Premeditated Murder: The Annihilation of Soul in Black Music

Kimberly J. Davis (2017). Premeditated Murder: The Annihilation of Soul in Black Music.

Overview

In this work, I examine how soul music, once a powerful vehicle for Black love, liberation, and collective wellness, was systematically replaced in mainstream culture by profit-driven, "soulless" music. I trace soul's origins in the Civil Rights Movement, its role in political and spiritual awakening, and the ways capitalism, crossover marketing, and the white-owned music industry transformed Black musical expression, with profound consequences for our collective well-being.

Full Text

Still hear Donny playin' them keys

Sangin' one day we'll all be free

Can't even turn on my radio

Somebody hollerin' bout a bitch or a hoe

Right now I'm missing music

Black folks count on music

Where did all the soul go?

It's all about the video

We don't sang no mo'

Where's the music gone?

Where'd the music go?

It's all just for the dough

It ain't songs no mo'

Where's the music gone?[1]

– Soul Singer & Songwriter, Leela James, “Music”

I get chills every time I listen to this song. Leela James sings with passion and longing for the days when music nourished our souls. Many soul music pioneers are gracing the heavens with songs of holistic love and powerful tunes of change, while other soul singers and musicians who continue on this earthly journey have faded into obscurity. George Nelson, prolific African American author of several ground breaking books about the history of African American music states: “There is something missing in Black America, and symptoms of the illness are in its music.”[2] One could always monitor the pulse of African American’s communal wellness by the state of our music. Unfortunately, the pulse of our music has grown weak, negligible, and absent. It is no longer a clear indicator of our current state of wellness. Or is it?

It is perplexing for me to acknowledge and surrender to the realization that the voice, energy, and spirit of our people have devolved into self-hatred, violence, misogyny, and greed. This is not what our soul music pioneers sung about nor envisioned as the future for a people they so loved. How did we lose the soul in our music? Our musical ancestors created a recipe of empowerment through soul music by mixing love with spirit, hope, and change. What bitter ingredients were added to the dish, spoiling it and poisoning the minds and souls of our future generations? 

In this discourse, I explore the disappearance of soul music from mainstream music to understand why the powerful music of soul, which represents love, freedom, and spirit, has been silenced. It is my desire to awaken sleeping adolescents to the sacredness of music and how it can be used to empower, or disempower an entire generation of people. According to a study conducted by Dave Miranda on the role of music in adolescent development, he states that “music can influence key aspects of adolescent development – for instance, aesthetics; identity; socialization; emotion regulation and coping; personality and motivation; gender roles; personality; and positive youth development”.[3] Consequently, music directly influences and impacts the heart and soul of our youth.

While some analysts argue that black youth have lost an appreciation for love, resulting in the demise of soul music,[4] I contend that soul music is intentionally silenced and replaced with soulless music to order to maintain oppressive systems that disempower and criminalize African Americans, particularly our youth. 

Message in the Music

My relationship to soul music is one that is sacred. Soul music has nourished my heart and soul from the very moment I was conceived. As an infant in my mother’s womb, I moved to the vibrations of music that energized my soul. My mother has memories of me rocking, dancing, and singing to soul music before I could even walk or talk for that matter. Soul music has been my constant companion, a lover and nurturer of my soul, providing me with unconditional love and joy from childhood to the present. Therefore, I refuse to remain idle and simply observe the slow painful death of soul music without exploring why and how it can be rescued.

The mainstream genre of soul music began in the 1960’s emerging from a spirit of social, political and economic liberation.[5] According to Portia Maultsby, “soul singers not only discussed the depressing social and economic conditions of black communities but they also offered solutions for improvement and change.”[6]

Soul music is an eclectic combination of blues and gospel. The goal of soul music was to transmit holistic healing through sound. As a result, the listener was empowered by beautiful, meaningful lyrics and well-orchestrated music that awakened the mind, body and spirit to action. Ultimately, “soul music wasn’t just entertainment”.[7] It was a powerful force to awakened the masses.

In addition, the reach of soul music was expansive, teaching both Black and White Americans the importance of universal love, love for self, love for your partner, love for the planet, love for freedom, and love for all sentient beings. LeRoi Jones contends that soul music is both spiritual and transcendental: “because the will of expression (of soul music) is spiritual, and as such it must transcend its mineral, vegetable, animal, environment.”[8] Transcending the current conditions of oppression, soul music gave rise to a higher consciousness of self-love and liberation. It is for these reasons that soul music will forever be connected to the Civil Rights movement.

