Hello Eric. I must feel a bit like a bloke'out of his time', eh?

For your information, Jean-Pierre's lad, I realised I didn't really like rapping as a skill way back in the early '80s, when I was a mere slip of a 22- or 23-year-old and on holiday in the States. It was suddenly everywhere - well the early versions of it, backed by 'electro' beats - and while I thought the subculture side fairly interesting for five minutes, I just didn't enjoy the 'talking in rhythm' delivery. Didn't think it took much talent to do it reasonably well, especially since they were all nicking old soul and funk tunes for their rhythm tracks. Yes, it's developed a lot since then and the more 'conversational' or story-tellng style of someone like Common I can put up with, but rapping never leaves me stunned like a great singer does [even if some of the productions can be clever/entertaining].
I have lots of time for what some of the hip-hop dudes are saying too - Public Enemy in the eighties, De La Soul could be funny, Boots from The Coup is one of the wittiest guys around right now [he's in the current mag] - but, to be honest, I'd often rather read Chuck D's lyrics and interviews than have him barking at me over Bomb Squad productions.
The good thing about hip-hop, for me, has always been its tendency to reflect day-to-day life for a large group of African Americans [as well as some cartoony bollocks they invented for fun or to outrage Charlton Heston]. Post civil rights soul used to do that a lot in the seventies, but lost it all in the eighties to hip-hop, which was disappointing. People like Cody Chesnutt are picking up on this again, but it's not as rife as it used be in the time of Curtis Mayfield, Marvin, Stevie, Isleys, Scott-Heron etc. Indie label soul is flourishing now, though, which is encouraging.
Oh and, no, I don't keep these opinions from the readers. I can't be arsed. I employ good hip-hop writers, frequently put hip-hop geezers on the front [as well as shite R&B twats like Usher] and get on with writing about soul and sometimes jazz, and doing the editing bit. I co-own the mag, so there's nobody who can sack me for not liking every style of black music. [We can go out of business, of course.]
Something that does piss me off about the general media view of soul music is that it's by and large an 'old' music. People automatically think or talk about Aretha, Otis, Marvin or even Ray Charles when you say you like soul. Lots of people aren't even aware there has been any soul music since the eighties. The MOBOs lot, for example, appear to think modern black music is either hip-hop [or grime related, if UK] or R&B. They didn't have a jazz or a soul MOBO for about the first 10 years of their existence. Then the jazz guys protested outside the Albert Hall and won themselves an annual gong. The following year I organised a protest on behalf of the soul boys at the O2 - we stuck Omar, Bluey from Incognito, Ola Onabule and Rahsaan Patterson in my mate's black cab and they crashed the red carpet with posters I'd had made up [see the vid at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-MWFh-n-z0 - and, no, it's not my apostrophe, dammit]. They grudgingly made the R&B gong into an R&B/Soul award.
I interviewed Kanya King, who runs the MOBOs, and asked her about the lack of soul in their programme and she said she didn't think there was much new soul around. So I asked her what the fuck did she think people like Badu, Jill Scott, Benét, Maxwell, D'Angelo, Bev Knight, Bailey-Rae, Omar etc etc did, and she hadn't a clue what to say. Her deputy tried to tell me that Omar was a jazz act - something which Omar found funny when I told him.
Now we don't even bother with the MOBOs. They made themselves irrelevant when they fucked off out of London in an attempt to get away from irritants like Echoes and the jazz musicians, and also take advantage of cheaper venues in Scotland.
So anyway, enough bollocks and rambling from me to start this off. Do join in.
How about the issue of illegal downloads fucking up the music industry? That's always a good one, 'cause while it's easy to say, 'Fuck Universal and Sony for charging too much in the '70s and '80s for their albums and CDs, it's payback time', taking music for free unquestionably hits the artists themselves. The fuckers keep telling me how much it does!
Over to you...