WICKED WISDOM

Article by Barbara Cornell.

Syndicated from Barbara Cornell’s personal blog.

Just checked out Jada Pinkette Smith’s death metal band, Wicked Wisdom. They ain’t fixing to take over Metallica’s market share anytime soon (too bad, really), but they’re not half bad. Even though metal is viewed as an angry, young, white man’s genre, it really is an equal opportunity crowd.

That’s not as true with other genres, which seem to be more comfortable in their own demographic. Yes, there are a few white rappers (Eminem, Vanilla Ice — if he even still counts; his most repeated lyric these days is likely, «Would you like fries with that?» and that’s really it), but mostly they’re black. Yes, there are a few old fart pop singers (Paul McCartney…um…), but mostly they’re barely post pubescent, pimplies. Try being a white blues singer or guitar player, and you’ll find yourself faced with «Who does he think he is? White man trying to be John Lee Hooker. Psht.» And try to sell pop music to the teeny-boppers, the Beliebers, if you’re old and wrinkled…good luck with that.

The metal crowd is as likely to embrace the Killswitch Engages, the Sevendusts, the Within Temptations, the AC/DC’s (I heard Angus and his school boy uniform recently celebrated their Golden Anniversary) among us, as they are the Avenged Sevenfolds, and the Five Finger Death Punches. Black, white, latino, asian, male, female, young, old, gay, straight, christian, satanist, atheist, liberal or conservative, the metal crowd just does not care. Just bring it hard, fast and intense.