A Nina Simone reference if you will. This post will be exploring goth elements in African American culture, and basically.....it's a primer because a lot is in the statement I've just said.
People think of Black culture, in restrictive notions: i.e, we're all gang members, into hip hop exclusively, we don't do "white" things. And this is a bunch of horse shit.
For example, it's perfectly normal for someone to say "Oh, I'm really interested in Japanese culture,"and it's a valid statement, however if you say "I'm really interested in Black culture," well what do you mean exactly? Does one mean hip hop? Rap? Jazz? Blues? What is it?
Well, cultures are made up of a lot of things. And Black culture is no different. All people from any one group are not identical, they are not monoliths who think the same. Do all goths act the same? For bat's sake, they do not. And if you make this assumption many goths will roll their eyes at you with a dismissive glance, so why is it safe to assume that all Black people (or any ethnic minority group for that matter) should behave in a similar fashion? Doing so, discounts the individual stories, not to mention the richness that makes up a group of people. If you study Japanese culture, you are quick to learn that Japanese culture is not a synonym or interchangeable term for just Ukiyo paintings, Enka music and what have you. That would be really silly. You study different segments of a culture, just like American culture has it's subcultures. But Black culture, or Latino culture, or Asian culture are not the same as American culture. These groups are not subcultures.
Bringing me to what is begrudgingly called "Urban" culture. "Urban" culture is a codeword that marketing dummies use to signify that something is geared towards Black. Now, despite the fact that a lot of Blacks live in Urban areas still does not quantify nor justify the usage of the term Urban, for Blacks live in the suburbs too.
Urban culture has become basically a catch-all for anything that is Black.
If you're a Black punk rock musician, it does not matter that none of your music is hip-hop, it will be relegated to the R&B section at a record store, I promise.
Similarly, Urban literature, is grouped together at bookstores, basically all genres of books written by Black authors get lumped together. Black = Urban, to these folks and boy are they wrong.
But...thats another post, for this post, we're finally going to skim the surface of mainstream Black artists (some not so mainstream) that have gothic elements but yet are not attributed as having any, for what reasons,hmmm let's think about that shall we?
The first example we should really pay attention to is the Blues. Oh my god, it's a genre of music that basically says in its description this is morose, sad music. Also, The Blues was called "The Devil's Music."
Does it really get any hardcore than that?
