quoted 6 lines And please, please don't bring that dusty-ass Kraftwerk excuse out> And please, please don't bring that dusty-ass Kraftwerk excuse out
> again --- everyone knows that they were influential, but it was blacks
> in Detroit that created and nurtured Techno as we know it today.
>
> It would be stupid to dismiss all output from white techno artists,
> but it would be equally stupid to assume that race is not an issue.
I think it's racist to attach too much importance to the race of a
musician. While Detroit techno has its roots in a unique black
subculture, the talents of the people making it have nothing to do
with their dermal melanin count.
In jazz, and in blues, the black masters of the form regularly employ
white musicians as side men. They judge the musician by what he does,
not his skin color. Even Miles Davis and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, whose
venom towards a racist society was, if anything, much more extensively
and eloquently expressed had no problems with white musicians.
If James Drexciya has a problem with white musicians taking his
musical lead, I hope he bases it on the music they produce. If it's
lame, then go ahead and diss it. And I hope the new Drexciya does
really well internationally and that Warp pays honest royalties to
them.
The fact of the matter is, no one is becoming fabulously wealthy
making dance music. Hell, I don't think Instinct, Astralwerks and TVT
are making that much money. They're in the pinball business -- if they
sell enough of the current catalog, they get to bring new disks out.
Their combined total sales are dwarfed by one Michael Bolton disk.
One of thing I really like about dance culture (at least the microcosm
of dance culture available to me in Iowa) is that it is a place where
these things don't matter -- black, white, asian, straight, gay, mutant,
even old crusties like me mix and party with no problem.