I think rap is about being rebellious. Andre thought rap was about getting large. Period. And that was extra-ghetto in a way. | | | | Little Richard circa 1967.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I think rap is about being rebellious. Andre thought rap was about getting large. Period. And that was extra-ghetto in a way.”
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| | rantnrave:// If LITTLE RICHARD's career had started with "a womp" and ended with "bam boom"—that is, if it had been 2 seconds long—it still would have been one of the watershed careers in 20th century music. The ecstatic shout of a gay black man in the 1950s South realizing, embracing and releasing the entirety of himself in 10 shouted nonsense syllables that gave everyone who heard it, gay, straight, black, white, southern, northern, boy, girl, whatever, wherever, permission to jump up, shout it out loud and follow their own womp-bomp-a-loo-bop arrow. No one invented rock and roll, it happened on a long continuum, but that was one of the moments that sort of did. And Richard Penniman may well have invented the rock star. Brash, cocky, wild, loud, omnisexual, sacred, profane, dangerous, mysterious, unpredictable, beautifully coiffed, effortlessly dressed. No Little Richard, No Jimi, No Beatles No Bowie, No Bolan. NO GLAM, No Freddie, No Prince, No Elton, No Preston No Sly, No Stevie. Richard, who recorded an extraordinary string of hits in an extraordinarily short time and then spent his remaining decades joining the church, quitting the church, embracing his sexuality, fighting his sexuality and recording tons of music that deserved a better reception than it got, would be the first to tell you he was underappreciated. Then he would add, with a laugh the size of the moon, "SHUT UP!" This unscripted routine at the 1988 Grammy Awards in which he complains "y'all ain't never gave me no Grammy" and proceeds to name himself Best New Artist three times over a hilariously interminable 60 seconds before finally giving the award to JODY WATLEY, is one a thousand definitive Little Richard TV moments. But he'd also be the first to shower praise on everyone who followed him. The BEATLES and ROLLING STONES opened for him. JIMI HENDRIX played in his band. He helped JAMES BROWN get his first record deal. He was BOB DYLAN's "shining star" who "moved me to do everything I would do." Do all these people owe him something?, talk show host DICK CAVETT once asked him. "I don't want anything from them," Richard said. "All I want them to do is to spread what they got from me. God gave it to me, and they got it from me, so just carry the good word." And they did. And none of them ever topped "TUTTI FRUTTI." RIP... Jesus, this weekend, this year. You'll find several stories below about the pioneering record executive ANDRE HARRELL, who had a lot to do with shaping the sound, and the global reach, of modern R&B and hip-hop (I mean, maybe stop everything and read that 1993 VANITY FAIR profile right now), and the soul singer BETTY WRIGHT (stop everything again and listen to this), who "quietly conjured a second act as a confidante, muse, and teacher to some of the world’s best-known hip-hop artists"... RIP also ETSUO NAGURA and LUKE GLEESON. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| Many artists around the start of the rock era pointed toward sex, but in his performance of "Tutti Frutti" and other songs, Little Richard enacted sexual excitement itself. | | |
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| The new flavor in predominantly white Hollywood is black, and the man who is stirring things up is Andre Harrell, the 32-year-old founder of Uptown Entertainment. | | |
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| Though she is remembered around the world for two singles, “Clean Up Woman” and “Tonight Is the Night,” Betty Wright has quietly conjured a second act as a confidante, muse, and teacher to some of the world’s best-known hip-hop artists. | | |
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| For self-employed artists whose incomes have been wiped out by the shutdown, trying to access unemployment insurance and other aid is distressing. | | |
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| In the first livestream event, Recode senior correspondent Peter Kafka interviews SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor on the challenges of running a streaming audio business with hundreds of millions of users and a workforce distributed around the world. | | |
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| What SoundCloud can do to win back lost ground from its most important competitor: Instagram. | | |
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| The pandemic has forced labels into increasingly experimental tactics for album marketing. “Necessity is the mother of invention in this case,” an Epic Records executive says. | | |
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| From ghetto fabulous to New Jack Swing, if it was unapologetically black and cool, Harrell had a hand in it. | | |
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| While Wright's multi-faceted career has seen her importance and influence trickle down to future generations in numerous ways, what still resounds the most are her classic original songs. | | |
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| America loved Little Richard. His music made your liver quiver and your knees freeze. Now, after years of ogling orgies and holding parties in his nose, he confesses how the Devil made him do it and the Good Lord made him stop. | | |
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| The singer on her new album, the tired R&B debate, and the headlines that nearly destroyed her. | | |
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| The plan was always to swap in younger performers when the current ones hit 20. But as NCT Dream’s label found out, musicians’ popularity doesn’t adhere to self-imposed deadlines. | | |
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| And other fascinating A.I. research from this week. | | |
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| Bono turns 60 on Sunday. Maybe it’s time to ask what it is that has made him the most famous Irishman of the past century. | | |
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| "The ones I couldn't have lived without... The ones that got me from there to here zero to 60." | | |
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| Andy Malt and Chris Cooke examine the debate around the fairness of streaming royalties for artists and songwriters, which has been growing during the COVID-19 shutdown. Over the next two episodes, we'll be discussing the ten things people often get wrong about streaming, and what they need to know in order to win the argument. | | |
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| Travis McCready is set to perform in Arkansas on Friday in what appears to be the first major U.S. music show since the pandemic began, but state officials have yet to endorse it. | | |
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| It’s depressing that the singer’s new skinny look matters more to some than her extraordinary voice. | | |
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| With his “A-wop bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop bam boom” battle cry, the late singer-pianist embodied an irrepressible rebel spirit that inspired everyone from John Lennon to Jimi Hendrix. | | |
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| For young executive Keith Clinkscales, the music-industry legend was a lifeline, a bridge, and a one-of-a-kind mentor. | | |
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