*The members of the iconic all-black rock band Living Colour are speaking out about being shunned in the Black entertainment industry for playing “white people” music.
The New York band addressed the issues and referenced Lenny Kravitz’s latest comments about Black media. In case you missed it, Kravitz told Esquire magazine: “To this day, I have not been invited to a BET thing or a Source Awards thing. And it’s like, here is a Black artist who has reintroduced many Black art forms, who has broken down barriers—just like those that came before me broke down. That is positive. And they don’t have anything to say about it?”
As Lourder Sound reports, Living Colour vocalist Corey Glover reacted to Lenny’s comments in a social media post.
“It’s come to my attention that people responded to Lenny Kravitz’s statement, that black organizations in the entertainment industry never really sought him out. Retorting that they did make effort to contact him but his “people“ said that Mr. Kravitz had no interest. That is false. Whether his people made that statement, I cannot say,” he wrote.
“Living Colour throughout has made a conscious effort to make ourselves available to places like BET, the Source etc. Mind you this was happening simultaneously to us in the rock idiom,” Glover added.
Glover continued, “Their response to us usually was that we did not fit in their format. Ironic, that was the same response we got from the Rock n roll / white entertainment organizations.”
Glover went on to note that “Lenny was right.”
“None of us has been awarded let alone acknowledged for our achievements,” he revealed.
“Living Colour in the past has worked with such historical luminaries as Little Richard and Mick Jagger. We’ve worked with a hip-hop royalty from Queen Latifah, Doug E Fresh, Chuck D & Flava Flav to Run DMC. And yet there’s barely a mention of rocks contribution to what is modern black music, let alone in rock and roll circles,” the artist stated.
“It’s been our experience that most people of color have no idea how deep and far reaching the influence of Black people in the modern-day rock ‘n’ roll there are, let alone it’s impact on R&B and hip hop. What we hear is “that’s white people stuff” when in fact, it is not!” Glover wrote.
“Celebrating diversity in the entertainment field doesn’t start with the blues and ends with hip-hop,” Glover’s IG post states.
“There have been expressions in between. George Clinton Parliament/Funkadelic, Fishbone, Tracy Chapman, Meshell Ndegeocello; even though there has been glancing acceptance of someone like Jimi Hendrix, rocks influence on the diaspora, has very rarely acknowledged.”
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