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>http://www.mtv.com/news/2727414/brother-from-another-planet/ > >Brother from Another Planet >Bowie and black music >by mtv news staff 1/12/2016 >4k >1 >by Greg Tate > >David Bowie ranks as high in our electric church’s >Afrofuturist pantheon of demiurges as Jimi Hendrix, George >Clinton, and Miles Davis. That’s for his outrageous >aristocratic style, not-just-skin-deep soul, badass >brinksmanship, and all-around Alter-Negrocity. Not to mention >the Starman’s own sui generis take on The Funk. Bowie >remains that rarity — a white rock artist whose >appropriations of black kulcha never felt like a rip-off but >more like a sharing of radical and bumptious ideations between >like-minded freaks. > >It seems 1975 was the first year we saw a white man get busy >on Soul Train, “The Hippest Trip in America.” Memory fails >us as to whom Don Cornelius chose to lob over the color line >before whom: Bowie with ”Fame” or Elton John, whose >”Bennie and the Jets” had become a boom box staple on the >back of the school bus that year at D.C.’s Coolidge High. >That same year, Average White Band dropped ”Pick Up the >Pieces” on Soul Train, too. Doesn’t really matter, because >of the three, Bowie had the funkiest track and the more >charismatically alien presence — simultaneously the most >culturally familiar and the most outright bizarre. The >unabashed Brit who fell to Mother Africa and kept on stepping >in rhythm and rhyme to his own quasar. > >Bowie’s Soul Train appearance offers insight into his >enigmatic ability to groove with The People and levitate above >the fray, somewhere way beyond the pale. That visit to the >Mecca of televised urban Terpsichore came two years after the >two biggest pimp-thug cats at Coolidge High, Robert Parrish >and his boy, came back from the Capital Center raving about >seeing the Ziggy Stardust tour. This was before we knew about >the deep and abiding relationship between louche hustlers and >transgendered folks in the ’hood. Not long after Bowie >dropped “Fame,” George Clinton begrudgingly tossed off >this riposte on Mothership Connection’s ”P-Funk (Wants To >Get Funked Up)”: ”I was down south, heard some main >ingredients like Blue Magic, Doobie Brothers, David Bowie. It >was cool — but can you imagine Doobie in your funk?”’ >Cite the absence of any snap on Bowie, Starchile Clinton was >giving the Starman some major props. Not least because Bowie >inspired all of rock and funk ’n’ roll to go more glam, >glittery, and avant-haute in the ’70s. > >UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 01: RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL Photo of >David BOWIE, performing live onstage on Philly Dogs Tour >(Photo by Steve Morley/Redferns) >Steve Morley/Redferns/Getty >All roads to Glamgnocity in that era lead back to Bowie — >himself inspired by Jimi Hendrix. But Hendrix never got to >realize rock theatricality as extravagantly as Bowie did — >nor did the Voodoo Chile have a costume-designing wizard like >Japan’s Kansai Yamamoto knitting away in his stage-couture >shed. > >Our ace boon Arthur Jafa likes to say that ”Andy Warhol was >so white he was black.” Bowie (who played Warhol in >Schnabel’s film Basquiat) was likewise so avant-garde he >tipped over into the Avant-’Groid — that Afro-outré >dimension where Little Richard and Sun Ra define how far out >you can go and command love from the folk. Like Joni Mitchell >— another unguilty pleasure of many boho blackfolk — Bowie >double-crossed back over to black culture by being his own >transcendently pan-everything creation. But not even Queen >Mother Joni can say she provoked James Brown to copycat action >twice in his career. JB was so blown away by Bowie’s >”Fame,” he cut his own carbon-copy track, ”Hot (I Need >to Be Loved, Loved, Loved),” and, years later, when Bowie >optioned his publishing for stock points, the Godfather of >Soul got the news about how lucrative the deal proved and >quickly followed suit. Bowie once said, “The secret to my >success was I was always the second guy to come up with the >idea.” All hip-hop junkies can relate: How you flip >secondhand wisdom to make the meta go mega-pop takes genius, >too. (FYI, the ”Fame” story is further complicated by the >fact that Brown remembered Bowie’s co-writer Carlos Alomar >playing the main riff at the Apollo years before — but chase >down the long version here. > >This reporter got to hang out with Bowie a few times in the >aughts. Iman commissioned moi to write an essay for her >cosmetics company’s catalogue. During our initial meeting, >Iman leaned in with her cell phone and said, ”My husband >wants to talk to you — he’s a big fan of your work.” Say >WTF? It was truly the GTFOH gobsmack moment of a lifetime in >music journalism. If only because, arrogant as we journos can >be on the page, only an idiot thinks anyone of musical >consequence actually reads our cantankerous sheet! Upshot is, >because of that bizarre turnabout we got to get turnt out in >person, as most were, by Bowie’s singular alchemy — utter >nobility combined with an easygoing lack of pretension. Later >came revelations about this highly irregular regular guy’s >generosity of spirit. > >During our first convo, Bowie related how he’d recently