The Vitality of Black Criticism

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The way he was able to bring his poetics to writing about music and left these indelible lines to these things, they formed my own critical perspective, my own critical understanding of how the opportunity to talk about music is of course the opportunity to bring all our life to who we are. And that’s also why most of us who were writing in the 80s and 90s really became, or were, multidisciplinary artists. We never thought that criticism was the alpha and omega of what we had to offer.

Between I would say 1977 and 2000, there was a community of black writers in New York: The Voice first, then The Source and then Vibe. So we all come into the game thinking that criticizing black people is something we do as a gang. And because you had the almost instant gratification of the community’s response, you knew what you were writing had an impact. With The Voice, if it came out on Wednesday, you knew by Saturday what people were thinking.

WESLEY MORRIS At some point I realized there were definitely gaps in terms of who was speaking and who was writing about what. I was spending hours watching BET, VH1 and MTV, and you were starting to see that there are people being boxed in by these programmers. I mean Joan Armatrading? She’s never been on MTV. I could see that there were things that needed to be addressed, or straightened out, in terms of who was acknowledged, whose existences were acknowledged. There are black women who have made music that has changed my life and have never received reviews in any magazine. The most complete description I got was Vibe, when it first appeared. Because I was expecting this. I had expected people to recognize that there was some merit in this music.

I’ve noticed over the last 10 years, let’s say, but it’s probably even older, that there’s a real reluctance to seriously engage in the work and the craft of the work and what the music does pop, what does it look like. I don’t know if it’s for fear of making a mistake. I don’t know if it’s a fear of what Twitter might do to you if you’re wrong. This ties into a question of ethics, which is what falls into this gap between greatness and shit that only criticism can both explain and somehow reify. To me, it feels like a crisis that no one really acknowledges, but I think it’s because there still aren’t enough black people to take up this job and do something about it.

DANYEL SMITH Look, it’s the criticism that’s definitely missing. I’m constantly, constantly in a slight panic about music that’s been created in the last 15 to 20 years that hasn’t been listened to like his real music. I’m concerned about artists like Cardi B and Drake, who are literally the biggest stars in the world, and their music isn’t talked about very seriously. Comparing it to what happened in the past, comparing it to what might happen in the future, the context of when it came out to when it didn’t. Again, as an editor, I say, what about well-known and deeply reported stories and profiles that are not written? The columns?

It has to do, I think, with a generation of black writers who never really worked with black editors. And I think, imperfect as we were, at Vibe, XXL, The Source, Essence there were hip-hop magazines all over there there wasn’t enough of the publisher Im a Black knows a lot; and I’m a black writer who wants to know more. I don’t know where they are. Not enough, anyway.

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