Music historian Craig Werner explains that “it’s impossible to understand the power of this music apart from the political energy of the African American Freedom movement. Like the movement, soul music emerged at a unique moment in American history.”[9] The power of soul music was rooted in its inherent ability to connect to the soul of the listener, crossing racial lines and economic barriers, and refusing “to fall within the either-or binaries of method, gender, theology or politics.”[10] There is no denying the social, political and economic impact that soul music had not only on its Black audience but on the vision for a new America transformed by love, liberation, and compassion.

When Donny Hathaway sings, “someday we’ll all be free” or Sam Cooke powerfully bellows “a change gone come” the melody, music, and lyrics activate the heart center and allows us to imagine a future free from racial discrimination, oppression, abuse, and poverty. Black people believed with their heart and soul that freedom and change were right around the corner because Donny and Sam said so.

Silky soul singer Marvin Gaye serenaded us, while chastising our abusive treatment of Mother Earth in the most beautiful, spirit infused song Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology). In this timeless classic, Marvin draws awareness to the fact that we are all are spiritually connected and have a responsibility to nurture and love all living beings on Mother Earth, including non-human nature:

Ah, oh mercy, mercy me
Ah things ain't what they used to be, no no
Radiation under ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying

Oh mercy, mercy me
Oh things ain't what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land
How much more abuse from man can she stand?[11]

There is always a message in soul music that resonates with the soul. Surely, one would think a genre of music this powerful would maintain a place in mainstream music, and in rotation over our daily radio waves. It has been over 6 decades since the humble beginnings of soul music, and Black folk are still fighting racism, oppression, sexism, and classism. Furthermore, the ecological systems of our planet have worsened, and we are now headed towards catastrophic planetary, environmental destruction. So, where is the uplifting, empowering, conscious music that once upon a time educated, inspired, and empowered all Americans to envision a better way of life? Soul music is just as vital to our survival now as it has ever been in the past. Therefore, why has it been erased from mainstream culture and daily airplay?

Death of the Soul in Music

Turn on your local black radio station and it will become clear that soul music is now a ghost of the past. A faded memory of a point in time when love, liberation, and spirit reigned supreme. Was it an accidental death, a casualty of the new era of pop, gansta rap, and hip hop? Or perhaps it was premeditated murder, an attempt to destroy the souls of several generations of young unassuming Black men and women. With the rise of this new genre of soulless music, Black women are incessantly degraded, sexualized, and dehumanized, while Black men are shamelessly criminalized. How did we get here, where did it start, and who is to blame?

The excavation of the roots of soul music began with one word, crossover. Crossover is the intentional sale of black hits to white people, which are considered the mainstream audiences.[12] For Black artists, this was the hope for the great American economic dream. In other words, it was time for them to finally get paid. Soul music at its peak inspired creativity and black empowerment; however, in lieu of economic wealth and crossover appeal the messaging in the music began to shift to one more palatable to its new consumers. Nelsen explains the consequences of this shift in allegiance:

“Thee community that inspired both social change and artistic creativity has become a sad shell of itself…While the drive behind the movement for social change was the greatest inspiration for the music, the very success of the movement spelled the end of the R&B world.”[13]

Once major music companies like CBS began to recognize the appeal of soul music to white audiences, they began implementing policies for institutionalizing crossover soul music to capitalize off sales from mainstream white consumers.[14] These policies included recruiting soul music powerhouse artists by offering them lucrative contracts with promises of instant fame and fortune. As a result, not only was the soul in the music shifting, artists that were true soul singers like Bobby Womack were dropped from their record labels when they were unable to “crossover”.[15]

The 80’s and 90’s brought in a new era of music marketing which still persists today of large white owned record companies luring popular black artists away from their roots and elevating them to the promised land of fame, fortune, and egoic popular mainstream culture. Consequently, creativity and creative control suffered immensely in favor of capitalism. According to Werner, “by the end of the century, the green dollar would ironically enough become the defining of a new form of segregation that mocked the vision of the singer.”[16] In essence, at that point, the soul in our music had been sold to the highest bidder. Rasheed Abouhassan contends that “if music loses its soul, or its message, it becomes nothing more than a money-making tool, especially in an era when the label gets much more of a cut of the artist’s success than the artist ever will.”[17]

Soulless Music

When capitalism becomes the master of music, not only does creativity suffer, but everyone connected to the music, including artists, radio, musicians, listeners, promoters, managers, and consumers, become prey. Ultimately, they fall victim to the diabolical methods used to maintain the racist, sexist, oppressive systems foundational for capitalism to thrive. As such, the need for music to be positive, creative, uplifting, and/or inspiring disappears and the desire to make music as a contribution to cultural advancement shifts into being a profit-driven transactional endeavor void of soul.

