Just to make the same link come up 3 times a row on my friendslist

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Lex interviews Estelle - and the 'racist music industry' argument gets into the main news section too. IN YR BROADSHEETS SETTING YR AGENDA.

The opening bit of the interview reads - probably unintentionally - like classic Morleyan entrapment though: get Estelle to rant about how Adele ain't soul and she can't tell me what soul is, then ask Estelle what soul is and get staggeringly vague answer.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

agh it's not meant to sound like an insane rant at all.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong it's a great interview and the broad point about who gets promoted when and why is crucial - that particular juxtaposition made me chuckle though.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

the bit about her defn of soul was going to be the closing para at first! until i found a better one.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Just as well since like most definitions of soul it's classic lady-if-you-have-to-ask... bullshit!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

the elephant in that particular corner of the room - which I didn't have the time or space to go into in this interview - is of course that soul is traditionally black music and an integral part of the black experience; which isn't to say that white people can't do it (we talked about Amy W a lot, whom Estelle loves and totally accepted as a soul singer) but when only white people are promoted, and they're singing a v much 'whitified' version of it, then there is an issue there.

also re: the 'black experience', Estelle also said interesting things about how easily she bonded with black Americans compared to white Britons even though theirs was in many ways a more alien culture.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There is a whole herd of elephants in the room I think Lex!

- Amy W's success very obviously!
- Pop Idol/X Factor and the tighter definition of "good voices"
- For Duffy at least the 60s retro thing goes WAY beyond soul (what white working-class kids - which clearly Duffy isn't - DO with soul is a massive part of UK pop tradition too)
- The way the media treats soul when it's out of fashion - which it is for LONG periods of time - I simply don't know whether soul music *is* any kind of living tradition in large parts of the black British music industry or community.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I particularly thought of your third point too! And come on, the Duffy album is called ROCKFERRY, I get a strong kitchen-sink-y thing from Duffy (which I quite like actually).

I have let Adele completely bypass my radar, quite purposefully but Duffy just keeps on howlin', she juuuust keeps howlliiin' awaaaaaaay (thanks Leona for that).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah Duffy seems to me like some kind of How Does It Feel To Be Loved fantasy figure scrubbed up for the mainstream!

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

By Bob Stanley, at that!!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's what he's been dreaming of ever since "One Goodbye In Ten" flopped!

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

well, by bernard butler actually...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

- also: strictly speaking Estelle is/has been more hip-hop anyway and the question of why UK hip-hop is ignored vis-a-vis why UK soul is ignored has long been a bigger beef (until white-girl soul suddenly became fashionable) (I hope this was made clear: the hyping of white girls singing soul is only a part of the wider issue, ie the entire spectrum of black British music, not just soul, being ghettoised or ignored)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I think it's clear to us because we've been discussing it for the last few weeks, but your average Graun reader may think different. What saddens me is that music dudes who should know better are already sharpening the knives for Estelle. £5 to the first person to spot a press article branding her as 'bitchy' or 'mouthy' :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I know right, agh I hate people. It's not as if I couldn't see it coming, but I think I've represented Estelle's views fairly (and I think they're views which needed to be expressed), and it's just frustrating to see anyone who speaks their mind about what they perceive as injustice to immediately be labelled UPPITY BITCH by idiots who can't fucking read.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

nb: this comment (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/03/estelle.html#comment-1017786) from the related Grau blog is pretty much spot on.

the others remind me why I don't tend to read Grau blog comments.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

That is possibly the unmeasured spirits, though :)

I think it was fairly present in the interview as is, any more might have tilted the perception into "I have problems with these people doing this" rather than "More people should do that".

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Though I see immediately below me that it hasn't stopped people taking that impression anyway. Well done the internets.

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

"the elephant in that particular corner of the room - which I didn't have the time or space to go into in this interview - is of course that soul is traditionally black music and an integral part of the black experience; which isn't to say that white people can't do it (we talked about Amy W a lot, whom Estelle loves and totally accepted as a soul singer) but when only white people are promoted, and they're singing a v much 'whitified' version of it, then there is an issue there"

I think that sounds fair, and that it's reasonable to say that there's an issue there. However, it's a shame that there wasn't more space for the Winehouse discussion, because this sentence:

"As a black person, I’m like: you’re telling me this is my music?"

is the prime candidate for interpreting as "white people cannot do soul". I think the distinction between white and whitified is perhaps one that could have more time spent on it (in the world at large). Is it really that more often than not, the "whitified" versions are promoted over as-authentic-but-as-such-not-as-mainstream "white" performers? (Amy being an obvious exception here) I'm not sure, but I think that thinking in those terms makes for more interesting discussion than simply white/non-white.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I toyed with putting the Amy thing in but thought, you know, fuck it: Estelle doesn't need her words qualified by stuff like that, and it wasn't so much a discussion as just Estelle going, oh I think Amy's amazing.

The trouble is once you start ACTUALLY USING words like 'black' and 'white' you end up having to qualify and double-qualify everything you say; it'd be a good candidate for a stand-alone column but in a piece with the focus on a specific person, there just wasn't room.

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I understand wrt space/focus - it's an interview, not a column. I was more thinking about jumping off points that weren't what the majority of blog/forum traffic is going to pick up on. It's still a good article either way.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Also I don't get the feeling that if I had included the one line "I think Amy W's amazing though", it would have stopped any of the complainants from misreading or just not reading or whatever they're doing.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

It's a shame you didn't include that, especially the Winehouse bit, because it does hold Estelle open to attacks of the "why can't white people sing soul?" variety and it would be a fair point.

She refused to be cowed by anything in the States, either, giving as good as she got: "They kept saying 'bloo-y' [with a glottal stop] this' and 'bloo-y that'," says Estelle, pursing her lips in distaste. "I was like, have you ever heard a British person before? Where do you think I'm from? No one's ever said 'bloo-y' like that."

I have no idea what the fuck she's going on about here.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Does she mean 'bloody'?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

bloo-y = bloody

^^^ re why I didn't put Winehouse thing in, people praising AW is just not interesting b/c everyone does it