Why Does It Feel Important To Like Rap? (As A Jazz Fan)
If you like jazz, you are connecting with a form of African-American-origin popular music; if you like hip-hop, you somehow are doing the same thing. (Especially if you accept Nicholas Payton’s term “Black American Music,” the idea behind so much Internet debate of late.) While it is possible to consider hip-hop and modern R&B to be a radical enough break as to constitute its own genre, it’s also possible to consider its connections to previous incarnations of black pop, to the narrative of a blues tradition, to the expression of what it means to be black or even just “other” in the Western world. Sound may not be cognizant of skin color, but the ways we make sense of it very well might be.
Additionally, jazz lovers tend to be concerned about the popularity of the music. Many of us want to grow the audience, realizing that current low interest will diminish future opportunities to see the stuff. But if jazz fans can’t make sense of today’s popular music, and understand how blues-based improvised music fits into that landscape, it’s hard to know how to direct those efforts toward the people for whom jazz is foreign.
—Patrick Jarenwattananon, NPR’s A Blog Supreme
