On September 20th, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the annual MOBO (Music Of Black Origin) awards will be held. It is a ceremony held to celebrate and reward artists who have shone in areas such as Rap, Reggae, and R'n'B or any music deemed to be of 'black origin'. My question is, are they racist? I think they are.
Firstly, I will concede that the competition is open to artists of any skin colour and white acts like Joss Stone and Simply Red's Mick Hucknell have been awarded in the past. However, when you look at the opposite, there seems to be mixed rulings. Black singer, Samantha Mumba picked up a MOBO just a few years ago and yet she is a pop artist. Although the actual one was probably labelled best R'n'B or something, she essentially won an award for simply being a black person involved in music; in my opinion anyway. We also have other ceremonies in the UK suxh as The RIMAs or Race in the Media Awards, whereby only black people can win the award (in terms of being in front of the camera) and the 1extra digital radio station from the BBC, which is hailed as the UK's best 'black' music station. This, I do consider even worse.
I have read a few debates on this through Google and it seems many people agree with me. But of course we live in a society that dictates we "whites" should feel guilty about any wrongs our ancestors did to other races and thus we cannot question anything about their culture; otherwise we will be deemed racist and rejective (even if we are questioning them on their policy of syndicated racial equality).
I must add that I hated using the words "we" & "them" in the above paragraph because I believe myself to be a totalitarian non-racist, which means I think everyone should follow the same rules. It's quite simply the only way Martin Luther King's Dream of his descendants "not being judged by the colour of their skin, but the content of their character" can happen because awards like the MOBOs only serve to segregate into black/white or our music/your music.
One defence of the MOBOs I read even tried to suggest that people who hold my view are ignorant to fact that black people just don't get mentioned in the mainstream awards. He exampled Craig David and Lemar for his case. The former was nominated six times at one year's event but won nothing and the latter is 'the best soul singer Britain’s produced', in the estimation of the poster, and lost out to Robbie Williams for the best male gong. He obviously forgot that in Craig's case his six nominations alone proved his talent was being recognised and that as an artist who has covered several genres, he was unlikely to win his categories because he was going up against people that specialised in those specified music types. As for Lemar vs. Robbie? Awards are based on popularity and success; not talent. Robbie (unfortunately) wipes the floor with his counterpart in those fields so was the obvious winner.
If you got to here, well done and thanks for sticking with the rant. What are your thoughts?...........
Firstly, I will concede that the competition is open to artists of any skin colour and white acts like Joss Stone and Simply Red's Mick Hucknell have been awarded in the past. However, when you look at the opposite, there seems to be mixed rulings. Black singer, Samantha Mumba picked up a MOBO just a few years ago and yet she is a pop artist. Although the actual one was probably labelled best R'n'B or something, she essentially won an award for simply being a black person involved in music; in my opinion anyway. We also have other ceremonies in the UK suxh as The RIMAs or Race in the Media Awards, whereby only black people can win the award (in terms of being in front of the camera) and the 1extra digital radio station from the BBC, which is hailed as the UK's best 'black' music station. This, I do consider even worse.
I have read a few debates on this through Google and it seems many people agree with me. But of course we live in a society that dictates we "whites" should feel guilty about any wrongs our ancestors did to other races and thus we cannot question anything about their culture; otherwise we will be deemed racist and rejective (even if we are questioning them on their policy of syndicated racial equality).
I must add that I hated using the words "we" & "them" in the above paragraph because I believe myself to be a totalitarian non-racist, which means I think everyone should follow the same rules. It's quite simply the only way Martin Luther King's Dream of his descendants "not being judged by the colour of their skin, but the content of their character" can happen because awards like the MOBOs only serve to segregate into black/white or our music/your music.
One defence of the MOBOs I read even tried to suggest that people who hold my view are ignorant to fact that black people just don't get mentioned in the mainstream awards. He exampled Craig David and Lemar for his case. The former was nominated six times at one year's event but won nothing and the latter is 'the best soul singer Britain’s produced', in the estimation of the poster, and lost out to Robbie Williams for the best male gong. He obviously forgot that in Craig's case his six nominations alone proved his talent was being recognised and that as an artist who has covered several genres, he was unlikely to win his categories because he was going up against people that specialised in those specified music types. As for Lemar vs. Robbie? Awards are based on popularity and success; not talent. Robbie (unfortunately) wipes the floor with his counterpart in those fields so was the obvious winner.
If you got to here, well done and thanks for sticking with the rant. What are your thoughts?...........
Last edited by =OBS= EstebanRey (2006-09-05 10:47:59)