![]() ![]() It is considerably harder to discuss and unpack the demand for relentless and always present black performance. Which is all that one really has to understand when approaching the Little Brother album named after the act born of white performers painting their faces black and putting on tattered clothing before dancing and playing up black stereotypes to white audiences for laughs. It would be almost too easy to give a history of Minstrel Shows, or to even call it history, as if blackness for disposable entertainment isn’t still a profitable enterprise. I mean that I know how easy it is for my skin to sell, as long as I’m not the one selling it. I don’t know how to describe this to someone who may not understand it, except to say that I looked in the mirror this morning and I didn’t only see myself. It is a strange thing to see your skin everywhere. “ Even though, most of our albums are poorly promoted / And all the magazines probably won’t even quote it” – Phonte, “ Still Lives Through” (2005) “ Nooooooo, Ma’am! I’s got to have SOME money”- Cotton and Chick Watts, “ The Black And White Minstrel Show” (1978) “ Well, let’s see now…I’ll pay you all that you’re worth” “ Yes, Ma’am! How much you gon’ pay me, I’s hope?” “ How would you like to come and work for me?” ![]()
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February 2023
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