R&B (Rhythm and Business): The Political Economy of Black Music

Rating:
Summary: Freshest music anthology in years!
Review: Covering not just hip hop and issues facing today's black artists, this collection of essays takes a highly informed historical look at how artists have fared in the music industry back from blues to jazz to R&B, up to today's contemporary music. Plus the book explores the *economic* side of the equation, which few writers touch in today's timid world of music journalism. Norman Kelley and the other contributors to this book should be applauded for raising the bar on serious music journalism.

Rating:
Summary: Great Subject, Terrible Editing
Review: For anybody interested in the music business, this is a great resource on the depraved hierarchy that exists. For black artists, it is an absolute must-read. It deals with everything, from how black culture in general and music specifically have been exported, expropriated and exploited by the white-owned industry, and how black artists are really seen as nothing more that cheap labor. It is a really riveting yet sad commentary on African-American culture, and the saddest is when the essays deal with black entreprenuers who exploit black musicians, while the "good" black middle class tries to distance themsleves from what Kelley describes in his essay as the music of "the lower class blacks", from blues to hip-hop. Be forewarned, though: it's a pretty academic book. Still worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Superficial treatment of an important subject
Review: I played in a jazz quartet back in the '60s and I know from first hand experience how musicians are exploited in the music industry. I was ripped off many times and I knew a lot of other musicians, black and white, who had the same experience. That's a big reason why I quit the business. This is an important subject that deserves more than the superficial and repetitious treatment it gets here. It's too bad that it's taken so long for this to be addressed and it's too bad it took a star like Michael Jackson to get the headlines that the subject deserves. The people who put this book together seem to be really into stars too, though, since Courtney Love is the best known contributor. I think it's pretty weird that the most famous contributor to a book on R&B is white like she is, but that's another rant. My son is in an indie rock band playing in clubs in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and he tells that things are even worse now than they were when I was his age, not just in music, but in publishing and films and other art forms. He said that some independent music companies he knows about don't even want to give its musicians contracts, that the musicians are supposed to trust the owner's goodwill for some reason. Give me a break! Maybe they'd buy the Brooklyn Bridge from me. Norman Kelley seems sincere in his desire to address old injustices, but he doesn't go far enough. He has to know about some of the things that my son told me about, but he hasn't dealt with them or anything else very deeply. Hopefully one of these days all of this will be exposed more fully in another, better book. We don't need stars like Michael Jackson and Courtney Love to do it, just artists who have really been there.

Rating:
Summary: Superficial treatment of an important subject
Review: The previous reviewer is so on point, and the book is so bad, it doesn't even merit more than a brief dis...

Rating:
Summary: Solid analysis that you won't find anywhere else
Review: This book, despite a few flaws, is a good book. The whiny musician from new york is correct that the book is a little bit redundant, but it remains a good book because no one else is talking about what they are talking about. Many of the essays are very strong and a pleasure to read, especially the editor's essay. So what if Courtney Love is in the book, so is Chuck D. Why can't a white musician speak to the exploitation of artists by the major record labels in a book that focuses on racism in the music industry? The subtitle afterall is the Political Economy of Black Music, which means that the issues discussed are race AND class. Duh? And, Courtney should be in the book because gender is a factor that matters just as much as race and class. Most of the books on the music industry out there are [bad] because they are written from the point of view of the major record labels and they are either cheezy biographies of musicians that tell you nothing important about how the industry works, or stupid boring guide books written by lawyers that try to fool you into beleiving that the corporations are ready to give you mad dough for playing your guitar if you just follow the steps outlined in their book. NOT! Thank God for Norman Kelley. We finally get a book that tells the truth about the exploitation of musicians by the major record labels. If you want to find out exactly how the major record labels and the corporate establishment exploit musicians than go buy this book.