Nightshift
This morning I pulled out my dusty Commodores CD and downloaded it to my ipod. I had not touched that CD for years and felt like listening to some old-school jams as I hopped on the treadmill. As I listened to “Nightshift” this morning, my mind reached back to my early college days in Nigeria. I remember this song playing at Friday-night parties on and off campus in 1985. As soon as the first distinct sounds blasted from the loudspeakers, guys would rush over to the girls and lead us to the dance floor to “rock out” to “Nightshift.” What a song!
This morning as I listened, I smiled, thought of old friends, old fashion, old attitudes, and the dance moves of 80s. I was having such a good time with these memories that I played the track again. This time, I listened closer to the lyrics. What? The entire song is an ode to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson! I never knew that. I never really listened closely. I guess I knew there was something in the song about a “Marvin” or a “Jackie” but who cares when you are trying to execute your best dance steps in the middle of a steamy dance party?
Besides, I was so far away from and uninformed about African-American musical history that although I was very familiar with Marvin Gaye (from “Sexual Healing”) I would not have known who Jackie Wilson was, that he was the fabulous Rhythm and Blues singer who, like Gaye, died in 1984. If I’d been here in the US, knowledgeable about Black music history, I’d have been a better listener of “Nightshift.” I’m intrigued and a little disturbed about the ability of pop culture and the mass media to widely disseminate cultural expressions like music around the globe to mostly uninformed consumers who look for the beat and ignore the message. They can only appreciate the very surface elements of the art.
I asked my husband – also Nigerian – if he remembered “Nightshift.” “Of course,” he enthused, humming the first few chords. I asked him what it was about and he looked thoughtful for a while. “I don’t know,” he said. “It must have been about having a good time with a girl at night, or something.” When I broke it down to him, about how it was a tribute to the contributions of Marvin and Jackie, he was amazed.
The fact that the song did so well as a dance track and yet is so meaningful got me thinking about today’s upbeat dance music that generally seems to be loaded with openly sexual messages. I know there are some that offer a socially conscious message but they get buried under the bulk of explicitly commercial music.
So two questions occur to me: Why are Africans so uneducated about the cultural history of African Americans while we consume African American music voraciously? And why can’t we have more pop songs on our radio that provide a good beat and a good message? The Commodores’ “Nightshift” reminds me that it is possible.
Ya know? I really do feel the same way about:
“Why can’t we have more pop songs on our radio that provide a good beat and a good message?”
For an example, Sean Kingston’s “Take You There” comes off as a smooth fun-filled ride into “paradise,” but if you listen to the lyrics it clearly states in the hook “we can go to the slums
Where killas get hung!!!” However, as an average listener you wouldn’t think twice about it. This song is on Billboard’s Top 10 Pop Charts. RIDICLOUS
Let’s take Common for an example. Common has BEEN delivering positive messages in his music and he is just now getting his major SHINE. I’m not saying before he wasnt getting any air-time or no love, but what I am saying is that he just now starting to appeal to different crowds.
Let’s take Jill Scott for an example. She has a song out right now that is called “Haters” and it talks about people who talk about her because she is so POSITIVE and INSPIRING. The only time I hear this song is when I am working at Niketown. AND THEY TOOK IT OFF THE PLAYLIST!!!—crazy!
I don’t believe there has been a show in the past 20 years I have been living on BET or MTV or VH1 that has educated the younger generation about the black community - I can’t think of one. It is sad because all you do see on these channels are videos where they glamorize sex and money and dumb ass reality shows (HEll date, I Love New York, Flavor of Love, etc.).
I miss music from The Stylistics, Blue Magic, Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, Kool and the Gang, Smokey Robinson, Earth, Wind, and Fire….I mean I could go on and on….
Taylor Mallory
Undergrad
Culture is an intrinsic and subjective concept. In order to understand someone’s culture, you have to exist within it. Someone can study a certain culture in textbooks, and through the eyes of the writer’s of those textbooks, but one will never truly understand the culture until she or he is immersed in it.
