Comments on: LINDA LEWIS / “Linda Lewis Mixtape” http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2009/09/28/linda-lewis-%e2%80%9clinda-lewis-mixtape%e2%80%9d/ a conversation about black music Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:17:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: lark http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2009/09/28/linda-lewis-%e2%80%9clinda-lewis-mixtape%e2%80%9d/#comment-196182 lark Fri, 09 Apr 2010 11:55:25 +0000 http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2009/09/28/linda-lewis-%e2%80%9clinda-lewis-mixtape%e2%80%9d/#comment-196182 <strong>lark</strong> I like this lark post and am browsing through your past ones. Great job!… lark

I like this lark post and am browsing through your past ones. Great job!…

]]> By: Brandon http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2009/09/28/linda-lewis-%e2%80%9clinda-lewis-mixtape%e2%80%9d/#comment-165208 Brandon Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:59:24 +0000 http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2009/09/28/linda-lewis-%e2%80%9clinda-lewis-mixtape%e2%80%9d/#comment-165208 Linda brings up this question/desire in me around the diversity within "black" music in the 70's. Watching the documentary made about the famous Watts Stax concert opened my ears to the varied textures of 70's soul. It was broad and could support a scene that predicted the sexy rock stylings of the 80's but was never far from its gosphel and blues roots as evidenced by the popularity of the Staple Singers. This must have made record shopping thrilling in the 70's. Genre was less confining. In my fantasy artists had greater incentives to embark on musical self-discovery. This makes the albums they released personal and revealing. Linda brings up this question/desire in me around the diversity within “black” music in the 70′s. Watching the documentary made about the famous Watts Stax concert opened my ears to the varied textures of 70′s soul. It was broad and could support a scene that predicted the sexy rock stylings of the 80′s but was never far from its gosphel and blues roots as evidenced by the popularity of the Staple Singers. This must have made record shopping thrilling in the 70′s. Genre was less confining. In my fantasy artists had greater incentives to embark on musical self-discovery. This makes the albums they released personal and revealing.

]]> By: Tuta http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2009/09/28/linda-lewis-%e2%80%9clinda-lewis-mixtape%e2%80%9d/#comment-165183 Tuta Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:18:24 +0000 http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2009/09/28/linda-lewis-%e2%80%9clinda-lewis-mixtape%e2%80%9d/#comment-165183 <p>After reading Linda Lewis' mini-bio, I am wondering what black experience you are referring to in your write-up. Is it a black experience because she was born black and experienced those things? From what I read, she seemed to have lived a white experience as a person that just so happened to be black.</p><p><font color="#ffffff"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">          kalamu sez            </span></b></font></p><p>back in the day (don't you hate it when someone older than you starts off their reply to your question with a reference to something that happened before the person was born?), anyway, back in the day we used to say: blacknuss = color, culture & consciousness. and then we would add that color was the least important of the three elements. clearly linda has color (she's biracial). culture, whether one likes her music or hates it, or more likely feels so-so about ms. lewis' music, regardless, i think we all can agree that there are distinct elements of soul and reggae in what she is doing. consciousness, i know she is not an advocate of black power or anything like that, but i firmly believe that she has grown up in a world that won't let her be colorless even is she wants to... i am saying that she had to deal with and make conscious decisions about how she will or will not manifest herself as a person who has 'blackness' in her racial heritage and being.</p><p>beyond all of the above, i believe that the denial of blackness by people who obviously have a black heritage is a hallmark of a certain kind of blackness, you might even say the avoidance of blackness is a sure sign of blackness. </p><p>i'm into inclusion rather than advocating exclusion. you want to throw away jimi hendrix because the experience was a trio with two white guys? i don't think we should be into excommunicating people because they don't pass a litmus test. birth is the only litmus test that counts and once you are born, i believe you should be accepted. what one decides to do after we are born is a choice each of us makes. hopefully, we will care about others but if not, c'est la vie. in any case, from my perspective, given our history of enslavement and social restrictions, i believe we should be advocates of freedom and when one of us decides to live in a way that is different from most of us, that choice should be accepted.<br /></p><p> </p> After reading Linda Lewis’ mini-bio, I am wondering what black experience you are referring to in your write-up. Is it a black experience because she was born black and experienced those things? From what I read, she seemed to have lived a white experience as a person that just so happened to be black.

          kalamu sez           

back in the day (don’t you hate it when someone older than you starts off their reply to your question with a reference to something that happened before the person was born?), anyway, back in the day we used to say: blacknuss = color, culture & consciousness. and then we would add that color was the least important of the three elements. clearly linda has color (she’s biracial). culture, whether one likes her music or hates it, or more likely feels so-so about ms. lewis’ music, regardless, i think we all can agree that there are distinct elements of soul and reggae in what she is doing. consciousness, i know she is not an advocate of black power or anything like that, but i firmly believe that she has grown up in a world that won’t let her be colorless even is she wants to… i am saying that she had to deal with and make conscious decisions about how she will or will not manifest herself as a person who has ‘blackness’ in her racial heritage and being.

beyond all of the above, i believe that the denial of blackness by people who obviously have a black heritage is a hallmark of a certain kind of blackness, you might even say the avoidance of blackness is a sure sign of blackness.

i’m into inclusion rather than advocating exclusion. you want to throw away jimi hendrix because the experience was a trio with two white guys? i don’t think we should be into excommunicating people because they don’t pass a litmus test. birth is the only litmus test that counts and once you are born, i believe you should be accepted. what one decides to do after we are born is a choice each of us makes. hopefully, we will care about others but if not, c’est la vie. in any case, from my perspective, given our history of enslavement and social restrictions, i believe we should be advocates of freedom and when one of us decides to live in a way that is different from most of us, that choice should be accepted.

 

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