The Queen’s English is no longer relevant with today’s generation as a result of cultural shift. It has been way gone, resurfacing in what has evolved over time to this present, twisted generation. The new millennia generation and a technology that’s doing stuff; stuff nobody could have imagined would be happening as everything about culture changed.
But however, the Queen’s English is still valid to the so-called old guard intellectuals, and nobody cares – the “kids” changed all that, and it seems to be good, going with the flow.
In the late sixties, when all that swinging began to wane, when people no longer wanted the kind of tune that was “flying,” flying wasn’t used back then, and they had called for something different which made soul and R & B producers go with the flow as they wanted to groove all night long, and feeling it’s right and becoming the trend, recording studios changed their “gear” and format on how to produce a music the people would like. In soul, the Black Moses, Isaac Hayes brought in the street jargon putting “Groove On” and “Right On” into perspective in an era everybody just wanted to groove on and do their own thing:
If the music makes you move
And you dig the groove
Groove on, groove on
If you feel like making love
All night and you think
It’s right
Right on, right on
So, too, was R&B, reggae, ska, jazz and a little bit of funk which had a blend of the horns, serving the purpose when everybody wanted to have a good time, party and dance all night long.
But the problem, as the seventies breezed in, some of the music producers wanted to make money just pretty much so, resulting to commercializing every song being written to conform to recording companies’ standards and overheads. Folks in the hippie era really wanted to dance and there were long plays (LP), the kind of cuts not regularly seen but a tiny fraction which made some impacts on how recording companies helped bring up an era that would gradually change with time.
Early seventies songs made a whole lot of sense from its lyrics which depicted an era that started the cultural revolution through it’s defiance to the establishment and by its poetic lyrics everybody danced to. Starting with Berry Gordy Jr. who founded Motown and assembled all sorts of casts – songwriters, singers, producers, composers, and of course, arrangers – music changed as the new decade began. Every major act in Motown went through the same path with the exception of one group, the only white band that played gigs at Detroit pubs as Sun Liners, signing to Motown as Rare Earth with the rights to its own label. Back then, the lyrics were all in somewhat Standard English and made sense; unlike the evolution after that era which created funk entombed into disco, which swept across the continent, creating impacts wherever it breezed in.
And Rare Earth’s recordings as the only all white group led by drummer and vocalist Pete Hoorelbeke, was a fast-paced debut album “Get Ready,” which every recording artist at Motown had agreed to cut, indicating the beginning of a new era in the language of music. The mode of Rare Earth was something really different from the rest of the Motown class – Marvin Gaye, Jackson 5, The Miracles, The Supremes, Commodores, Edward Holland, Brenda Halloway, Martha Reeves, The Marvelettes, David Ruffin, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, Jr. Walker & The All Stars, Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, Syreeta White, Thelma Houston, Eddie Kendricks, The Pointer Sisters, Billy Preston, The Spinners, The Undisputed Truth, Toe Fat and several others – Rare Earth had a pattern that attracted its own audience when everybody was dancing to that Long Play, “Get Ready.”
Rare Earth vibes would change a lot during this era; even when heavy metal invented by the British group, Deep Purple, began to crossover for the American audience coupled with their European and Australian counterparts that rocked American arenas in an amazing form.
Angus Young and his brother’s-led AC/DC, Rick Springfield and Little River Band from the Aussie corner; while John Lord, Ian Pace, Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore who continually bragged of wiping the floor anywhere, anytime with his guitar of a metallic Deep Purple, Queen, Led Zeppelin; the Irish group Thin Lizzy, rocked the American shores in mixes of heavy metal “contests” with its American counterparts – Aerosmith, Boston, Bad Company and a cast of the devil followers as it was then known.
This whole thing spread across the African continent, too, a rhythm in which the local folks also wanted to dance until dawn. Many popped up –Bonga (Angola), Super Eagles (Gambia), Alhaji Bai Konte (Gambia), E.T. Mensah (Ghana), Rail Band (Mali), Dark City Sisters (South Africa), Assagai (South Africa), Orchestra Baobab (Senegal), Francis Bebey (Cameroon), Thu Zahina (Congo), Prince Nico Mbarga (Nigeria), Fela Kuti (Nigeria), Sunny Ade (Nigeria), Hugh Masekela (South Africa), Miriam Makeba (South Africa), Osibisa (Ghana), Independence Matata (Kenya) and several others – in adaptation.
