1) Lets not confuse records sales with who likes the music. For years I never bought a hip hop album but could quote verses line for line, why? I couldn't afford to buy records and I also couldn't afford to buy shows. When it comes to disposable income many black people (though we waste alot) don't spend on buying everybody's album or cd. Why do you think bootleg is so hot? So a lack of black sales or blacks @ shows is not simply because we aren't listening. <BR> <BR>>How many Master P will there ever be at one time.<P>As many as black folk push themselves to make. We have a history of circumventing the game when it won't let us do our thing. <P>>There is no one black experience!!! I <BR>>often generalize about the black experience <BR>>too and that's dangerous. <P>Here we disagree, I think there are common practices and experience that bonds black people all over the diaspora. Its the reason why I can go to Senegal, Antigua, and DR and fit in (even being an outsider). personally, I think we need to focus on what binds us rather than what doesn't - we're the only people that don't. <BR>>><BR>>Sorry! WRONG!! Your fam was dope <BR>>like mine! But maybe the two <BR>>extra years I have on ya <BR>>and the fact that my brother <BR>>in law and sister and their <BR>>friends are approaching 40 helps me <BR>>here. <P>You're actually not older than me, I said I was over 25 <img src="http://www.okayplayer.com/dcforum/Images/happy.gif">. <P>Prince shows back then and the ratio <BR>>was always at least 80% white. Go and find ANY footage of Prince performing back in the day and you'll see that black folks were sparse (those shows make Roots shows look like they took <BR>>place in the middle of Africa). <P>Ummm..go to the Lauren Hill concert and it was largely white - is that an indication that blacks aren't feeling Lauren or that we couldn't go to the show?<P>but black folks en masse were not buying <BR>>Prince until Purple Rain and when Hot Tracks started playing Little red Corvette and 1999. <P>White people in masse weren't buying Prince either until Purple Rain, so what are you saying? Speaking proportionately, early Prince had a large black audience relative to his general popularity @ the time. <P> How many people around your way knew that Prince <BR>>was the first one to record I Feel for You when Chaka >re did it? <P>I would guess that not many post Purple rain fans (white or black) would've known the answer to that question.<P>>I guess we have to go to <BR>>the archives (re: wordup)<P>Yeah, we do. Michael Jackson & Prince were famous before Thriller & Purple Rain. Did you forget Off the Wall? <P>We'll save the Lenny Kravitz convo for another time. <P>>Again how often will the P strategy <BR>>work and in order for the Roots to blow up, do they have to go build a mini-drug empire to finance them as they buck the system, like P did.<P>Would you agree that there is mad illegal business (including mob ties) in the music industry? Doing business with major white corporations is no better than working with a drug dealer. Lets get real...there are many who think their hands are clean because they don't see the dirt (no disrespect to the Roots). Do you really believe that Time Warner or Seagrams are less foul than some brother hustling on the corner - in the end a signed emcee & the drug dealer are probably working for the same people. Which is not to sanction drug selling but its not all black & white. <P>I believe artists have to weigh their creativity & individuality with entertaining an audience. That's part of the how it works and sometimes it requires compromises. Why compromise in one area (to appease your label) but not in another to reach your people? I think you can make creative & enlightening music...its been done before, humans haven'tchanged that much. <BR> <BR>>SORRY AGAIN!!!! White folks sent PE <BR>>(I'm a PE fiend by the <BR>>way) platinum over and over again. <P>White people are about 60 - 70% of the population in the US, if they buy enmasse of course it will go platinum. Black people are 12% - pushing 20% if you listen to Farrakan <img src="http://www.okayplayer.com/dcforum/Images/happy.gif"> A black act can be enormously popular in the black community & not reach the white audience (Keith Sweat, Gerald Levert, Jodeci, tons of rap acts). I'm not talking about what's going on in the white community, I'm talking aboutthe black one. Badboy has mad white support, that doesn't mean it doesn't have trememdous black support too. JayZ & Lauren Hill are loved by (i'd guess) 80% of the teen/young adult black market - but that 80% is not what took him to #1 on the pop charts. Our numbers won't let us do that, but it doesn't mean an artist doesn't have strong black support. <BR> <BR>>BlackStar is all of that and the <BR>>some!! So why won't the roundtheway <BR>>and everyday man listen? <P>I bought the album & like it but its not moving my feet or my ass, with the exception of (re)definition which was crazy bitten (you old school & you know it).<P>>Yo! One for All never even went <BR>>Gold! <P>And....??? Think relatively.<BR> <BR>>>Question: how is Blackstarr going to be Black Nationalist group and then we (as black) sit around talking about what white record owners & media WON'T LET them do. maybe they need to link up with P <P>>The industry works in certain ways. You don';t run up in anybody's Virgin Meagastore and do your own thing. you don't go to anybody's record stationa and tell 'em play this (unless you're Suge Knight or smoethin') I'm not sure that Black Star is a Black nationalist Group (I just never read that, your probably right. but rest assured, P follows the same ruiles as everyone else now that he's big time. He has his own label and yes he has a lot more control than most but he plays by the rules. The distributors still run the whole business. <P>____________________________<P>From what I understand P is making moves to do distributing, and his investment in MP3 is also a move to be there when the will be forced to change the way it works...and IT WILL. I currently work for a web development firm that does streaming. For more info read last month's Wired on MP3 and how the technology will alter the whole way the industry does business. <P>>Pick up Miles Davis' autobiography , read "Blues People" by LeRoi Joes (aka Amiri Baraka), Read the "Death of Rhythm and Blues" (Nelson George) just to name a few. <P>Ummmm....I read those books & you've made my point. There is a difference btwn having black support & having financial black support. Hip hop, like jazz did not have the support of older blacks but then why would you expect it too. That's like thinking white who grew up on Pat Boone would support their kids punk rock. <BR>><BR>>Is Puffy grassroots, Jay-Z, Jermaine Dupri? <P>Hell yeah...you better believe they had support. The sell in damn near every black home. <P>f<BR>>Folks start off grassroots when the <BR>>other avenues are not avaialbale. <P>>That's nonsense! When Outkst peroforms in <BR>>ATL u think they go into <BR>>every projects and post signs. <BR>>Hell naw. <P>They should!! I mean why not? And if they aren't being promoted to aroundtheway black folk (which is most of us) then shouldn't they be upset about that? <P>>>P & Puff are an embodiment of the industry <P>The industry has no choice but to deal with P. He made them make a place for him and I can respect that. <P>Enjoy your vacation <img src="http://www.okayplayer.com/dcforum/Images/happy.gif">