REVIEW:
Right to Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race
Maureen Mahon, Duke University Press, 2004, 317 pages.

Being Black in America produces great angst for many folk, especially Black rock and roll artists from the middle-class. In Right to Rock, Maureen Mahon defines the Black rockers who founded the Black Rock Coalition as members of a ‘postliberated generation,’ who grew up after the civil-rights era and openly defied industry-approved definitions of what it meant to be a Black musician. However the use of the term postliberated to describe the work of the BRC seems somewhat dubious after numerous chapters describing the BRC attempting to escape the music industry’s racial restrictions. To some, an examination of identity politics within the music industry may seem slightly staid. But Mahon uses her cultural anthropological background to examine the black middle-class, which historically has been eclipsed by studies of more “aberrant Negroes.” (Though it must be said how in some circles that middle class are considered pretty darn aberrant themselves). In one of the strongest sections in the book, “Living Colored in the Music Industry,” Mahon demonstrates how Blacks have been constrained by racial, sexual and cultural politics of the music business. The chapter “Media Interventions” illustrates how the BRC, with candor and panache, subverted the music business by following the Punk do-it-yourself ethos in marketing and promoting their musics.

Mahon praises the BRC at the expense of sounding like a cheerleader, or as she describes herself, a “fanthropoligist”. This is most apparent when Mahon describes attending a BRC live concert. The reader receives a VIP Pass to Gotham via Mahon, and is taken past 300 lb. security guards to beer stained downtown NYC or LA clubs where she hangs out backstage with Mohawk-and-dreadlock coiffed leather jacket clad musicians. At times it seems as through we’re reading a scrapbook given the numerous photographs of different acts.

Throughout the book, Mahon is obviously uncritical of the BRC, taking only a brief moment in one of the final chapters, to discuss the group’s gender politics. Furthermore, we never hear if the work of the BRC was expanded into other arts, like film and television, which also restrain ‘postliberated’ blackness. And though Mahon says the book’s purpose is not to provide a history of the BRC, the book often reads as such, which is not an entirely bad thing. Little known groups outside of the BRC or fans of black rock like Faith, Eye & I, Women in Love, Sophia’s Toy are introduced along with more commercially popular acts like Living Colour, The Family Stand, and Me’Shell NdegéOcello. Particular attention is of course given to Living Colour who took the BRC creed to stadium tours with the Rolling Stones, heavy rotation on MTV and the Grammies. It all makes for fascinating reading even if the story of Blacks marginalized, disenfranchised and denied their right to rock remains resoundingly and sickeningly familiar.

Rhea Combs, independent curator and writer is the founder of www.rheality.com