The Blues is for Black Men with Miserable Lives

The title of this article was inspired by this week's episode of "The Real World." The statement came from one of the white male housemates, Dunbar. He told his Middle Eastern female roommate, Parisa, that she couldn't make it singing the blues because "The blues is for black men with miserable lives." Interesting. His statement was wrong on so many levels.

In my opinion, if you want to set aside one genre for black men with miserable lives, rap would be more suitable. Maybe there are a lot of black men who sing the blues. But there are definitely other races who sing it. And, women have been singing the blues for a long time too. I guess Dunbar watches too much television, and the image that popped into his head was an old black man with a harmonica and dark sunglasses. It's 2007, and that is not the only image out there. Amy Winehouse, for example, is a 23 year old white English woman. She may not call what she sings "the blues," but it definitely sounds blue to me.

Back to rap. I was only half joking when I said that rap is the genre for black men with miserable lives. It is like the blues set to a hot beat. Of course, there are so many different styles of rap. Common's style is like spoken-word poetry. There is upbeat party rap, gangsta rap, old school, and some other stuff that I can't even put a name to. But, if you are a big rap fan, you know that a lot of rappers do tell depressing life stories in their music. DMX had a song in 1998 called "Slippin'." He rapped the blues about his hard knock life.

Three years later showing signs of stress

Didn't keep my hair cut or give a !@#$ how I dressed

I'm possessed by the darker side living the cruddy life

If that's not a miserable black man, I don't know what is. To me, the blues comes in many different forms. It doesn't have to be one style of music. It's about what you're talking about in the music. So, no, the blues is not just for black men with miserable lives. Everyone sings the blues sometimes, whether it be in a song, a poem, a journal entry, or just your complaints to a friend.