What had happened here, on the African coast, was that, just like everybody wanted to dance and have fun all night long, a revolution had to be in place by adapting a pattern from a collective of the West, combining it with African traditional beats and the coinage of all kinds of music genres – afro beat, kora, ikwokirikwo, juju, afro rock, highlife, ogene and imports from the Cuban music craze which swept the continent and adapting the ideals of cultural heritage.
And so the various music genres became an adaptation to commerce, ways to make and spend money by throwing parties, marriage ceremonies, and the artists signing with record labels as its folkloric core. This same kind of core was what had begun in the studio at Detroit of a series of labels that popped up at Motown – Tamla, VIP, Gordy, Soul, Natural Resources, MoWest, Manticore, Rare Earth, etc. – and Rare Earth had its own record label when Tom Baird joined the crew in production which led to the album “One World” and “Willie Remembers.” Both albums did pretty well. But prolific producer, composer and arranger, Norman Whitfield had to reverse the Rare Earth trend switching back to the Motown record label in the production of a classic Motown album, “Ma,” which made Motown a game anyone could join; but to win, you had to prove you weren’t just anyone; and the Norman Whitfield-Barrett Strong duo proved it as Motown Records and its subsidiaries began to explode.
“Tobacco Road” became an anthem and what Rare Earth had released three years earlier showed how lifestyle was sweeping all across America:
I was born in a bunk
My mama died, my daddy got drunk
He left me here to die alone
In a lane called Tobacco Road
And the Temptations’ “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” another simply read lyric as lines of poetry depicting the hippies seventies’ lifestyle in urban America:
It was the third of September
That day I’ll always remember, yes I will
‘cause that was the day that my daddy died
Never had a chance to see him, no
Never heard nothing
But bad things about him
Mama, I’m depending on you
to tell me the truth,
Mama just hung her head and said:
“Papa was a rolling stone
wherever he laid his hat was his home
and when he died
all he left us was alone…”
Alcoholism and abandonment like “Tobacco Road” and “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” even as throw downs on the men abandoning their responsibilities during and after a catastrophic Vietnam, most of these folks had come back confused due to the effects of the war.
But as it happened, the confusion would pass and another era would be ushered in, even as it would bear the same resemblance of the late sixties into the early seventies when some “badass cats” popped up at Philadelphia. These were just “cool cats,” the magnificent duo of songwriters-composers-producers, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff which brought out some cool stuff from The Sound Of Philadelphia (TSOP). The Philly Sound brought a hell of music – superb producers Gene McFadden and John Whitehead; singers Thom Bell, Linda Creed, Norman Harris, Dexter Wansel, Billy Paul, Lou Rawls, The Stylistics, Sharon Paige, Teddy Pendergrass – some cool stuff that changed every concept in music of that era. And on the Eastside of a post-civil war Nigeria, rock bands emerged, too: Funkees, Apostles, One World (Ani Hofner’s Otu Uwa), Strangers (Bob Miga), Aktion 13, Wrinkars Experience, Founders 15, Heads Funk, Doves, Wings (Spud Nathan), Sokie Ohale, Jerry Boyfriend, Black Children, and numerous others keeping the vibes alive and going with the flow adapting to change, and we danced all night long.
Today, emerged is all sorts of street jargons that relates to a new generation changing every aspect of language which did evolve to a whole lot of stuff, chiefly, on how we communicate. “Dope,” “tight,” “fly,” “all right,” “jamming,” “cool,” "chilling," "dawg," “bomb,” “crazy,” “feel,” and things like that are no longer street jargons but a way of effective communication in today’s world. Just like “cool” once meant something specific back in the day in jazzy tunes, appealing and profoundly generated specifically for unique standards of jazz music, is no longer the same. “Cool” now could be I’m fine, I’m doing well or it could be better as the case may be in whatever way this new generation wants it. It is now definitely their call.
