Color Blind: No African-American Artists Had a No. 1 Hit in 2013

[exiledking]

yup. That shit aint black music.

Voices being silenced? Thats laughable. What voice does Jay-Z, Beyonce or Kanye give us? Macklemore has more compelling themse in his music (or so I'm told I never heard it myself).

Beyonce doesn't even make R&B. Shes a pop artist. Shes half rapping on most of her stuff. About being in her knees giving a blowjob. If this is the best they have, I'm ok with it being silenced.

When we have real artists making quality music then I will cry about the shame of them being silenced. Until then, I'll stick with Raheem Devaughn.

the only issue I have with what you just said is that you mentioned Raheem Devaughn AFTER asking about voices being silenced- so you must know about voids being silenced


My issue is that Black artists who have substance aren't recognized in SOUL music- which is kinda known for its substance. Thats that spot where Robin THicke, Adele, and a few others keep popping up.

By the charts and award show presence, you'd think the any Black music that exists is all dance pop shit like Beyonce, Rihanna, and Chris Brown.

Not that theres anything wrong with them, but theres just more out there.

 

[john blackcorn]

Of course I cared enough to comment.

Why wouldn't I?

Where there any actual African-American artists in the running?

Does the term artist even mean anything anymore in an industry where very few African-American's other than Prince or Me'shell Ndegeocello even play fucking instruments anymore?

My riginal post in this thread was not intended as a diss towards you but merely me thinking aloud about a shitty state of affairs that's been irking me for a long while.

my bad bro, i didnt know how u meant it. i just think its funny how all these white artist are coming in, doing out music, and having more success than us. theres been songs that i know everyone in the hood knows, they play them all over urban radio, but i never hear about them on the bilboard charts. i-moses post explained alot of that too me

but the quality of music that black artist put out is getting worse by the year

 

[dirtyd]

my bad bro, i didnt know how u meant it. i just think its funny how all these white artist are coming in, doing out music, and having more success than us. theres been songs that i know everyone in the hood knows, they play them all over urban radio, but i never hear about them on the bilboard charts. i-moses post explained alot of that too me

but the quality of music that black artist put out is getting worse by the year

Some blame has to go to the producers who give their best beats to white artist and give the scraps to the black artists I remember Shock G back in the day saying he made sure 2Pac got the best beats because it would help them both.

 

[Hotlantan]

Drake had a #1 single with Hold On We're Going Home. Maybe they don't classify him as black anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_discography

It wasn't an Overall #1, which is what this article is about.. That song only reached #1 on the R&B charts.

The state of the R&B charts is even WORSE. When you consider Drake is from Canada and Rihanna is from Barbados, the last African American to reach #1 on the Billboard R&B/Hiphop chart would be "Adorn" by half-Mexican Miguel way back in Sept/Oct of 2012.

And on the "Rap" chart, Jay-Z's "Holy Grail" is the only song to interrupt the 2013 stranglehold of Macklemore and Eminem. Even fucking "Gangham Style" by Psy has been at #1 before any other African American.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one_R%26B/hip-hop_songs_of_2013_(U.S.)

 

[respiration]

The state of the R&B charts is even WORSE. When you consider Drake is from Canada and Rihanna is from Barbados, the last African American to reach #1 on the Billboard R&B/Hiphop chart would be "Adorn" by half-Mexican Miguel way back in Sept/Oct of 2012.

And on the "Rap" chart, Jay-Z's "Holy Grail" is the only song to interrupt the 2013 stranglehold of Macklemore and Eminem. Even fucking "Gangham Style" by Psy has been at #1 before any other African American.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one_R%26B/hip-hop_songs_of_2013_(U.S.)

Look at my previous post to see why.

