Getting Down to Their Roots

According to conventional wisdom in the music business, black musicians do rap and soul, whites do rock ‘n’ roll. So what to make of a group like Follow for Now? Their dreadlocks and fade-style haircuts seem to come straight out of a Yo! MTV Raps video clip. So do the lyrics to songs such as White Hood, their spirited diatribe against skinheads and other white supremacists. But the thrashing guitars and drum licks the five members of the band play on their eponymous debut album leave little doubt that their musical roots reach deep into hard rock.

Ever since Living Colour broke through the color barrier four years ago and went on to pick up two consecutive Grammys for Best Hard Rock Performnce, growing numbers of young African-American musicians have begun jamming to a rock beat. Says Living Colour lead guitarist Vernon Reid: “Rock ‘n’ roll is black music, and we are its heirs.”

That legacy dates back to the early 1950s, when Chuck Berry and Little Richard first introduced white teens to the wildly exuberant sounds that eventually became known as rock ‘n’ roll. Even after the British invasion of the 1960s, black rockers like Jimi Hendrix, the Ohio Players, and Sly and the Family Stone danced back and forth across the color line. That ended with the disco era of the 1970s, whose slick, producer-driven, synthesizer-motorized tunes created a racial schism in pop music that has yet to mend.

Now, however, eager for any opportunity to prop up sagging sales, record companies are rediscovering the appeal of black rock ‘n’ roll. Virgin Records has signed up neohippie Lenny Kravitz, whose latest record, Mama Said, has sold about 2 million copies worldwide. Sony Music produces Fishbone, seven musical renegades who have attracted a cult following with their energetic mix of rock, punk and funk. Elektra Records is pushing Eric Gales, 17, a wunderkind who leads a musically adventurous three-man band. Epic recently released a debut album by Eye & I, a genre-busting quintet propelled by the lusty vocals of female singer DK Dyson. And pop music maestro Quincy Jones has given his blessings to the movement: his label, Qwest Records, gave newcomers Who’s Image a $750,000 advance, an unusually high bid for unproved talent.

As in traditional rock, the guitar is the central instrument for these musicians, but their riffs resonate with blues and jazz, reggae and rap, and all the other rhythms of the black musical experience. “We didn’t watch MTV and take a little of this and that because it was hot,” says Follow for Now guitarist David Ryan-Harris. “We grew up among a lot of various musical influences, and we use them all.” Lyrics in these songs deal with race relations and other social issues that reflect a consciously black sensibility. “A lot of rock is about coming of age,” says Living Colour’s Reid. “And one thing that’s a definite, salient part of a black person’s coming-of-age is dealing with racism.”

But while more records are being made, black rockers say they still have a < hard time getting radio programmers — white and black — to play their music. “Radio is now the stumbling block,” says Nuumi Rayfield Jarvis, founder of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Rock Coalition, a national network of 50 bands that organized seven years ago to promote black rock. Because it ranges from jazz fusion to thrash metal, black rock doesn’t fit neatly into any of the traditional grooves that determine how music is marketed. Executives who program for traditional rock stations fret that the white teens who make up their audiences won’t identify with black rockers. Black programmers argue that their listeners are turned off by the heavy-metal sound. Says Mike Stradford, programming director at KKBT-FM, a rhythm-and- blues station in Los Angeles: “We make money by playing the music that our listeners want to hear.”

Black rock ‘n’ roll has found sanctuary on alternative and college radio stations and in small rock clubs. So far, its biggest fans have been mainly hip young whites. But the Black Rock Coalition is working to spread the gospel, particularly among young black music lovers. It publishes a newsletter and organizes concerts, including a music festival in Bari, Italy, last June and free performances in playgrounds in black neighborhoods all through the summer. It has also produced its first album, The History of Our Future, an eclectic sampler distributed by Rykodisc that features 10 of the association’s bands. Says executive director Don Eversley: “We’re trying to show that some of the artificial boundaries that have been put up shouldn’t exist.”

There are signs that those walls may be falling. Columbia Records executive Randy Jackson says 25% of the 100 or more demo tapes he receives each month now come from black rock-‘n’-roll groups. And just last week hard-core rapper Ice-T released a debut album with Body Count, the new heavy-metal band he has started. Meanwhile, Little Richard, who has quit the business several times since becoming a Seventh-day Adventist minister 35 years ago, believes the time may be ripe for another comeback. “I’ve got what it takes to do it,” he says. “If they come and make me an offer, I will come and make it in a big way.” Sounds like the good times may finally be rolling again.