Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Snub Week
The Song of the Day is:
OutKast – “Rosa Parks”
From the album Aquemini (1998)
Ah ha, hush that fuss
Everybody move to the back of the bus
Do you want to bump and slump with us
We the type of people make the club get crunk
Andre Benjamin – Antwan Patton
I’m not going to make the proclamation that OutKast are the most snubbed of rock acts. They’re not; they’ve only been eligible for two years. The fact is, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has been pretty selective and minimal in deeming which rap acts are fitting of a timely induction. With this year’s posthumous Notorious B.I.G. induction, that puts the rap total at seven for the Hall. If the Hall would put about one rap act in per year since the eligibility of Grandmaster Flash came to be (a quick reminder, acts are eligible 25 years after their first commercial release), then there would be a much more accurate representation of rap in the Hall. We would probably have seen inductions for DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaata, MC Lyte, LL Cool J, Eric B & Rakim, Salt n’ Pepa, A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop Dogg, Queen Latifah, Nas and Cyprus Hill. As it stands, the Hall only inducts one rap act every few years, and with the soon-approaching, and undeniable, eligibilities of Jay-Z and Eminem the Hall really needs to start thinking about the possibility of indicting more than one rap act per year (though I do understand that they have been only nominating one rap act per year to not split the rap vote, but those are the “Breaks” as Kurtis Blow would say). As for OutKast, I’ve always perceived them to be one of the most creative rap outfits around. In a time where only the two coasts seemed to be producing rap music, OutKast, of Atlanta, gave rise to the dirty south. Famously, they won the Best New Rap group at the 1995 Source Awards and were greeted with boos due to representing a different region of the nation. Eventually the coastal feud died down (following the the murders of the Tupac Shakur and the Notorious BIG) and OutKast could no longer be denied with their funky beats and rhymes that were dripping with southern attitude. Though firmly rooted in rap, they dabbled in everything from pop to R&B to rock to blues to avant garde music to marching band music to funk. They had a special duality between the streetwise traditional hip-hop of Big Boi, and the free-spirited funkateer Andre 3000. Of their six albums, four are undeniable classics, and they even took home the most recent Album of the Year Grammy Award for a rap album in 2004 (shame on the Grammys, rap has been at the forefront of popular music since then). While I do like a lot of rap music, few rappers (save Kanye) have appealed to me like OutKast, and a large reason for that is the diversity of the music on their albums. Clearly, OutKast does not feel beholden to one sound, and they are so great because of that attitude. They have not released music together since 2006, and that’s truly a shame. Big Boi releases the occasional album under his own moniker, but Andre 3000 has largely stayed quiet. “Rosa Parks” is one of their funkiest and catchiest songs, a great party track. While the civil rights icon who bears the same name was not a fan of the song (there were lawsuits), it is one of their most famous releases. I would be appreciative of any of the previously mentioned rap acts getting a Hall nomination, I do think that OutKast should have a clear and undeniable path to induction, and their time will come. I just wish that the Hall would take rap a bit more seriously, they are creating quite the backlog.
And thus I complete this year’s selection of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame snubs. Usually the next nominees would be announced in October, but with the delayed ceremony, we might have to wait til November to see which omissions could be rectified. I wish luck to all of these acts I wrote of this week, and hope to see them on the ballot.
If you enjoy the blog, please consider helping me pay the dues paypal.me/MichaelSliwa.
Thanks!
Hear Today, Grown Tomorrow 