 

[Ming Fei Hong]

 

[Ming Fei Hong]

Drake had a #1 single with Hold On We're Going Home. Maybe they don't classify him as black anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_discography

​

 

[sirwoodz]

let me tell you all something that i know for a fact is well known in the industry but people are afraid to publicly state:

black people don't buy music any more. at all.

up until around the turn of the century, black artists use to be able to sell 500K-1 million records just off the strength of the black dollar - artists that white people had never heard of could go platinum, sell out concerts, and make the industry money without even thinking of crossing over (sounds of blackness, mint condition, johnny gill etc etc).

those days are gone and not coming back because we bootleg too much. again, just like how that statement pisses most of you off (regardless of how true it is) is why nobody will ever say it aloud but trust me when i say, this is well known in the industry and every new "black" artist that comes out albums are micromanaged and dissected so they can ensure the artist makes them some money.

your eyes and ears do not deceive you, black soul music is dead and we killed it.

 

[DM5]

let me tell you all something that i know for a fact is well known in the industry but people are afraid to publicly state:

black people don't buy music any more. at all.

up until around the turn of the century, black artists use to be able to sell 500K-1 million records just off the strength of the black dollar - artists that white people had never heard of could go platinum, sell out concerts, and make the industry money without even thinking of crossing over (sounds of blackness, mint condition, johnny gill etc etc).

those days are gone and not coming back because we bootleg too much. again, just like how that statement pisses most of you off (regardless of how true it is) is why nobody will ever say it aloud but trust me when i say, this is well known in the industry and every new "black" artist that comes out albums are micromanaged and dissected so they can ensure the artist makes them some money.

your eyes and ears do not deceive you, black soul music is dead and we killed it.

This right here!!!!!!!!! Nothing more to be said!

 

[john blackcorn]

let me tell you all something that i know for a fact is well known in the industry but people are afraid to publicly state:

black people don't buy music any more. at all.

up until around the turn of the century, black artists use to be able to sell 500K-1 million records just off the strength of the black dollar - artists that white people had never heard of could go platinum, sell out concerts, and make the industry money without even thinking of crossing over (sounds of blackness, mint condition, johnny gill etc etc).

those days are gone and not coming back because we bootleg too much. again, just like how that statement pisses most of you off (regardless of how true it is) is why nobody will ever say it aloud but trust me when i say, this is well known in the industry and every new "black" artist that comes out albums are micromanaged and dissected so they can ensure the artist makes them some money.

your eyes and ears do not deceive you, black soul music is dead and we killed it.

when im in the studio with a writer or other producers that im close with the one thing that always pops up is white money! black people dont buy music and for the most part i dont blame us. alot of the shit that gets put out is horrible, all these got damn mixtapes with free material because 1.) niggas know niggas aint gonna pay so they give it out for free, and 2.)niggas know niggas aint gonna pay for GARBAGE so they give it out for free. and they hope to just tour off the mediocre songs they put out

i stopped giving out mixtape tracks long ago because the fuck ass rappers dont wanna pay for beats, but they might throw the shit on itunes or get 10-15k a show off a mixtape full of beats they didnt pay for. cut me a fuckin check! i just got a track on meek mills album, got somethin in the works with chris brown now too and a few other artist. my people have been pushin me hard to get on this justin beiber wave, because that white boy is a cash cow!. all i need is one justin beiber single and im straight!!!!!! because white teenage girls buy his music and even black teenage girls

its 2014, we cant blame anyone but ourselves. if we would use our money and go support our artist then i could give a fuck what an artist like macklemore or robin thicke does. but shit we have black artist with talent out of this world that cant sell 50k copies of an album

the support is there, but the money is absent. and everything in the music industry revolves around the mighty dollar. so if white people are the ones buying music, then the music is going to cater to their liking

 

[exiledking]

let me tell you all something that i know for a fact is well known in the industry but people are afraid to publicly state:

black people don't buy music any more. at all.

up until around the turn of the century, black artists use to be able to sell 500K-1 million records just off the strength of the black dollar - artists that white people had never heard of could go platinum, sell out concerts, and make the industry money without even thinking of crossing over (sounds of blackness, mint condition, johnny gill etc etc).

those days are gone and not coming back because we bootleg too much. again, just like how that statement pisses most of you off (regardless of how true it is) is why nobody will ever say it aloud but trust me when i say, this is well known in the industry and every new "black" artist that comes out albums are micromanaged and dissected so they can ensure the artist makes them some money.

your eyes and ears do not deceive you, black soul music is dead and we killed it.

dude, NO ONE buys music anymore.

