The '80s: Crossover vs Keep It Real
Trying to squeeze history into neat ten year packages is always a mistake
I did an interview today for a documentary series about popular culture and politics in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s one of several single films or series I’ve been approached about or involved in about that era. It’s still strange to me that years I lived in are now history, a history that multiple television and streaming platforms are deeply invested in revisiting. It’s amusing, surprising and sometimes unsettling to look back at events I witnessed, and even participated in, becoming the stuff of prime time viewing.
But one of the traps I find many of these filmmakers and storytellers falling into his trying to define creative and social movements through the neat lens of decades. To me most important movements overlap the arbitary markers of decades. In fact I see many of the most important transitions happening in the middle of decades, not at the ends or beginnings.
I’ll use the ‘80s, a decade I was mostly in my twenties — the years I moved into my first apartment, built my career and made friendships that continue to this day — as an example. For me the first part of that decade — which for me starts in 1979 with the release of Michael Jackson’s ‘Off the Wall’ in August and the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” in September — is an era of massive black pop culture expansion. Between late ‘79 and the 1986 you had Michaelmania with ‘Thriller,’ Prince and ‘Purple Rain,’ Eddie Murphy on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ the debut of Whitney Houston, Lionel Richie’s solo career, Magic Johnson won titles with the Lakers, Michael Jordan entered the NBA, Byrant Gumbel hosted ‘The Today Show’ on NBC, ‘The Cosby Show’ became America’s number one television show and the syndicated ‘Oprah Winfrey Show’ debuted. These performer’s appeal was national and, in most cases, global. They were “crossover” artists who, in various ways, positioned themselves as people whites, as well as blacks, should embrace.
A couple of things altered the landscape of America that was reflected in the culture. By the mid-80s crack emerged as a potent destructive force, changing life in big cities, leading to rising addiction, heightened violence, more aggressive law enforcement and extreme changes in sentencing. At the same time this was happening in the streets there were two ideas that captured the imagination of many young people — the anti-apartheid movement against the South African government inspired by the figure of the incarcerated Nelson Mandela and a feverish revival of interest in the philosophy of Malcolm X, which also led many to investigate the tenets of the Nation of Islam.
The touchstones of the second half of the ‘80s are very different in tone from the first: the “golden age” hip hop of New York with Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, Boogie Down Productions, Rakim and many other lyrical poets who told tales of crime, black liberation and style; Spike Lee inspires a blossoming of black filmmaking with his landmark ‘Do the Right Thing’; Mike Tyson becomes the most charismatic heavyweight since Ali, while embodying ascendent b-boy aggression; Teddy Riley’s new jack swing sound revolutionizes hip -hop AND R&B, creating a synthesis of the two that changes popular music; Terry McMillan’s novel ‘Disappearing Acts’ ignites a wave of commercial black fiction; drug dealer chic makes beepers, jeeps, loose fitting track suits and thick gold chains official streetwear; urban fashion labels rise and European designers find their logos “sampled” by street saavy designers like Dapper Dan; the phrases “Afro-Asiatic” and “Afrocentricity” enter the lexicon; the Bloods and the Crips, long time Los Angeles gangs, gain a national profile and branches begin to spread across the country; the Source magazine, first published out of Harvard University, heralds the rise of hip hop as mass culture to be consumed by white, as well as black, audiences; hi-top fade hairs would slowly dethrone the jheri curl.
In short, if you look at the culture in 1982 and then in 1988 you’d see a profound sea change. Instead of the ubiquity of the crossover philosophy, the phrase “keepin’ it real” was everywhere. For black culture it was no longer about crossing over to white audiences, but have those audiences embrace a rawer, street experience. So, to say, the ‘80s to me is to completely miss the real story of those ten years. In fact to lock these changes into a ten year box is a mistake. For me, the later half of the ‘80s really didn’t end until ‘93 or so when LA, and not New York, became the center of the culture I cared about. But then, that’s a newsletter for another day.