Kpopalypse’s compilation of all black music features in 2023 roundups
Observant caonimas may have noticed that Kpopalypse featured random black music selections from around the world in roundups during 2023! Since roundup is now over for the year, here’s a handy list of all black music content that was featured, just so you don’t have to go trawling through individual roundups to find the black music picks!
The black music feature was a thing in 2023 because I was bored of people telling me that I was racist because I didn’t like R&B. As anyone who knows their music history will know, the entire genre designation of R&B actually IS racist, so I thought it would be nice to take the opportunity to educate readers by featuring black music in as much variety as possible, for an entire year. Of course many readers already knew a lot of what was featured, but you probably would have also found at least one thing that was new to you – as did I! Here’s each video and just some extra new notes on it, why it was picked, etc.
Public Enemy – Can’t Truss It
The natural choice to start off a list like this, it’s incredible to me how little-acknowledged Public Enemy is to rap fans today, as they were truly A-list in their time (at their peak they were as big and talked-about as Madonna or Michael Jackson, seriously, you had to be there), and their music changed how engineers made music forever. This song comes from the “91 Apocalypse” album which is still my favourite of theirs. As a metal fan I appreciated the way Public Enemy would use harsh sonics in a rhythmic context… and so did everyone else at the time, as their sound exploded globally and was copied everywhere.
Bad Brains – I Against I
Bad Brains were musically the best of all the groups coming out of the DC punk scene, and also the most varied as they would play reggae in their shows as often as punk (here’s a link to a full show so you can see), pissing off the homogenous American hardcore punk audiences of the day. The black members of a couple of my old punk bands were huge fans of this group, partly for their music but also their commitment to Rastafarianism (Caitlin would stan), so they were a natural choice for roundup.
Negro Terror – Voice Of Memphis
Actually a cover of English neo-Nazi punk band Skrewdriver’s “Voice Of Britain”, with the lyrics barely changed but taking on a whole new meaning with black performers singing it. I’m glad that Negro Terror existed and did these covers (their version of another Skrewdriver song “Invasion” is similarly great) because it means I can get to finally enjoy those songs without feeling like a racist dickhead, and their versions are musically far better than the originals because Skrewdriver (like most neo-Nazi punks) were talentless performers who could barely even play their instruments. As for who gets the royalties, the singers of both groups are sadly now deceased, so who knows.
Khruangbin – NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert – Maria Tambien/August 10/White Gloves
To qualify as “black music” for this feature only required one principal member of the group to be black. Principal member meaning, either lead vocalist, or a main instrumentalist (but not, for example, a session backing vocalist). In the case of Kraungbin all the boxes are ticked, as the drummer switches to piano and lead vocals later and is excellent at all three. Kraungbin’s music is apparently influenced by 70s Thai reggae and that’s not really a field of expertise for me personally but I am definitely expert in detecting a solid groove and they sure have that. Also I think showing k-pop fans that people of different races can get along together just fine and make cool music without an agency forcing them to is more relevant than ever in these days where everyone seems to want to be a separatist racist dickhead.
Body Count – No Lives Matter
Speaking of which I thought Ice-T’s message of racial unity here was important to promote in the context of appreciating black music. It’s hilarious to anybody my age that the once-most-controversial rapper of the 80s and 90s who made headlines talking about killing cops is now mainly known among young people as the longest-running TV cop in existence, but there you have it. Apparently he says he plays the role the way he would want cops to actually be like in real life, as opposed to what you Americans out there actually have to put up with.
Reggie Watts – @ PopTech 2010
I get asked about looper pedals quite a lot on Retrospring so this was a good opportunity to introduce Reggie Watts to readers who is definitely the best practitioner of the looper pedal that I’ve ever seen. I don’t actually know much about him apart from this, but he’s pretty funny and talented.
Death – Politicians In My Eyes
Not to be confused with the 80s/90s death metal band featuring the late Chuck Schulinder, the original Death were a 70s band that straddled the line somewhere between the proto-punk of The Stooges or The MC5 and the early metal of Black Sabbath. I personally like the metal comparison more – Death had more melody, better pop songwriting sensibility, better musicianship AND heavier music than their proto-punk peers. It’s a shame that they were never really recognised as much as they should have been, so I thought I should do my 0.00001%.