Same as its been, Black people are 12% of the population, and only in "urban areas"

If White people buying cds and Black people did too, who do you think is gonna feel it the most?

Black artists. There will still a white artist with that 88% audience gap in a world with prices that don't have the same gap.

Stop it with the "we killed it" shit.

Black people support Black artists. When people say "White Money" they mean they hope to tap into the BIGGER market, not the people who actually buy shit.

White people INVENTED music and movie pirating.

 

[TheKingofVa]

This is the wake up call black artist need. Time for them to stop putting out disposable crap music.

 

[Knuckles666]

I dont like Justin TimberFAKE after he played Janet Jackson. Fuck him.

Why is every black person on that "Kumbaya" shit when it comes to accepting whites into black culture? Fuck white "culture vultures" and the black folks that support it..

 

[sirwoodz]

dude, NO ONE buys music anymore.

Same as its been, Black people are 12% of the population, and only in "urban areas"

If White people buying cds and Black people did too, who do you think is gonna feel it the most?

Black artists. There will still a white artist with that 88% audience gap in a world with prices that don't have the same gap.

Stop it with the "we killed it" shit.

Black people support Black artists. When people say "White Money" they mean they hope to tap into the BIGGER market, not the people who actually buy shit.

White people INVENTED music and movie pirating.

- i'm telling you what i KNOW:, there will NEVER be black artists like an eric benet, india arie, or common that make soulful, heavy instrumentation old school non-crossover music that will go GOLD/PLATINUM ever again.

trust that bruh. they won't play it, and if they did and we liked it, we will bootleg it. this is how black music consumers are seen and treated.

here is my question: when was the last time a black artist that had no crossover-pop-techno-EDM type tracks out go gold or platinum, give me a year and an album

 

[exiledking]

- i'm telling you what i KNOW:, there will NEVER be black artists like an eric benet, india arie, or common that make soulful, heavy instrumentation old school non-crossover music that will go GOLD/PLATINUM ever again.



trust that bruh. they won't play it, and if they did and we liked it, we will bootleg it. this is how black music consumers are seen and treated.



here is my question: when was the last time a black artist that had no crossover-pop-techno-EDM type tracks out go gold or platinum, give me a year and an album

There will hardly be ANY artist of ANY genre that sells platinum and gold. Because people of all groups don't buy music as much anymore. Not just Black people. Stop it

 

[sirwoodz]

There will hardly be ANY artist of ANY genre that sells platinum and gold. Because people of all groups don't buy music as much anymore. Not just Black people. Stop it

- bruh i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt because you are on the internet like me, but check country music sales for the past 5 or 6 years and you'll see their top artists routinely go gold or platinum.

they are very consistent b/c country music fans buy records.

just ask lionel richie. his last album "Tuskegee" went platinum in 2012 and I can almost guarantee you black people knew nothing about that record.

and if you don't think people buy records, let Adele drop a new album this year.

 

[sirwoodz]

when im in the studio with a writer or other producers that im close with the one thing that always pops up is white money! black people dont buy music and for the most part i dont blame us. alot of the shit that gets put out is horrible, all these got damn mixtapes with free material because 1.) niggas know niggas aint gonna pay so they give it out for free, and 2.)niggas know niggas aint gonna pay for GARBAGE so they give it out for free. and they hope to just tour off the mediocre songs they put out

i stopped giving out mixtape tracks long ago because the fuck ass rappers dont wanna pay for beats, but they might throw the shit on itunes or get 10-15k a show off a mixtape full of beats they didnt pay for. cut me a fuckin check! i just got a track on meek mills album, got somethin in the works with chris brown now too and a few other artist. my people have been pushin me hard to get on this justin beiber wave, because that white boy is a cash cow!. all i need is one justin beiber single and im straight!!!!!! because white teenage girls buy his music and even black teenage girls

its 2014, we cant blame anyone but ourselves. if we would use our money and go support our artist then i could give a fuck what an artist like macklemore or robin thicke does. but shit we have black artist with talent out of this world that cant sell 50k copies of an album

the support is there, but the money is absent. and everything in the music industry revolves around the mighty dollar. so if white people are the ones buying music, then the music is going to cater to their liking

and people that work in the industry know this from the top down, it's routinely the elephant in the room.

