How race and ignorance shape our view of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock Hall 2015 exhibit

A visitor looks over the 2015 Class exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum on Friday, April 17, 2015.

(Thomas Ondrey)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - With just seven words this past April, Ice Cube put opponents of hip-hop's inclusion in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on blast.

"God damn right, we're rock and roll," Ice Cube proclaimed during N.W.A.'s acceptance speech at the 2016 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony held in Brooklyn, N.Y.

N.W.A.'s induction followed months of debate amongst fans, critics and artists about what genres of music deserve to be featured in the Rock Hall. The groundbreaking rap group is just the latest of a handful of hip-hop acts -- including Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys -- to enter the museum over the past decade.

"Rock and roll is not an instrument," Ice Cube said. "It's not even a style of music. It's a spirit...that's what connects us all."

Cube's remarks came on the heels of another recent inductee, KISS' Gene Simmons, criticizing N.W.A.'s induction, while taking a shot at hip-hop as an art form.

"I am looking forward to the death of rap," Simmons boldly told Rolling Stone in April. "I'm looking forward to music coming back to lyrics and melody, instead of just talking. A song, as far as I'm concerned, is by definition lyric and melody ... or just melody."

Simmons' comments represent the disdain from some fans that often proceeds the annual announcement of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees. Over the years, the inductions of everyone from Hall & Oates and ABBA to Donna Summer and even Michael Jackson have been met with criticism, because they don't fall into the accepted definition of "rock."

Some of it might have to do with racism, sexism or ageism. Yet, most likely it has to do with an increased ignorance about what rock and roll was founded on.

It's a topic author Jack Hamilton poignantly tackles in his new book "Just around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination."

Hamilton, a professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, describes how rock and roll went from an art form pioneered by black musicians and rooted in rhythm and blues to being overly simplified as "rock," a genre symbolized by a white man with a guitar.

"By the end of [the 1960s], rock and roll music, which was first seen as an interracial art form, had become viewed as almost exclusively white," says Hamilton, phoning in from his office. "There developed a total lack of understanding that a lot of music you listen to was created by black musicians. For instance, Led Zeppelin is great but they didn't invent rock and roll music."

In his book, Hamilton points out how artists like Bob Dylan and Sam Cooke, or Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin were put into different musical genres despite being rooted in the same influences.

Hamilton argues that, by the 1970s, "rock music" was seen as the most artistically significant of genres by many fans and critics. Their desire to protect the art form's image (which was predominantly masculine and white) created an active hostility towards any music that served as an alternative.

One clear example this, says Hamilton, is a young Prince being booed mercilessly while opening for the Rolling Stones on tour in the early 1980s. While Prince's over-sexed style and the color of his skin was viewed as weird, in retrospect, the two artists come from similar influences. Prince's mix of funk, pop and rock isn't much of a departure from songs like "Brown Sugar" or "Miss You."

"The Rolling Stone were extremely proactive about crediting their influences, particularly in the 1960s," says Hamilton. "But in the minds of their fans, the band itself became the authentic entity and, somehow, the one who invented rock music."

The first genre as a whole to be seen as an alternative to rock and, thus, experience a major backlash was disco. The infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1979 saw thousands of rock music fans destroying disco records.

Since that time, Disco Demolition Night has become viewed by some historians as having more to do with racism and homophobia than the actual quality of disco music. But much of that prejudice remains in music circles, specifically when debating an artist's Rock Hall candidacy.

"Queen of Disco" Donna Summer's posthumous induction in 2013 was met with uproar, especially since she was chosen over a guitar-driven act like Deep Purple.

That same thought process has kept Chic out of the Rock Hall despite 10 nominations, with some critics dismissing Nile Rodgers' pioneering group as "a disco band."

In reality, Chic's influence on dance music and hip-hop, arguably, makes the group more pivotal than the majority of artists inducted into the Rock Hall over the past few years. Listen to radio today and you'll find far more artists influenced by Chic than acts like Chicago or Steve Miller, two artists inducted this past April.

In terms of more modern music, Rock purists scoff at the sight of Beyonce's dresses or the Notorious' B.I.G.'s jersey being featured prominently in the museum. The same people dismiss the "Right Here, Right Now" exhibit, which spotlights contemporary stars like Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift.

With the Class of 2017 nominations due next month, the possibility of rap legend Tupac Shakur making the cut is sure to enrage some fans. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a pop-culture icon drew the ire of rock purists.

When the nominees for the Class of 2016 were announced last October, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame CEO Greg Harris made the statement, "One could say if Madonna is in, Janet Jackson should be in" to highlight Jackson's long overdue nomination.

That drew criticism from rock music fans that insisted it was "a completely ridiculous comparison, [as] Janet is factually nothing compared to Madonna" (one commenter wrote).

Harris' words also fired up fans that want to see nothing other than male-dominated guitar rock inside the museum:

"Janet Jackson deserves to be in a "black entertainers" HOF and Madonna deserves to be in a "white entertainers" HOF," another commenter wrote. "But neither deserves to be in the R&R HOF. Perhaps they could both be in a 'female entertainers' HOF."

"Fandom is a really powerful thing," Hamilton says. "The way some musicians and fans identify themselves with the music they listen to produces non-productive and irrational thoughts. Anything that's seemingly an alternative is a threat."

All of this, Hamilton says, points towards a bigger issue moving forward: "If [the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame] doesn't start opening the doors to more diverse artists, they're going to run out of people to put in."

But the Rock Hall has long recognized this. The museum itself has done an excellent job highlighting all genres of music.

And, despite a major lack of transparency in its process, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation has continued to nominate artists outside of the narrow scope of "rock music".

Of course, that doesn't mean close-minded fans will ever accept it. Many will insist the museum should exist only to honor guitar rock. Thus, ignoring the gospel, rhythm and blues, swing, boogie-woogie and country music that rock and roll borrowed heavily from.

"I don't think we've ever really known what rock and roll is," Hamilton says. "Musical genres are very imaginative things. Fans will just have to realize Public Enemy and N.W.A. were every bit the avant-garde of their time that Bob Dylan was in the 1960s. These are debates that should have ended by now."

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