Gaming Black Music

2009-06-04
By Eric Easter

As the E3 2009 Videogame Industry Show comes to an end this week, it’s worth noting that just as racial inclusion is taking a hold in real life America, the multicultural representation in the virtual word of video games is coming around as well. There have always been Black characters in the major sports titles like Madden and NBA Live, but commensurate with the incredibly disproportionate purchases of video games, gaming platforms and huge honking flat screens made each year by African Americans, the Union of Black Cartoon Characters has been getting better and more visible work. There are  still reasonable arguments to be made about stereotypical characterizations (e.g. diseased African zombies in Resident Evil 5) but it’s clear that the industry is at least trying.

Nevertheless one of gaming’s most popular titles and the one that helped drive many of the purchases of games and peripherals last Christmas continues to inspire a common question.  That is, “Why is there so little Black music on games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero?”

The knee-jerk response most people give when asked this question is,  “It’s called “Rock Band – duh! What did you expect?”

That shows, of course, a fundamental misunderstanding of musical history, and it insults the dozens of great bands who have made headway leading the charge for a whole genre of Black rock. The disconnect is largely generational. The definition of “rock” over the years has been flexible at best. It was formatted radio that began to set the racial dividing line. Prior to that, deejays played what felt right. Elton John was soul if you could dance to it, Sly was rock if you could bang your head. If you’re over the age of 35 or you’ve been exposed to a wide variety of music, your definition of Black music is probably very different than someone raised on MTV and BET.

Also, the basic premise of the question is untrue. There are indeed black artists featured on Rock Band and Guitar Hero, if not many. Songs by or featuring Slash of Guns & Roses, Lenny Kravitz, Living Colour, Ben Harper, TV on the Radio, Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, Average White Band (not Black but firmly soul) and Earth, Wind & Fire (Shining Star) either come with the game or are available for download.

It is true, however, that by any definition there are some glaring omissions of great rock songs by Black artists that would be a perfect fit for the game.

But of course when most people say Black music they mean  traditional soul, R&B or hip hop. And no, there’s next to none of that on Rock Band, and certainly not on Guitar Hero.

For their part, Harmonic, Rock Band’s creator would be happy to expand the list. Downloadable songs for the game are highly lucrative, so for them the more songs the better. But some not so obvious issues make a great deal of Black music difficult to execute.

Instrumentation

Rock Band sales are driven by the classic rock group fantasy, the power trio plus one: Guitar, Drums, Bass and a frontman with plenty of cool moves. Appropriately, those are the instruments the game is based on. Once you go beyond that basic lineup, you throw off both the technology and the allure of the experience.

Likewise most of traditional Black music has been defined by an array of other, more complex instruments– horns, keyboards, percussion. There are only so many accessories you can expect a gamer to buy. Also, it’s pretty easy to call two or three of your friends over to mimic Living Colour. It’s another to find eight friends to be the Commodores.

There are some very notable exceptions to the rule. Bobby Womack, Funkadelic, The Isley Brothers, Bob Marley, Rufus, Chic and Prince come to mind immediately as obvious additions.

Similarly, hip-hop is beat-driven and most songs lie outside of traditional song structure. Too much repetition in a song would be, well, boring. Here again, there are notable exceptions, as artists from Jay-Z to Lil Wayne have been successful to fusing original rock riffs in their music.

Mass Appeal

Nothing dampens a Rock Band experience more than running out of songs you recognize enough to play well. There’s a whole list of obscure Black rock bands who fit the classic definition, but if the songs aren’t well known to a high percentage of players, it would be hard to justify the fees to get the rights.

Technique

Half the fun of musician games is the mimicking of classic guitar technique – hammering on, pulling the whammy bar. But for the relatively few R&B tunes with featured guitar solos, the guitar action is rhythmic and doesn’t take on a leading role. Vocals are the leading feature. If you want to sing, buy a karaoke machine and save your dough.

Band Dynamics

R&B and hip hop are interactive. They’re meant to dance and bob your head to,  and that effect is driven by the bass and the drums. It would be great if Rock Band were more fun for those instruments (nobody ever wants the bass), but the enduring romance of the guitar is what sells game consoles.

Rights Issues

To be clear, R&B music isn’t the only thing missing from the games. Most of “white music” is as well, not to mention other genres. Wrangling the rights to the music of say, Jimi Hendrix (who is not in either game) can be a massive and expensive undertaking. If you are concerned that Motown is not reflected in Rock Band, no doubt the answer lies here.

Much of what is not available on Guitar Hero or Rock Band isn’t there because of some lawyer, not because of choice.

Issues of ownership and royalties have kept an incredible amount of music from the digital space in general, and black artists are notoriously involved in complicated rights ownership schemes. Just ask the guys who bought the rights to Soul Train how hard it is clear classic  Black music for extended usage.

This is also what makes much of hip-hop problematic. The rights an artist gets to sample songs do not necessarily extend to re-licensing those bits to a video game. In theory, to include a song that mixes, for example, four samples, The Rock Band folks would have to re-clear all of those original songs plus the remix in order to use one tune. Worth it? For the artists, maybe, but probably not for the video game producers.

Fortunately, there is light on the horizon. Rumors of a Hendrix-only Guitar Hero, similar to the new Beatles Rock Band, are rampant, though unconfirmed. And the Jackson Five’s “ABC” has been announced as a new addition.

In the meantime, just in case the Rock Band folks are reading,  we have some recommendations to start working on now if Rock Band is to reflect a more full history of Black involvement in rock.

Eric’s Top Picks for Rock Band Adds:

Mother’s Finest – Baby Love
Funkadelic – Red Hot Mama
Bobby Womack – Down & Out
Slave - Slide
Sly & the Family Stone – Sing a Simple Song
The Selecter – Too Much Pressure
Third World – Try Jah Love
Bad Brains – Return to Heaven
A Tribe Called Quest – Award Tour
Diddy – Bad Boy for Life
Power Station – Some Like it Hot
Isley Brothers – Who’s That Lady

Rob Fields’ (of Black rock blog BoldasLove) Top Adds:

Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)/Crosstown Traffic/Star-Spangled Banner
Run-DMC - Rock Box
Fishbone - Party at Ground Zero, Freddie's Dead, Ma and Pa, Bonin' in the Boneyard
Body Count - Cop Killer
24-7 Spyz - Jungle Boogie,
The Dirtbombs - Wreck My Flow
Earl Greyhound - S.O.S.
Prince - Purple Rain
Noisettes - Don't Give Up
Skunk Anansie - She's My Heroine, Twisted (Everyday Hurts)
Sly Stone - Thank you (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)
Tamar-kali - Your Girl
Betty Davis - If I'm Lucy I might Get Picked Up, Game Is My Middle Name

Eric Easter is VP of Digital & Entertainment for Johnson Publishing, Co., Inc. He writes about politics, culture and technology for EbonyJet.com.