The advent of digital technology has been both a constructive and destructive influence on creativity in black music, engendering new forms like hip hop, house, and jungle, while hastening the erosion of songwriting and live performing prowess. The reason so much modern R&B sounds poured from the same synthesized blender is that it's more profitable to produce and market one blend of homogenized chocolate milk than 31 flavors of black coffee.
The Black Rock Coalition was born both to help restore the diversity that is the black musical tradition and to counter stereotypes. There is a notion in the industry that pretty much amounts to this: Niggas can't play rock 'n' roll-and even if they can, we ain't having it. Ironically, the success of Living Colour several years back continues to be used against other black bands playing guitar-oriented music. When the question of why they didn't play more black rock was raised to some radio programmers, their response was that they play Living Colour. (Could you imagine those people saying they won't play Soundgarden or Alice in Chains because they already have their "Seattle rockers" in Pearl Jam?) In one instance that I know of, the lower sales figures of Living Colour's third album, Stain, were used by a label to justify dropping another black band before their debut was even released.
One reason why the "black rock" label evokes ambivalent feelings even among Black Rock Coalition members is that it lumps together people who sound nothing alike, as is abundantly clear on the organization's two compilation CDs, The History of Our Future (Rykodisc) and Blacker Than That (BRC). To many people, rock 'n' roll is an image before it's a music-white guys with long hair and plaid shirts whacking off on loud guitars. The truth is, though, what's understood as rock culture is comprised of artists as divergent as Nirvana, Annie Lennox, and Yoko Ono-or Bad Brains, Seal, and Sade.
Rock represents creative freedom, the democratic ideal. Given that, it's no wonder independent-minded black artists, from Chuck Berry and Big Mama Thornton to Sly Stone and Grace Jones, have been drawn to its promise of power, rage, and eroticism. No wonder those forces in society opposed to black people freely expressing ourselves are concerned with the liberties we take in the influential and inspirational arena of popular music. Ten years since its formation, the BRC intends to keep on battling in the name of black rock 'n' rollers until hell freezes over-or until the levee breaks.