The game had changed and the improvised public drunkenness in lyrics paved way for something “mellow” which in its class would lead into something acceptable as a way of being just “cool.” People wanted love and some kind of melodic tune when the class at Philly Sound and elsewhere in urban America started changing the vibes to lyrics that conforms to the day – love, hate and broken hearts. All across America, the love songs and broken hearts came strong. Pendergrass, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, O’Jays, Jimmy Bo Horne, KC & The Sunshine Band, Donna Summer, Hot Chocolate, Betty Wright, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and even the classic rock tone of Kim Carnes had America falling in love again; with touches and touches of love tunes. You can hear it and feel it from “Sexy Thing,” “When Somebody Loves You Back,” “Do Your Thing,” “Rock Your Baby,” “Without You,” and a cast of love tunes from the numerous record labels all across America. For instance, the following line was about love, love and broken heart and America was up singing, dancing and having a good time:
Don't leave me this way
I can't survive, can't stay alive
Without your love, oh baby
Don't leave me this way, no
I can't exist, I'll surely miss your tender kiss
Don't leave me this way
(A broken man with empty hands
Oh baby please, don't leave me this way)
Aaah baby, my heart is full of love and desire for you
Now come on down and do what you gotta do
(Now come on girl and do what you gotta do)
You started this fire down in my soul
Now can't you see it's burning out of control
Come on (now) satisfy the need in me
Only your good lovin' can set me free...hey
Don't, don't you leave me this way, no
Don't you understand I'm at your command
And in between the love songs that overwhelmed the dance floors, there was another cast of musical genre which popped up and changed the way we danced. It was called funk, and the funk had varieties which rocked planet Earth. Although, there was the blending of soul, R&B and jazz which created funk in the mid seventies, evolving from tunes of the Minister of New, New Super Heavy Funk, the Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown; George Clinton came up with what would be known as “Pure Funk” with cats like Bootsy Collins, Phil UpChurch and the rest, which got America dancing. And America never stopped dancing. Lionel Richie in his solo act chipped in blending Caribbean, Cuban and some African juice when he asked America to keep dancing all night long:
Well my friends, the time has come
To raise the roof and have some fun
Throw away the work to be done
Let the music play on…play on…
Everybody sing, everybody dance
Lose yourself in wild romance
We’re going to party, karamu, fiesta, forever
Come and sing along
All night long (all night)…
People dancing all in the street
See the rhythm all in their feet
Life is good, wild and sweet
Let the music play on…play on
Feel it in your heart and feel it in your soul
Let the music take control…
Before this dancing, love-hate relationship was about to be going down in urban America, West Bronx, New York native, DJ Kool Herc had begun to find the break infinitely, thus the origin of rap music by cueing up two turntables, playing the other when the break ends on one, and the language definitely changed becoming an opening act that would change standard English the way we knew it. Then we saw "Rapper's Delight" and names like Big Bank Hank, Wonder Mike, Master Gee and the first hip hop single to become a top 40 hit. Henceforth, Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Cav, Kurtis Blow, Sequence and a cast of rappers would follow.
The language changed.
Expectedly, it had been presumed rap music would look like its opposite, an unmeaning, unintelligible rock lyrics, rap proved its worth in a generation that changed the ways and means of music. Like this Jay-Z’s “Renegade" album which includes an appearance by Eminem:
Now who is the king of these rude
Ludicrous, lucrative lyrics
Who could inherit the title
Put the youth in hysterics
Using his music to steer it
Sharing his views and his merits
But there is a huge interference
They are saying you shouldn’t hear it
Maybe it’s hatred I spew
Maybe it’s food for the spirit
Maybe it’s beautiful music I made
For you to just cherish
But I’m debated, disputed, hated
And viewed in America
As a motherfuckin’ drug addict
Like you didn’t experiment?
What’s next? With this kind of music that tends to be changing the way we spend our time with this new generation of ‘you feel me’ where are we heading to? And now that rappers are continuing to make meaningless songs, and some writing and singing about the death of rap, is it now over and will we be going back to old school?: the kind of stuff Gamble, Huff, Strong, Whitfield, Dick Griffey, Leon Silvers, Smokey Robinson, Creed Taylor all made? We’ll see and time will definitely tell.
"You feel me?"
