Back at music conferences in the ‘80s I always made it my business to spend some time with some of the old wise men of rhythm & blues. Mostly they were promotion men who’d worked for a slew of independent R&B, jazz and gospel labels. I gleamed so much insight from these dudes. One that came back to be recently was, “You’ll have to make a decision about being in or out of the building. You’re in the building right now, but don’t expect to stay there, ‘cos you ain’t ever gonna own it.” At the time I was the black music editor at the leading music trade Billboard magazine, so I was very much “in the building.”
The wise men were in their late ‘60s at the time and had witnessed how the civil rights movement had opened doors for black folks in corporate America. The creation of black music departments at major labels had increased recording budgets for African-American artists, created hundreds (if not thousands) of jobs that hadn’t existed before, and heightened the marketing push behind black music, particularly R&B acts with pop potential. In the process a new class of black executive, many college graduates or folks who’d worked at Fortune 500 companies, entered the business with expertise very different from the wise old men who’d had to survive in Jim Crow America.
My guys (and many women) had mostly been “outside the building” folks who spent more of their lives traveling to radio stations and shows around the country in Cadillacs than at home. The wise old men definitely envied the perks the new generation enjoyed (American Express cards, large expense accounts, health insurance), but were skeptical of the long term opportunities being afforded and what a corporate mind set would do to the music. These men weren’t black nationalist (they worked for more white owned labels than black), but they were cultural nationalist in that they saw music as an invaluable expression of African-Americans. (By the turn of the century almost all the black music departments started in the ‘70s were either gone or scaled back. Napster played a role, but so did the racial politics at the labels.)
The choice of “inside,” “outside,” or somewhere in between was one my peers and mentors all grappled with. Whether it was a deal with a major label, getting a film or TV contract with a studio or writing for major publications, inside the building was where the big money was in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The smart ones always kept a presence “outside” with the long term goal of constructing their own building. As I watched folks figure out their place in business, I knew I had to think where I wanted to be. Between Record World and Billboard, I worked at a music trade periodical from 1981 to ‘89, long enough to establish myself, though my last years there I was itching to move on.
When I finally “left the building,” I found that the wise old men had been right — my future was outside. I’ve never had a Cadillac, but I found that by working in a variety of fields gave me a lot of autonomy and personal satisfaction. The term wasn’t used widely in the ‘90s but, inretrospect, I’d built a “brand” and personal brands have, to some degree, allowed every creative person to construct their own “building.” With social media many folks rarely or never interact with the gate keepers of corporate culture.
However, I suspect that the old wise men, would chuckle at the idea that all today’s digital creators actually own their buildings. The means of production is always impacted the mechanism of distribution. The question the old wise men would always ask when someone made a high profile distribution deal was, “Who’s making the real money?” If you’re dependent on YouTube, Vimeo, any of the Meta brands, (or Substack) etc to attract customers and sell merchandise, aren’t you just in a “digital building?”
The controllers of distribution are still getting a piece of the action. Instead of signing bespoke deals in the old model, its now a volume business, where people pour their ideas into these platforms for a fee. It may be impossible to be truly “outside” any system, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves about what’s happening just because the new boss talks a better game than the old ones.
I think about the old wise men of rhythm &blues often. They didn’t fit into the new world of the ‘80s very well and I’m not sure how they would have done now. But they were very clear about how capitalism worked and had no illusions about the generosity of industrialist. I thank them all the time for the lessons.
[If you want to know more about the old wise men and the world of music they existed in check out my 1988 book, The Death of Rhythm & Blues.]