Gene Simmons cannot seem to hold his tongue. Just weeks after being named a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, an award he did not deserve, the bassist from KISS made headlines again, showing how rock stars sometimes age into caricatures. Ironically, the aging rock legend was complaining about rap artists being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Before describing a conversation he had about the subject with Ice Cube, Simmons dug out the age-old trope of pointing out that Ice Cube is "a bright guy," as if complimenting one Black man grants him diplomatic immunity from accusations of racism. I'm only surprised he didn't go for the full cliche' and insist he can't be racist because he has a "Black friend."
After securing his rhetorical force field against accusations of racism, KISS's demon got to the crux of his argument. In Simmons's worldview, his personal taste is the center of the musical universe -- and the only valid metric for what the Hall should honor. And with that, he laid out his disqualifying criteria for rap:
"It's not my music. I don't come from the ghetto. It doesn't speak my language."
These statements reveal just how far Simmons is from modern popular culture. The music he plays may have been birthed in rebellion, but the founding member of KISS long ago traded that spirit for a $300 million brand. Otherwise, he might have noticed that while hip-hop emerged from the neighborhoods he dismisses as "ghetto," its audience crossed racial, geographic, and economic lines decades ago.
"The problem isn't the lyrics on the records.
It's the fear of the white kids liking a black artist."
-- Body Count, "The Real Problem"
Simmons's comments aren't new; they're part of a long lineage of white discomfort with Black musical influence. Ice"'T found this out after he released the song "Cop Killer."
In a foreshadowing of the Streisand Effect, sudden attention fell on the rap artist's metal track, and he found himself embroiled in a controversy wildly outsized for a song that was never destined for commercial radio. When a reporter asked why there was such intense interest now, given that he had spent his entire career exploring police brutality, he answered by pointing to a photo of white kids enjoying his band Body Count during his set at Lollapalooza. His point was simple: once white audiences started listening to him, the message suddenly became dangerous.
"Elvis was a hero to most, but that's beside the point
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