This ideology has led to the replacement of soul music with soulless music. Soulless music is uninspiring and disconnected from the energy and power of love. This music has been infesting Black communities since the 1990’s. Some have tried to classify this music as Hip Hop; however, I argue that it is disingenuous considering the roots of hip-hop were established by some of the most brilliant oral storytellers. These messengers were the voice of the community rapping about love, pain, survival, racism, politics, and poverty. There was a message in that music, in contrast to the soulless music blaring through the earbuds of today’s youth.

African American adolescents are inundated and programed with soulless music filled with misogynistic, hyper-sexual, and violent lyrics. In “The Role of Music in Adolescent Development: Much More than the Same Old Song," Miranda suggests that “adolescence is a critical period for the gradual development of identity. Adolescents evaluate their physical attractiveness and self-worth by comparing themselves with music media characters…For young ethnic minorities, music can be a resource for developing cultural identity.”[18] Accordingly, soulless music has the power to negatively affect the way Black youth relate to themselves and the world around them.

This music espouses that violence and criminality are the only means for survival, that the degradation of women is the man’s rite of passage, and that the epitome of success resides in the idolatry of money. A billion-dollar music industry has been built on manipulating Black youths, psychologically brain-washing them into ascribing to this degrading vision of themselves.

In “Black Women and Black Men in Hip Hop Music: Misogyny, Violence and the Negotiation of (White-Owned) Space,” Guillermo Rebollo-Gil and Amanda Moras argue that a critical analysis must be employed to both recognize and challenge how racism and white supremacy informs the soullessness of music.[19]  The green light approval process by the record companies of this degrading music stems from the already accepted racist beliefs that Black women are whores and Black men are criminals. Rebollo-Gil and Moras explain:

By portraying, African Americans as exotic, erotic or oversexed, one decontextualizes their experience, marginalizes them and removes the possibility of a self-defined sexuality…selling fear and promiscuity as ideologies justifying racial apartheid [20]

In essence, this portrayal validates the negative stereotypes of Black degenerate lifestyles, in which record companies profit and prison complexes thrive. According to Rebollo-Gil and Moras:

Hip hop exacerbates this image of criminality, at times even obscuring a criminal justice system that actively persecutes black men, by purporting a seemingly voluntary and lauded criminal identity. The overrepresentation of black men in the prison industrial system then appears to be the direct product of overly increasing black male criminality as opposed to a systematic and institutionalized system of white supremacy.[21]

It comes as no surprise that no other cultures music parallels with black cultures soulless form of music. White adolescents don’t experience the imagery of young white men engaging in criminal behavior and glorifying prison in music. Nor do they listen to thumping lyrics guised as music, which repeatedly denigrates the bodies and sexualities of white women. As Miranda previously suggested, music shapes the cultural identity of adolescents. Sadly, for Black men this identity is linked to criminality and death, and for Black women, sexual abuse and objectification. Rebollo-Gil and Moras concur:

The most potent and grandiose displays of black masculinity are only possible through the vicious, graphic and constant portrayal of black males’ physical and spiritual demise. Interestingly enough, however, it is Black women and Black womanhood who are the most persecuted, attacked and damaged by this music.[22]

So where do we go from here? One could argue that it is the responsibility of the music artist to create and promote healthy images that represent the cultural norms of society as was demonstrated by our soul music pioneers. However, I contend that the responsibility resides in the collective; the artists, writers, musicians, record companies, radio DJs, and consumers.

Nelsen argues:

“The challenge facing black artists, producers, radio programmers, and entrepreneurs of every description is to free themselves from the comforts of crossover, to recapture their racial identity, and to fight for the right to exist on their own terms”.[23]

Artistry and creativity must reign supreme over capitalism to dismantle systems of oppression so deeply embedded in Black music. Consciousness must vibrate higher than profitability to resonate once again with the frequency of love, peace, joy, and universal connection with all of creation to honor the sacredness of Black soul music. In other words, we must abandon the practice of selling our souls for profit and reclaim the essence of our souls in order to restore the soul in our music.

