Third Year Research Project: Draft Submission & Notes

Police Brutality and The Entertainment Industry 

Introduction: 

To begin with discrimination is a black issue but manly a white problem. I wanted to do my 3rd year research project on an important and current worldwide problem, which is police brutality. I confirmed that I wanted to do this topic even more after reading ‘The Nickel Boys’ by Colson whitehead (Whitehead, 2019). Elwood’s situation represents the ways in which “racial biases of the American justice system unfairly target African-Americans for the purpose of denying them freedom and personal growth.” (BookRags, 2021). 

In addition, I’ve wanted to do this as racial hate really infuriates me. I want to find out why there’s police brutality against the black ethnicity and how its impacts the entrainment industry. For example, researching police brutality in books, films, music, art and finally looking into activism against police brutality. 

Racial Injustice and Music 

Classical R&B is filled with vocal harmonises with a very smooth feel also being the complete opposite of rap. R&B protest songs take a more gentle approach to racial injustice, while rap protest songs a more angry and aggressive, so is r&b a better option? By taking a gentle approach perhaps people wouldn’t flee from acknowledging systematic racism or ignoring police brutality. But on the other hand rap is better at expressing the pain in a more strong, powerful and raw way, since racial injustice and police brutality has been going on for centuries, this bottle up pain must explode in some way and that way for some artists is through rap.  

Rhythm and Blues is a genre of music created my Black Americans in the 1930’s. Before the name of Rhythm and Blues was named such it was named “race music” it was deemed offensive and then Billboard magazine began naming it Rhythm and Blues in 1940s. Popular songs of the time include “The Cardinals, the Swallows, Dunbar Four / Hi Fi's, the Four Bars of Rhythm”. (Edward Nero, 2018) By 1950’s  Rhythm and Blues was again another cultural genre. However, seen as less of art piece as Jazz was at the time for the black people of America, it was thought of as “a bunch of love songs”. “By the 1970s, the term rhythm and blues expanded to become a blanket term that included both soul and funk forms of music.” (Edward Nero, 2018) 

Writer-Musician Stuart Goosman says classical R&B sounds like “the physical and psychic aspects of the city, in particular, those cities' urban segregation, helped shape the consciousness of the musicians, who freed themselves through the limitlessness of singing” (Edward Nero, 2018) 

In addition, I looked into the book ‘Songs in the key of black life : a rhythm and blues nation’ by Mark Anthony Neal. Neal in his book has many important facts on all that is rhythm and blues and its relation to being African American. Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation represents my effort to take seriously the ways that black popular music, including contemporary R&B, reflects the joys, apprehensions, tensions, and contradictions of contemporary black life.

 “In comparison, jazz was seen as a more highbrow form of black expression and thus was given more critical esteem.” (Neal, 2003)  

“As hip-hop music began to demand more airplay, generate more sales, and dominate the black social imagination, it was seen as a window into the travails of black America, whereas R&B was simply seen as a “bunch of love songs.” Though R&B was the second most popular genre of popular music in 2001 in term of sales, there has been little serious criticism on contemporary R&B“

“Though Marvin Gaye’s What's Going On could be regarded as the quintessential black protest recording, Wonder more consistently provided a window into a wide-ranging and dynamic African-American humanity“

“public abuse faced by black and Latina women is often dramatically different than that faced by white women, and even more so in poor and working-class “minority” communities that don’t benefit from the police presence and protection afforded women of all races and ethnicities in major urban areas. These differences can be extended to the portrayals of these women in urban and hip-hop videos” (p.79)
• Black and latina women who appear most often in pornographic stay music videos”