engineers, producers, artists, label heads - they know we are gonna bootleg and not buy a damned thing.

Goodie Mob just dropped easily the best hip hop record of the year and they didn't drop any dance/pop shit on there - but why throw marketing dollars at something you know people won't buy? they treated that album like a mixtape.

 

[exiledking]

- bruh i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt because you are on the internet like me, but check country music sales for the past 5 or 6 years and you'll see their top artists routinely go gold or platinum.



they are very consistent b/c country music fans buy records.



just ask lionel richie. his last album "Tuskegee" went platinum in 2012 and I can almost guarantee you black people knew nothing about that record.



and if you don't think people buy records, let Adele drop a new album this year.

I almost wanna draw this out on a out chart for you bruh lol.

Whites constitute the majority of the U.S. population, with a total of 223,553,265 or 72.4%

African American38,929,319 12.6 %


I'm not even gonna include the other groups for the sake of this discussion.

Out of the two groups you see here, if the trend is MOST of the people in those groups don't buy records anymore, the small number of people who do still buy them- which group do you wanna be in?

The percentage of drop off is the SAME.

But when dealing with a bigger pot, you'll still come out better.

Soul artists have never toured places like Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Iowa, Vermont, New Mexico--- all these places considered "white". There's not even a black radio station to play their shit. In order to get those bigger numbers black artists have always had to "cross over" to the bigger market. Now that record sales have dropped of immensely for everybody, it's even more crucial that you do.


You don't think Motown made it just selling to black people do you?

You don't think Michael Jackson is called king of pop with those massive numbers he sold just from US, right?

Black people who purchase soul have the same issues white people who buy certain styles have. If ya think every white person and every genre is selling, ask someone white or look it up

Here I did it for you:

Overall album sales fell to 415.3 million, a 7.7 percent drop from the year before, according to the 2013 report from Nielsen Entertainment and Billboard.

 

[HAR125LEM]

let me tell you all something that i know for a fact is well known in the industry but people are afraid to publicly state:

black people don't buy music any more. at all.

up until around the turn of the century, black artists use to be able to sell 500K-1 million records just off the strength of the black dollar - artists that white people had never heard of could go platinum, sell out concerts, and make the industry money without even thinking of crossing over (sounds of blackness, mint condition, johnny gill etc etc).

those days are gone and not coming back because we bootleg too much. again, just like how that statement pisses most of you off (regardless of how true it is) is why nobody will ever say it aloud but trust me when i say, this is well known in the industry and every new "black" artist that comes out albums are micromanaged and dissected so they can ensure the artist makes them some money.

your eyes and ears do not deceive you, black soul music is dead and we killed it.

I can partially agree with this.
Especially since I worked in radio from the mid 80s through the early 2000s.

But I want to also add that we screwed ourselves in terms of taking the "lowest common denominator" and easy way out when it comes to even producing music.

I mean...REALLY!

Would you buy anything from any of these young cats today who rarely put in any hard work? Or who thinks stringing together some works that rhyme (but lyrically make no fuckin' sense)and some sampled beats makes them EPIC?

Do you see anyone out there as a Quincy, Gamble & Huff, Berry Gordy, Leon Ware, etc. today???

I can't see myself buying any Black Commercial/Pop shit today because that's exactly what it is. SHIT!!!

And forget about these Black acts wanting to "grow up" creatively.

Most White Artists are always growing creatively.

But since there is no longer much along the lines of good radio anyway,
We have to search more and more for "good stuff".

