Earffirmative Action

THERE ARE white people in my iPod, a tragically underrepresented minority. I make a sincere effort to support them, because I recognize that they have contributions to make. Cosettina loves to default to GENRES>>R&B/SOUL, which measures like 16 hours. (Cosettina is my iPod. Obv.)

White people doing black music* only semi-count for earffirmative actions. I did get Eminem's last album, concluding a long journey from outright loathing to tepid acceptance to tornado-volcano embrace. My first erstwhile hint of respect for him came when he likened himself to Elvis: To do black music so selfishly/And use it to get myself wealthy. I thought that showed self-knowledge. Recovery is his bar mitzvah album for real though. He is finally making use of those purported eighty pound balls to handle icky matter like love and personal growth. (Also, Em: I was wondering how your day went. xoxo)

*Don't ask me to define such terms. Just like do me this one favor and suppose you know what I mean.

Amy, for her part, has said she never listens to white music, a statement I find unaccountably, characteristically awesome. Looking forward to spending an evening as you soon, babygirl.


I USED TO listen to rap in the closet. Nowadays that's where I listen to rock. Well, not precisely the closet, but just outside it, lazy-splayed across the bed. For such occasions I don my glasses and wifebeaters and wide-stripe thigh socks, in a weak attempt to be as culturally as I am biologically white.

I favor rock bands with definite article-preceded names; there is swagger in such unironic certainty. Not that I select to like them on this basis. Just, having perceived the liking pattern, I thought I'd make up a whizbang rationale for it. And I gravitate toward white music that is soulful,* a quality inevitably, controversially (see Mercedes v. Quinn, S1 Ep XXI) associated with blackness.

*In the best footnote of all time, Zadie Smith wonders, "Is there anything less soulful than attempting to define soulfulness?"

This is what soulful means. (It's Dan!)

UNEQUIVOCALLY QUALIFYING as soulful is everyone's favorite White, my first husband Jack. Dan Auerbach is even soulfuller, and he could be Jewish, in which case we could maybe have a huppah, something bossy Jack was not into. Though I do miss Jack's angry sexuality, like on "Instinct Blues." They can both say "uh" as well as Biggie--the only thing that truly matters.

It's funny how when Jack says, Shake your hips like battleships I'm still tempted to say, "How fast?" We're not even together anymore! I had the same problem when I was with Game. He'd be like, Bounce like you got hydraulics in ya g-string and I'd be like, "How high?" Dan says that's wrong, and he's probably right. Dan also says I'm the only one, whereas I'm pretty sure Game was simulfucking Kim K while we were together. (I'll share a man with you anytime, bitch. High-five booty clap.)


And this, naturally.

Anyway. Much white music does sound soulless to me. Or at least undersouled. Soul suck may result from aloof withholding, grating cleverness, or ironic remove. To my ears, white music has a greater tendency to sound like it's trying hard to be cool; art should strive to be good, coolness being a possible byproduct only.

You could say there are values besides soulfulness in music, and you *might* have a point. Even my iPod admits as much. Fairly or not, Cosettina grants wide berth to rappers and R&B cheesemongers, calling their vulgarity real-keeping and their tackiness fun. No white person could say, We don't even clap the same when we livin that champagne life/Sexier than a regular clap. And yet I totally tolerate, even enjoy, Ne-Yo saying so. Because the beat is right and one could be tipsy on the dance floor and really feel, for one transcendent moment, to be living The Champagne Life.

Cosettina is way more judgmental about pop rock. Much of the white music on the radio seems to fail by overwrought, false sincerity. By attempting to be deep whilst lacking actual depth. Every note from the voice of that Hayley Williams chick is a small act of senseless violence to my tender ears. (You know: airplanes...night sky...shooting stars...)

Perhaps the moral here, if I got to generally set morals, would be: If you can't be for-reals awesome, just be trashy awesome. Call it the Pitbull Principle of Know Thyself. (Speakinawhich, did you hear "Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor)"? Shit's bangin!)

What I like about the aforementioned soulful whites is their wide-eyed artistic devotion, and the full-heartedness of the music they make. They have found their own roads to soulfulness, not copping anybody else's style. Amy and Em make black music their own, and do so in a way I respect. But Jack and Dan make white music soulful, and that may be the greater feat.

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