Blowfly – Blowfly’s Rap
Another piece of lost black history, Blowfly was the first ever recorded rap artist and while he sounds a bit dated these days, he was pretty ahead of his time back them just for lyrical content. While he’s pretty out there, I played on the same bill as him on one of his final tours and he was a true gentleman, RIP.
Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy
About the closest thing to traditional R&B territory that I was willing to feature, whenever people ask me if there’s any R&B that I actually like, I always show them this song. I didn’t like Massive Attack that much after Shara Nelson left, nor do I like Shara Nelson’s solo stuff without the group – but together they were fire. This song is a perfect example of how typical R&B style vocalising can be used as a force for good instead of evil, with every note serving the song instead of the singer’s ego as is so often the case in k-pop. Therefore, I feel like it’s necessary to share with k-pop fans. Oh and yes, you’re probably not imagining The Verve drawing inspiration from this concept for “Bitter Sweet Symphony“.
Animals As Leaders – CAFO
I feel like Tosin Abasi is the next level in technical guitar evolution after Eddie Van Halen so it was mandatory to feature his band. How does anyone even play this, hell I can’t even count it out properly let alone pick up an instrument and attempt this thing.
Living Colour – New Jack Theme
Mercifully not a “new jack swing” song, Living Colour were always highly underrated. It always annoyed me that their one big chart success in my country was “Love Rears Its Ugly Head“, which isn’t a terrible song but certainly not representative of their sound in general and shows about 2% of what they were capable of as a group. I heard they did better in other countries in the world, I certainly hope so because they deserved to.
Mdou Moctar – Tarhatazed
I thought it was important to get some non-western representation for this list, and Mdou Moctaor is great, a guitarist from Niger with a truly unique virtuostic style. There’s not a lot else to say except watch him play, you won’t regret it.
Tony MacAlpine – Tears Of Sahara
It’s a crying shame that 80s metal is stereotyped as “white person’s music” given the very obvious black lineage of the form. Jimi Hendrix invented most of the modern metal guitar techniques that the 80s players then took further, and he wasn’t included in this list only because to be honest while he was obviously a pioneering player I was never that wild about his music. I have a lot more time for Tony MacAlpine, one of the notorious “Shrapnel Records” shredders.
Delvon Lamarr Trio – Warm-up Set Live on KEXP – Move On Up/Memphis/Untitled
I never heard of this guy until he started coming up thanks to the YouTube algorithm so thanks to the machine gods for giving me something decent instead of the usual crap I always get served up like all the “China will collapse next week I promise this time for realsies” nonsense. Anyway Delvon’s whole band here is fantastic and I know nothing about any of them but damn they can play and we need more actual talented musicians put in front of k-pop fans instead of fucking mimers so that’s why they got in.
Fishbone – Sunless Saturday
How much does this song go off? Holy fucking shit. They never topped it, but I’m not even sure how they could. They were big at around the same time that Living Colour were big, but received even less attention, probably due to just being a little bit fucking weirder and flaunting that weirdness everywhere in everything they did.
Sepultura – Guardians Of Earth
Derrick Green never got enough credit for his contribution to Sepultura, he’s been on vocals way longer than Max and is honestly a better, more versatile singer. Sepultura themselves also are annoyingly slept on, and left out of “thrash metal” discussions often despite being better than ALL of the “big four”. If you compare their recent stuff to what other veteran thrash groups have been putting out lately, there’s no comparison.
The Wesley Willis Fiasco – Whisky A Go-Go – The Frogs/Casper The Homosexual Friendly Ghost
Watch Wesley Willis’ band do everything in their power to try and match his stage presence and failing. Hilarious. A lot has been written about Wesley Willis, including in the relevant roundup review for this song so I won’t recap it here. There’s considerable debate from “concerned people” about how much people around Wesley were mocking him or enabling his mental illness vs helping him, but I think that Wesley himself was having a great old time rocking on and that’s what matters.
Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
Slash is often left out of black music discussions because (like Tony MacAlpine above) he’s deep in a genre that is stereotypically white person music. However as Ice-T says in his book “The Ice Opinion“, Slash is black whether people know it or not. He’s also a great player who understood the importance of melody in guitar solos and almost singlehandedly kept guitar soloing relevant during the 1990s, I’ve taught the music here to several people over the years!
