The Urban Hijak

No you are not going mad! That really is a slammin R&B production on the recent Spice Girls single. And Lisa Left Eye really did rap on a tough track with Mel C. What's going on? , The record industry regularly hijacks new forms or styles of urban music, but recently it seems to be doing it more and more so. It is becoming increasingly difficult to categorise certain artists and bands. How do you define what is or isn't urban? The boundaries between different forms of music are becoming more and more blurred, as we have discovered at Phatmag, having had many discussions about which acts should or shouldn't be included in our pages.

Historically this kind of hijack is nothing new. Singers like Elvis Presley and groups like the Rolling Stones are on record as saying that their main influence was the Blues. So all those old Blues singers (many of whom died penniless) were the catalysts for the birth of popular music as we know it. Then out of soul music grew Disco and ultimately Dance music and its many forms that it has today. The production styles on tracks by the Backstreet Boys or N Sync are regularly the same as some of the productions Teddy Riley dropped a dacade ago. But if Rodney Jerkins or Timbaland produce a Spice Girls record does that make them Urban Spice? No it doesn't!

The problem with a situation like this is that it is so obviously contrived. Surely one of the main ingredients for something to qualify as urban has to be that it feels genuine. It has to be authentic. You have to have lived the life, experienced the down side and the highs, been there and done it, and been part of an urban scene. After working all week in a sh#@+y job you spend your little bit of spare cash letting off steam by clubbing hard in some underground Garage club. This description doesn't quite match Victoria Beckham but it didn't stop her jumping on the two-step bandwagon. I don't blame her, and I certainly don't blame the Truesteppers (who are the real deal) for cleaning up. But my point is, it just ain't urban!

There also has to be a certain amount of attitude. Mel B can bitch all she wants over some slick R&B backing track about her gay husband. I mean I am sure she hates the fact that he married her for her money, and that he would rather play hide the sausage with his mates than her, but some how it doesn't quite do it. You can't help feeling she had one eye on the tabloids and the publicity it would generate. Where as when Eminem slags someone off you just know he really doesn't give a f#%k.

Mr Slim Shady brings up another point. He is a white boy operating in a black music genre, but this isn't a contradiction in terms. It isn't a white or black thing. Hip-Hop is music of black origin (MOBO!), but you know Slim grew up living and breathing it, he is the real deal! More so than someone like Puff Daddy who is just an opportunist milking Hip Hop for all it's worth and damaging it in the process. Puff's skill at marketing is unquestioned, he helped bring Biggy, Jodeci and Mary J Blige to the world, but as an artist he is a big joke.

Urban is such a broad term and it covers so many aspects. You have your R&B scene, your Hip Hop scene, your Dance scene (in all it's different forms) and often bands that combine bits of more than one of these flavas. But to qualify as urban you need a certain amount of ability. I don't mean you have to sing like Aretha, but you need the ability to convey the feeling and meaning of the music you are involved in. This can be having enough soul (R&B), having enough attitude (Hip-Hop), or having the right energy (Dance). But it can also just be being real enough so that people can identify with you. Take the Sugarbabes for example, to me they are urban. I know that they have a very professional team behind them, but the type of music and the way they deliver it really conveys what they are about. Trust me there are tons of stroppy, bored 15 year olds hanging around on estates in cities all over the country who know exactly where they are coming from.

So much of the music mainstream has evolved from some form of urban music. In a way it is a compliment, but in many others ways it is a problem. Too often the industry picks up on an urban scene then proceeds to exclude the very people that it was built on. I realise that Posh Spice can generate huge publicity, but that song could have been used to launch a new star. Craig David was an unknown when he featured on a similar track (Rewind) and look what he has gone on to. In the same way the Spice Girls record label have put big money behind them by pulling in all the heavyweight R&B producers for their new album. And yet, with the exception of Jamelia, there really isn't a British R&B scene. They say that UK R&B doesn't sell, but when was the last time the industry truly backed a real talent? If they found some kids with the right attitude who could really sing, and then they brought in the big guns and found the big songs (like No Scrubs for instance), why wouldn't these kids sell as much as TLC or Destinys Child? They 'll do it for the Spice Girls, who aren't an R&B group, but not for the real thing.

So this is the problem. In a lot of ways it is inevitable, it's the nature of big corporate record companies to behave this way. It's just a shame that when they hijack an urban scene they dilute it to make it safe for mass consumption, and this is usually at the long term expense of the real thing. But sadly it has always happened and probably always will!

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