Though my money's tight these days, I still do buy music from Black Jazz artists. But even Jazz is being more and more whitewashed now as many White musicians from Europe, The Netherlands, Asia, and even here as being seen as the new "young lions".

Like I say in other threads in regards to OUR history.
When Black People start being serious about aspects of our culture,
Then we will be strong culturally.

 

[sirwoodz]

I almost wanna dr.

- bruh, are you okay over there? nobody is disagreeing with anything you're saying.

yes, album sales are down overall that's not even the point i'm making

1) black artists use to be able to go Gold or Platinum and hit the touring circuit just on black money. you haven't even attempted to touch this.

2) people are still buying albums even though it's not as much as before, artists are still going multi-platinum - check the sales for beyonce, taylor swift, and adele

again, industry bean counters know that black folks don't spend money. this is why we give our shit away - you think eminem, adele, or timberlake are about to give away anything for FREE!?

you are so busy trying to give a lecture on the music business as a whole and I'm not even disagreeing with you, but i'm pointing out how everybody is pretty much still selling records and generating sales outside of "urban" artists. check country music sales for a perfect example - they have been remarkably consistent for the past 5 and 6 years.

I can partially agree with this.
Especially since I worked in radio from the mid 80s through the early 2000s.

But I want to also add that we screwed ourselves in terms of taking the "lowest common denominator" and easy way out when it comes to even producing music.

I mean...REALLY!

Would you buy anything from any of these young cats today who rarely put in any hard work? Or who thinks stringing together some works that rhyme (but lyrically make no fuckin' sense)and some sampled beats makes them EPIC?

Do you see anyone out there as a Quincy, Gamble & Huff, Berry Gordy, Leon Ware, etc. today???

I can't see myself buying any Black Commercial/Pop shit today because that's exactly what it is. SHIT!!!

And forget about these Black acts wanting to "grow up" creatively.

Most White Artists are always growing creatively.

But since there is no longer much along the lines of good radio anyway,
We have to search more and more for "good stuff".

Though my money's tight these days, I still do buy music from Black Jazz artists. But even Jazz is being more and more whitewashed now as many White musicians from Europe, The Netherlands, Asia, and even here as being seen as the new "young lions".

Like I say in other threads in regards to OUR history.
When Black People start being serious about aspects of our culture,
Then we will be strong culturally.

- but they don't have a choice but to try and make a crossover hit. you have to try and target the audiences that spend money, from an artistic and creative standpoint this sucks, but from the business side it makes perfect sense.

 

[exiledking]

- bruh, are you okay over there? nobody is disagreeing with anything you're saying.



yes, album sales are down overall that's not even the point i'm making



1) black artists use to be able to go Gold or Platinum and hit the touring circuit just on black money. you haven't even attempted to touch this.



2) people are still buying albums even though it's not as much as before, artists are still going multi-platinum - check the sales for beyonce, taylor swift, and adele



again, industry bean counters know that black folks don't spend money. this is why we give our shit away - you think eminem, adele, or timberlake are about to give away anything for FREE!?



you are so busy trying to give a lecture on the music business as a whole and I'm not even disagreeing with you, but i'm pointing out how everybody is pretty much still selling records and generating sales outside of "urban" artists. check country music sales for a perfect example - they have been remarkably consistent for the past 5 and 6 years.











- but they don't have a choice but to try and make a crossover hit. you have to try and target the audiences that spend money, from an artistic and creative standpoint this sucks, but from the business side it makes perfect sense.

You do know beyonce, Rihanna, Jay z, kanye, are black artists right?

And you do know thy by the same standard and time you're talking about all of them would've went diamond right?

 

[sirwoodz]

You do know beyonce, Rihanna, Jay z, kanye, are black artists right?

And you do know thy by the same standard and time you're talking about all of them would've went diamond right?