Fun-Da-Mental – Dog Tribe
I’m not even sure what’s happening with this group these days, but they made some pretty good music. They also made my ignorant ass aware that there was deep discontent in arab communities about their portrayal in global media and the direction of American foreign policy long before 9/11. In today’s political landscape where it’s hard to get any nuanced takes at all because right-wing media trolls and bot farms deliberately swamp the Internet with fake comments and fake engagement to try to stoke divisions and purge any hope for understanding out of any global situation, Fun-Da-Mental has dated well.
Suicidal Tendencies – You Can’t Bring Me Down
Shredding and ballad sections in a punk song with a bunch of latino and black guys? Suicidal Tendencies confused the shit out of my tiny mind as a teenage metalhead when I first encountered them, by looking and sounding like literally nothing else out there at the time. Eventually it made more sense, hopefully it made semnse to some of you.
The Band Six – Band Jam Tokyo Dome
When I say that there’s a lot of black music behind k-pop, I don’t just mean that in an “oh they were influenced” sense, I also mean that literally. You would be amazed to know how many of the actual creators of backing tracks, sessions musicians etc are black. I saw Blackpink live and their touring backing group The Band Six threw in a few instrumentals like this to stretch out time between songs to allow for set design and costume changes for the girls, including one like this where everyone gets their designated space to show off a little. Hey, there’s worse things that one can be paid for!
Hostilities – full set, Franklin Music Hall
I love this live performance because I’ve seen this exact reaction from a crowd so many times, everyone glued to the far wall afraid to even get close to the group. After about five minutes the audience gradually realise that the lady at the front screaming things with outstanding stamina levels isn’t going to kill them and a few brave souls get involved. Very, very relatable. I only came across this band recently (they’re fairly new) and their short, heavy songs meet required standards.
The Roots ft. Ursula Rucker – The Unlocking
As I stopped watching TV on a regular basis around 2002, it took me several decades after becoming a fan in the mid 1990s to realise that The Roots had finally gotten a gig as the backing group on a late night American TV show, which is honestly genius-tier casting from whoever was responsible for approving that. I was happy for them as they never were really paid their dues and often complained in their liner notes for their albums about being broke as shit. The Roots were also responsible for introducing me to Ursula Rucker, most of the early Roots albums features a track similar to this one at the end, and she’s jaw-droppingly amazing. Her very blunt and serious delivery is a great counter to the male-oriented “sex raps” that were common on albums at the time. No wonder all the other big male rappers ghosted this group – insecure about being called out, I’ll bet.
Hirax – Hellion Rising
Like many people, I wasn’t aware of Hirax when they first appeared and only found out about them because Anal Cunt singer Seth Putnam gave the singer a hug once and I was curious to know who could inspire such warm feelings in such a man. As it turns out, only one of the best vocalists in thrash. Okay to be fair, Hirax singer Katon W. De Pena doesn’t have a whole lot of competition, because the bar for vocals in thrash is pretty low, but he’s a lot of fun and has a very agreeable stage presence that could teach k-pop groups a thing or two.
Little Simz – Gorilla
Although I’m a big rap fan I was really trying to avoid reaching into the very large pool of rap artists that I could have used for this feature, and in the few instances where I did, I was also trying to get away from the sterotypically American stuff. It turns out that in England they haven’t forgotten what beats are yet. Little Simz has a super smooth flow and some of the best rap music I’ve heard in a long time.
Mordred – In This Live Video
Mordred were incredibly ahead of their time when they came out. A thrash band, but also with funk influences, and a DJ doing scratching wouldn’t be a big deal these days but it sure was in the 1980s. Mordred paved the way.
Pinkpantheress – Just For Me
NewJeans pretty much owe Pinkpantheress their careers so it was only right that I feature her. Also in a double-relevant-whammy to k-pop it’s an example of high amounts of vocal processsing as a ‘stylistic choice’ done right (you know, as opposed to the way in which BTS singers do it). Someone’s got to set a good example for the kids out there.
Nova Twins – live at Glastonbury – Choose Your Fighter
Nova Twins sound is completely unique, with great rocking riffs and their bass player actually finding great musical uses for all those silly bass effects pedals that sit on most people’s pedalboards unutilised. Also they could easily meet image requirements for any k-pop group. Watch their live set where they utilise more stage presence and audience interaction than any k-pop group would ever dare.
