• JUNKY Spaced Cowboy ***true precursor re vocals drummachine studioproduction
• the hotdamn DONKEY! Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa


Headphones, Sour Mash, and Tailor-Mades
required listening tools, per mah Hayseeds.