met >P. Diddy — a man so impressed by Bowie’s handshake he >inquired as to who Bowie’s trainer was. Whereupon the Thin >White Duke informed Mr. Bad Boy, ”That grip isn’t from >training, Puff. That’s from 40 years of trying to hold on to >your money in the music business.” Talk about pulling a >tyro’s coat tail. > >Up close and personal, you also got to see how puppy-dog >lovestruck Bowie’s goddess-worship of Iman was. Bowie’s >curiosity also led him and Iman to truck down to CBGB one >night to see this reporter’s then-wife, vocalist Tamar-Kali, >rock out with her brand of Geechee Goddess Hardcore Warrior >Soul. The couple also made their way to our good buddy Arthur >Jafa’s very, very postmodern painting, sculpture, and >performance opening in an off-the-beaten-path Soho gallery. >There was nothing fake about Bowie’s passion for the people, >art, and ideas that captured his imagination. If he was moved >by your trip, he’d go the extra mile to show love as one of >your fans, too. We also witnessed Bowie’s gangsta-husband >come out at Tamar’s CBGB gig, when our 220-pound >stage-diving homeboy Luqman Brown crash-landed in Iman’s >lap. Bowie, sans security, turned Iceberg Slim–cold and >snatched Luq off of his better half with the quickness while >snapping ”Get off my wife” to our burly punk rock brother. >Luq sheepishly slunk away, but we know that if it had been any >other well-dressed white man courting a Somalian supermodel at >CBGB back then, foul language and fisticuffs may have ensued. >Even more impressive is that even after being rattled and >smushed, Bowie and Iman stayed for the rest of Tamar’s set! >Hardcore to the bone, yo. > >Like anybody in the lily-white rock world of yon who sang, >danced, and played saxophone, Bowie was beyond indebted to >black culture. But much akin to Miles Davis, assimilating >influences for Bowie meant he’d granted himself license to >warp and mutilate those sweet inspirations in pursuit of >self-renovation. This trait is abundantly evident on 1975’s >Young Americans album. Bowie’s rapprochement with Philly >Soul in Philly International’s home base, Sigma Sound, >remains a watershed moment for our still-racialized world of >American music-making. YA marked Bowie’s maiden voyage with >Puerto Rican–born Apollo pit band guitarist Carlos Alomar, >who’d become a studio and touring mainstay for the next >decade. The album also features songwriting collaborations >with emergent soul star and then-backing vocalist Luther >Vandross. Shape of things to come: Who else but Bowie would >later divine a crossroads for Nile Rodgers and Stevie Ray >Vaughan to crew up on one of the dopest ’80s dance-floor >anthems? Who else but the same man would cede the spotlight to >African American bassist/singer Gail Ann Dorsey during the >concert versions of ”Under Pressure”? On Young Americans, >you hear a white rock star who didn’t want to be read as a >mere tourist in Blackonia but as a contributor, a >collaborator, and ultimately a real comrade. This latter >aspect was never more clear than when Bowie sat down with MTV >host Mark Goodman in 1985 and forthrightly addressed the >network’s then-glaring race problem: > >David Bowie: Why are there practically no blacks on the >network? > >Mark Goodman: We seem to be doing music that fits into what we >want to play on MTV. The company is thinking in terms of >narrowcasting. > >David Bowie: There seem to be a lot of black artists making >very good videos that I’m surprised aren’t being used on >MTV. > >Mark Goodman: We have to try and do what we think not only New >York and Los Angeles will appreciate, but also Poughkeepsie or >the Midwest. Pick some town in the Midwest which would be >scared to death by a string of other black faces, or black >music. We have to play music we think an entire country is >going to like, and certainly we’re a rock and roll station. > >David Bowie: Don’t you think it’s a frightening >predicament to be in? > >Mark Goodman: Yeah, but no less so here than in radio. > >David Bowie: Don’t say, “Well, it’s not me, it’s >them.” Is it not possible it should be a conviction of the >station and of the radio stations to be fair, to make the >media more integrated?’ > >The Rolling Stones, Duran Duran, Bruce Springsteen, Talking >Heads — no one, to that point, had so publicly challenged >the segregated status quo at a network then offering rock >artists free mass-market advertising. But from that unprompted >interrogation of the race factor in MTV programming, we can >infer that Bowie’s love for the most politically committed >black artists — Nina Simone, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, >Marvin Gaye, Gamble & Huff, Gil Scott-Heron, et al. — was >more than lip service. Bowie got the memo that being a >ride-or-die black-and-blue-eyed soul man meant putting your >own career at risk in the name of cultural justice. That’s >why we weren’t surprised to hear that his last album was >majorly inspired by Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly: >”I’m a black star / Not a rock star.'” Indubitably. And >eternally. Down-by-law Bowie kept it 100 percent >avant-’Groid until the wheels came off.
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FUCK DONALD TRUMP
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