Baby Storme – This City Is A Graveyard
By this time in the year-long roundup, regular readers had grown to anticipate the black music feature and started to make a lot of suggestions of their own. This is the first reader suggestion that I actually used, and honestly where has Baby Storme been all my life, thanks so much to the reader (I think there was more than one) who suggested her. Here she nails the 80s synth goth style right down to the silly club dancing moves, she might be a new performer but clearly she is old school. Hilariously, there was actually a nontroversy about this video because she used an actual graveyard for it so people were concern-trolling about her disrespecting the dead, but honestly that’s what all the goth greats used to do (because ‘fake’ graveyards are actually prohibitively expensive/hard to find), and as long as the song is this good she can dance on my grave anytime.
God Forbid – The End Of The World
Probably the most dated entry on this list, God Forbid were still heavy and cool at the time so they get in. You can tell God Forbid never had any success of note because no decent quality transfers exist of their music videos, even on their label’s official channel it’s 140p all the way.
Suffocation – Abomination Reborn
One of the best drummers in all of extreme metal who deserves to be spoken of in the same terms as Dave Lombardo, Mike Smith definitely pushed Suffocation’s otherwise fairly standard death metal music way above the average, just on his own.
Rachel Chinouriri – I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Trying)
The second of the reader suggestions, I particularly like this track because it’s pacy and cool and melodic, how it has less than a million views I don’t know, the fucking obscure-ass death metal directly above at least clocks three million for fuck’s sake. What does this girl have to do to get a leg up? Hopefully being featured here will help at least a little.
Jano Band – Daringe
I couldn’t find any information on where this live song was recorded, but Jano Band are from Ethiopia and they’re pretty cool with a unique melodic approach and also some heaviness, and they were definitely worthy of a feature here. All people in the west ever hear about Ethiopia is famine and wars so I thought it was important to highlight that they also have rock music and gigs with flatscreen TVs that don’t fall on the performer’s heads. Maybe we can get a k-pop tour down that way one day.
Zulu – From Tha Gods To Earth
Probably my favourite of all the groups in the black music roundup out of those who debuted in the last ten years, Zulu are simply sensational. Just this one song doesn’t really do them justice, they are so varied in their output (much like Bad Brains before them) that there’s no way that just any one song could ever give you a full picture of what they’re about, especially as most of those songs clock in at a very short track length. Unapologetically intense regardless of genre and with very pro-black messaging, I highly recommend that you go investigating.
Jesus Piece – An Offering to the Night
Jesus Piece are just heavy as fuck and that’s that on that.
End It – New Wage Slavery
Delivering hardcore punk riffing with a bit of an old school thrash twist, End It are hugely appealing and a good ‘gateway’ group for people my age who might have stopped following heavy music over the years to get into newer styles of metal. Their frontman is also super charismatic and has a great vocal delivery, there’s quite a lot of good quality live footage of these guys up on YouTube so go take a look.
Xray Spex – Oh Bondage! Up Yours!
I’ll admit that I’m a little biased against Xray Spex because an old abusive ex-partner used to LOVE this group, and honestly I think Bikini Kill did a better, more revved-up, more compelling version of this sound without the dumb saxophone, BUT there’s no denying the positive impact of Xray Spex singer Poly Styrene. Her look, image and sound were all completely uncompromising and deliberately rubbing against concepts of traditionally acceptable femininity, a big deal in the late 1970s when female presentations in pop music were carefully curated for straight male consumption. She clearly didn’t fit and didn’t care, which of course made her the most interesting performer of all, at least to me.
Pure Hell – Noise Addiction
A band who seem almost completely lost in time, who knew that Pure Hell even existed? I only found out about them reasonably recently and was ashamed to know that I had been sleeping on such great punk music… but then we can’t all know everything of course, that’s why black music roundup exists, to help out all of us to become more aware music fans. Who knows if this band ever did or ever will see much success from their music, given the separate but related histories of punk musicians AND black musicians being economically shafted. Here’s hoping that they get paid their dues one day.
Pleasure Venom – We Get What You Deserve
Pissed-off female fronted punk music is something I’ve loved as long as I knew it existed, and Pleasure Venom is as good as any other group out there plumbing this territory. I can’t even remember how I first heard about them, but hopefully I hear more from them.