Footnotes

 [1]. Leela James, “Music”, AZLyrics, 2005, https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leelajames/music.html

 [2]. George Nelson, The Death of Rhythm & Blues (New York: Penguin Group, 2001), Introduction.

 [3]. Dave Miranda, "The Role of Music in Adolescent Development: Much More than the Same Old Song," International Journal of Adolescence and Youth 18, no. 1 (Mar, 2013): 18.

[4].  John Blake, “Where is the Love in R&B Music?” CNN, December 3, 2011, http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/02/showbiz/music/love-songs/index.html.

[5]. Portia K. Maultsby, “Soul Music: Its Sociological and Political Significance in American Popular Culture,” Journal of Popular Culture 17.2 (1983): 51.

[6]. Ibid.

[7].  Craig Werner, Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul (New York: Three Rivers, 2004), 2.

[8].  Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Black Music: The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music), (New York: Akashic Books, 1967), 211.

[9]. Werner, Higher Ground, 4.

[10]. Jason Danielson, "The Role of Soul: Stax Records and the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tennessee." Order No. 1601788, Iowa State University, 2015.   

[11]. Marvin Gaye, Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), 1971. Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.

[12]. Nelson, The Death of Rhythm & Blues, 164.

[13]. Ibid., Introduction.

[14]. Ibid., 163.

[15]. Ibid., 164.

[16]. Werner, Higher Ground, 9.  

[17]. Rasheed Abouhassan, “Music has lost its soul: The problems of today’s pop music industry,” The Young Wander, August 30, 2013, http://www.theyoungwanderer.com/music-has-lost-its-soul-the-problems-of-todays-pop-music-industry-rasheed-abouhassan/.

[18].  Miranda, The Role of Music, 11.

[19]. Guillermo Rebollo-Gil and Amanda Moras, "Black Women and Black Men in Hip Hop Music: Misogyny, Violence and the Negotiation of (White-Owned) Space," The Journal of Popular Culture 45, no. 1 (2012): 130.

[20]. Ibid., 120.

[21]. Ibid.

[22]. Ibid., 125.

[23]. Nelson, The Death of Rhythm & Blues, 214.

Bibliography

Abouhassan, Rasheed. “Music has lost its soul: The problems of today’s pop music industry.” The Young Wander, August 30, 2013. http://www.theyoungwanderer.com/music-has-lost-its-soul-the-problems-of-todays-pop-music-industry-rasheed-abouhassan/.

Blake, John. “Where is the Love in R&B Music?” CNN, December 3, 2011. http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/02/showbiz/music/love-songs/index.html.

Danielson, Jason. "The Role of Soul: Stax Records and the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tennessee." Order No. 1601788, Iowa State University, 2015. http://resources.ciis.edu:2048/login?url=https://resources.ciis.edu:2131/docview/1725111487?accountid=25260.

Gaye, Marvin. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology). 1971. Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.

Jones, Leroi (Amiri Baraka). Black Music: The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music). New York: Akashic Books, 1967.

Legendre, Kevin. “Black music artists are struggling to compete with white major-label soul-pop.” Independent Culture, March 20, 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/black-music-artists-are-struggling-to-compete-with-white-major-label-soul-pop-10120580.html.

Maultsby, Portia K. “Soul Music: Its Sociological and Political Significance in American Popular Culture.” Journal of Popular Culture 17.2 (1983): 51-60.

Miranda, Dave. "The Role of Music in Adolescent Development: Much More than the Same Old Song." International Journal of Adolescence and Youth 18, no. 1 (Mar, 2013): 5-22. doi:10.1080/02673843.2011.650182. http://resources.ciis.edu:2238/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2011.650182.

Nelson, George. The Death of Rhythm and Blues. New York: Penguin Group, 2004.

Parker, Scott, Louis III Brown, Bobby Ross Avila, Alechia Campbell, and Issiah Avila. Music. James, Leela. 2005. Warner Bros. Records Inc. (CD).

Rebollo-Gil, Guillermo and Amanda Moras. "Black Women and Black Men in Hip Hop Music: Misogyny, Violence and the Negotiation of (White-Owned) Space." The Journal of Popular Culture 45, no. 1 (2012): 118-132. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00898.x. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00898.x.

Werner, Craig. Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul. New York: Three Rivers, 2004.