>"Groundswell" of the Black community saying Cleo Sol and SZA
>is "our music" "our jam" "our stars"
>
>Us Gen-X people are used to the Black community having that
>kind of vibe.
>
>WE remember Whitney getting booed at the Soul Train awards.
>
>THAT kind of "Black Community having an overall
>VOICE/STANDARD/"thrust"
>
>uh...
>
>Thanks being true to the OKP/Bougie code but....saying you can
>"find" a good Cleo Sol album streaming on the internet
>somewhere just....doesn't seem to adequately "replace" what
>me, Diddy, Tank and Mary seem to remember about how the Black
>Community used to voice it's overall "thing" about WHAT WAS
>"IT" AT ANY PRESENT MOMENT.

We dropped the ball on that voice shit a long time ago IMO. Folks hated on Whitney. We let 'them people' decide that MJ and Prince were 'whatever' while hella artists copied their whole shit all the way to fame. Outkast was selling records for sure but weren't really big shit until their last album together. People were too busy looking at maps to decide who could be assumed as dope and who couldn't. And even with that, Jayz's career might've been over if he doesn't sample Annie on like his 4th album.

We also used our 'voice' to excuse R. Kelly and, at the same time, help knitpick and harass Maxwell and D'Angelo into prolonged absences, didn't we?

Now sure, we made sure Gerald Levert got to sing whenever someone needed 'a real singer'. And we did alright by Jill too in my book. So it wasn't a total fail. But we aren't blameless here, are we? This didn't 'just happen' to us, did it?