Hope Tala – All My Girls Like To Fight
The third reader suggestion, thanks for putting me onto Hope Tala. All of her stuff is cool but I really liked the restrained syncopated tango vibes of this song. Definitely someone worth checking out.
TCIYF – Oppikoppi – Robots/Fatherless Kids
TCIYF (The Cum In Your Face) are a great old-school style punk band from South Africa. I thought I’d put this live footage up as their videos are pretty improverished and they honestly sound cool here, like the descendants of Pure Hell. Sadly they’re probably destined for similar fame levels but I’m happy to do my bit to push them in front of a wider audience.
Oceans Of Slumber – The Waters Rising
Singer Cammie is one of the best melodic-style metal vocalists out there right now, I know I said that when I first reviewed them but I’m saying it again because it bears repeating. This is one of their more mellow moments but it’s here because it’s just a great song, with some effective dynamics, I much prefer it over Evanescence and their ilk.
Greg Howe – Kick It All Over
Another shredder with bucketloads of guitar expertise, Greg Howe’s sounds seems less impressive these days than back in the day but only because it was his fusion rock style that helped pave the way for a lot of today’s shredding faves to then take it further. And we all know how k-pop fans love paving the way.
Big Joanie – Fall Asleep
Big Joanie sound like Sleater-Kinney if that group grew a clue and got themselves a fucking bass player. Every rock group needs a bass player (guess I’ll make an exception for Animals As Leaders because they have 8-strong guitars). There’s also some rad analog synth work here. These girls are rocking some pretty cool casual vibes and also a pretty low view count for the quality of the music, so I would suggest support them. Do it, caonima.
The 1865 – Get Out
Another group definitely not getting their dues just because they’re not in a ‘designated black person’ genre, The 1865 have plenty of cool change-ups and heaviness in their 90s style alt-pop music. Much like Zulu they’re also very pro-black in their messaging (the band name is a clue) so if you like stuff like The Pixies and The Breeders but wish those groups wrote about things in their lyrics other than heroin, The 1865 might be for you.
Lady Saw – Chat To Mi Back
People who read my writing probably didn’t expect me to actually like dancehall music but then people who know me personally don’t exactly expect me to like k-pop either, so I don’t know what to tell you. Other than Lady Saw fucking rules, of course. Maybe this sound will trend in k-pop one day and then I’ll probably hate it, but for now, we’re good.
Barry Adamson – The Man With The Golden Arm
I actually got bored of this song when it came out because Australian late-night TV music show Rage would actually flog it to death, but it plays a lot better now that I’m not forced to listen to it each and every week waiting for Rage to play one of two metal tracks at 4am. Barry Adamson was a pretty important dude for the development of music in general and has been in like every band ever so go look him up.
Dead Air – Teeth Grinder
I’m way biased towards Dead Air because many years ago I was in a band with a black guy who had very similar vibes to the Dead Air singer and our band had a similar sound to this too. Dead Air were way better than us though, and this guy here can sing a lot better than my friend could! Just being honest, my friend was no great vocalist and neither was I, we were guitar heads and vocals were an afterthought. We should have probably got ourselves a decent singer, but then we’d have to put up with a singer and that can be painful in itself. Anyway whatever, damn this band rock.
KRS-One – BLACK BLACK BLACK
I had to end the black music feature with this, because how could I not? KRS-One is simply a hip-hop legend, and always will be. Sure, he doesn’t always get it right (like his weird quasi-spiritual shit, or that one song where he says AIDS is a seasonal disease – sorry, what?) but then I don’t agree with Public Enemy and a lot of other rappers pushing the “five percent nation” religious cult either. But then I don’t agree with a lot of Korean artists, or white artists, or any other artists, and the bullshit they believe either, for that matter. You’re never going to find someone who believes 100% of what you believe on this Earth, period. It doesn’t mean that these (or any other) people didn’t have a lot of other relevant things to say, or that they didn’t have great music, or that they aren’t deserving of support or recognition for enhancing your lives with cool music. I mean I’m sure most readers don’t agree with 100% of what I personally have to say either, yet many of you choose to support me and keep reading and I’m grateful every day for this! Anyway I hope you all found something to enjoy and appreciate in 2023’s black music roundups!
That’s all for this post! Kpopalypse will return with more posts soon!
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