The unbelievable messages of today’s popular Negro artists are laden with positive and insightful messages, but it’s simply a matter of understanding what they mean and where the culture is at and where it’s needing to go.
Kanye West is the epitome of this concept, as he’s offered several songs over the last three-or-four years that are loaded with positive yet subtle and culturally exclusive messages.
Most recently, he’s offered up “The Good Life” and “Stronger” both songs which triumphantly proclaim about how regardless of what your situation, you can arrive at a place of strength and prosperity, but like he mentioned in one of his initial blockbuster hits “All Falls Down” (The people highest up got the lowest self-esteem, the prettiest people do the ugliest things, for the road to riches and diamond rings, shine because they hate us, floss cause they the greatest, we tryna’ buy back our 40 acres, and for that paper look how low we a stoop, even if you in a benz you still a Nigga in a coupe!”
These lyrics and many other ones like it were littered throughout the track “All Falls Down” and because of that there is evidence of positive messages being presented to the masses, but just as it takes an especially analytical and critical mind within the American culture to extract the value of such messages, it’s absurd and unfair to expect someone who’s entrenched in their own dungeon of oppression and apartheid to qualify such messages as valuable and dissect them to the point of complete comprehension.
As my eldest brother–who is the epitome of American homogenized culture and a Black Zombie if there ever was one–once said “I don’t listen to music to think, I listen to it to enjoy the music.” (Mark Jr.) That statement–albeit it rather simplistic–is completely true of the majority of individuals, so it wouldn’t make sense for the mass media to provide its listeners with something that they’re not completely vested and interested in, so Lil’ Jon and Soljah Boy proliferate the airways, and the messages being heard worldwide from the Negro community are of those of anti-women and anti-education, intellectualism and cerebral advancement. And the end result is a culture which reflects the messages being proliferated, and oppressed by the individuals perpetuating the system and cycle of self-denigration.
Mike Topps March 11th, 2008 4:50pm nuggie11@sbcglobal.net
The reason why we don’t hear any positive songs on the radio is because…well T.I. said it best: (not his EXACT words) nobody wants to hear about the war or poverty in the U.S. or anything else that will have an uplifting effect.” If a rapper starts talking about something positive, it can destroy their image and they’ll be looked at as a softie.
Me personally, I’m getting fed up about how much money they have, how big their rims are, and what cars they drive…..Yeah ok, we’ve all seen how much money you have and what kinds of cars you drive, CUT THE BS!!…..it’s time to talk about something worth listening to!!
Another reason why we don’t hear any positive rap songs is because there are too many rappers making up dances….for instance, SOULJA BOY. IS IT ME OR IS ANYBODY ELSE GETTING SICK OF HIS CRAP HE CALLS RAPPING?!?!?! I DON’T UNDERTSTAND HOW HE EVEN GOT A RECORD DEAL! I THINK HE NEEDS TO GO BACK TO THE LAB AND THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE BECUASE IT’S MAKING MY EARS BLEED!!!!
YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!
DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH!!
One of my favorite songs is “drive slow” by Kanye West…his verse in particular. He takes you down memory lane and at the end of the verse, he explains it all by saying “he told me don’t rush to get grown, drive slow homey, drive slow.” That right there explains his whole message. They did make a video for it, but it didn’t really get played. But anyways, that’s why Kanye west is my favorite rapper out right now, because he’s different and very clever at the same time. My favorite song of him of all time is “We Don’t Care.” The minute I heard that, I was completely hooked and literally put it on repeat until I memorized it word for word.
I remember I did a project for my New Millennium Studies class freshmen year, where I made a mix of POSITIVE rap songs and presented it to the class. I did that because a lot of people, who don’t even listen to rap, talk bad about it. And I made it to prove a point that ALL rap isn’t bad. Yes they still swear in these songs, but if we look pass the swearing and listen to the overall message, maybe it’ll change the minds of people who don’t like rap.
It’s a shame that rappers can’t talk about different things…but I guess it’ll never change because of today’s society.
p.s. Dr. Shonekan, if you would like a copy of the CD I made to keep for yourself, let me know and I’ll gladly bring you one.