The other day when I was driving home from school, I was listening to a local radio station. The radio host was an African American female and she was discussing Pharell's new album, G I R L, specifically the album cover. The album cover features Pharrell surrounded by beautiful women, which seems normal for a typical cover in the music industry today, but there is just one problem: none of the women are African American, the radio host explained.
When I got home, I Googled the album and several articles came up addressing the same observation that the radio host brought up. I was surprised that this was such a controversy, especially considering that Pharell himself, is African American. Were these articles trying to accuse Pharrell of being racist against his own race? I was confused.
So was Pharrell, apparently. In his responses to these criticisms about the lack of diversity included on his cover, Pharrel commented on how unbelievable it was that he even had to discuss racial issues regarding his music in 2014. He also said that while she is light-skinned, one of the women included on the cover is in fact, African American.
It made me wonder why critics were so concerned with this album cover. What was the point of bringing this up and ultimately, what was their claim? I happened to agree with Pharrell on this one; this is clearly not a situation where African American women are being wrongfully discluded (or discluded at all).
Regardless of the pettiness of this particular situation, I found it to be extremely interesting that debates over race and music are so prevalent in modern society. It was first hand evidence of what Professor McKinney continues to point out, which is that the Civil Rights movement is not a short period of American history that happened and is now over. Instead, it is an ongoing aspect to American culture that continues to be embedded in our modern society, no matter how far we have come from blatant discrimination.
I also think this goes to show that music is not just what we hear; its a matter of what we see too. When an artist is African American, they have different expectations from the public for instance, to include other African Americans on their album covers, than those of white artists. Race so clearly is an issue of the past in the American music industry, and continues to be a factor in our interpretation of music today, especially in the hip-hop/rap genre.
Here is a link to one of the articles I found: http://theboombox.com/pharrell-girl-album-cover-racial-controversy
Image credit: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pharrell+new+album&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=FC85196605E147561C33E2247ADAE84F4DA39744&selectedIndex=0
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ReplyDeleteThe issue of perceived racial transgression has a long history in the musical industry. Both black and white artists have been criticized by members of their own “race”, for looking, acting, and sounding like a member of another “race”. Conservative forces criticized Elvis with the white community for sounding too much like black singers. Eminem was criticized for pursuing a traditionally black art form, and for “acting black.” It could be easy to chalk up the criticism of Pharell to just another instance of this, and that may be the case. At the same time though, the embodiments of beauty published in our culture have historically been white women. For an artist to choose three women who from the naked eye appear to be white, Pharrel could be said to be participating and encouraging in this tradition.
ReplyDeletePharrell occupies an interesting place in the musical industry. He is a tremendously successful hip-hop artist and producer. His music has cultural origins in the black community, but his public persona and musical style do not conform to stereotypes about hyper masculinity in black music. His success and visibility will almost inevitably lead to more claims about how he should be acting or what his work should be like. Pharrell is not the first artist to experience this, and he won’t be the last.
The instrumentals for this song are done by Pharrell, and one of Pusha T's verses addresses the limitations placed on musicians by outsiders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GKL_ZoJQjc