- you lost me with this comment here.

jay and beyonce each have had record sales success prior to the digital age

i can't speak on rihanna's success but I know she wouldn't have songs out like "we found love" in the 90's, black audiences wouldn't play that bullshit.

that's what this thread is about - black music and black music audiences, black artists now have to go into the studio and record at LEAST 5 or 6 tracks on their albums with the suburban white teen market in mind.

new edition never had to really compete with groups like R.E.M. or U2 because it was 2 entirely different audiences...those days are gone, everybody has the same audience now because urban/black audiences bootleg more than anybody; and understand that there is a such thing as a group doing ANYTHING more than another group, it's not a good or bad thing, it's just reality.

 

[exiledking]

- you lost me with this comment here.

jay and beyonce each have had record sales success prior to the digital age

i can't speak on rihanna's success but I know she wouldn't have songs out like "we found love" in the 90's, black audiences wouldn't play that bullshit.

that's what this thread is about - black music and black music audiences, black artists now have to go into the studio and record at LEAST 5 or 6 tracks on their albums with the suburban white teen market in mind.

new edition never had to really compete with groups like R.E.M. or U2 because it was 2 entirely different audiences...those days are gone, everybody has the same audience now because urban/black audiences bootleg more than anybody; and understand that there is a such thing as a group doing ANYTHING more than another group, it's not a good or bad thing, it's just reality.

if any Black artist wanted to sell BIG numbers, they would always have to cross over.

always.

Now when records sold well, 500k was a number that someone selling 100k these days would sell.

A million records sold then is equivalent to 2-300k now.


Someone who went diamond back then only sells 1-2 mil now.

Thats how it is now, no mater what market or genre you're in.

All I'm saying is you keep singling Black people out like we're the only ones not buying records, when I'm saying it's all relative to the same shit.

It's a percentage game..


Adele selling what she sales NOW woulda been 5 times as much in the hey day of record sales.


The hottest Black artists today would still have been doing the crossover thing they're doing now. Your illusion that Rihanna wouldn't be trying to sell to all audiences and that Black people wouldn't play it is- well I guess it's cuz YOU don't like it. Black people play and buy her shit NOW

listen to this




wanting to cross over is not new. Getting that "WHite money" has always been something people wanted, but now that the floor dropped even lower, you would NEED it, just to survive. But even then people would get dropped if they didn't sell gold.

 

[john blackcorn]

if any Black artist wanted to sell BIG numbers, they would always have to cross over.

always.

Now when records sold well, 500k was a number that someone selling 100k these days would sell.

A million records sold then is equivalent to 2-300k now.


Someone who went diamond back then only sells 1-2 mil now.

Thats how it is now, no mater what market or genre you're in.

All I'm saying is you keep singling Black people out like we're the only ones not buying records, when I'm saying it's all relative to the same shit.

It's a percentage game..


Adele selling what she sales NOW woulda been 5 times as much in the hey day of record sales.


The hottest Black artists today would still have been doing the crossover thing they're doing now. Your illusion that Rihanna wouldn't be trying to sell to all audiences and that Black people wouldn't play it is- well I guess it's cuz YOU don't like it. Black people play and buy her shit NOW

listen to this




wanting to cross over is not new. Getting that "WHite money" has always been something people wanted, but now that the floor dropped even lower, you would NEED it, just to survive. But even then people would get dropped if they didn't sell gold.

see shit like this is why i stopped replying. it dont matter what industry experience i have, what conversations ive had with industry heads, etc... i cant debate with bgol niggas. i dont see how threads go 4 and 5 pages of back and forth bullshit. if i know i cant get throught to u, i give up and let u think what u want

 

[exiledking]

see shit like this is why i stopped replying. it dont matter what industry experience i have, what conversations ive had with industry heads, etc... i cant debate with bgol niggas. i dont see how threads go 4 and 5 pages of back and forth bullshit. if i know i cant get throught to u, i give up and let u think what u want

so your only demonstration of what you claim to know is by your so called "industry qualifications"?



"I'm in the industry, even though you don't know me from a can of paint, and I don't know you either, you just have to believe me"

Heres a tip son. Learn how to present independently verifiable evidence, as I have with you. You'll kill em in the "industry"