Comment

Comment by Steve Rauworth on January 22, 2013 at 2:33pm

Yes, watching white people (and I'm one, fortunate enough I guess, to feel the rhythm) try to find the beat is both pathetic and funny. It's entirely understandable in early 60's England, but to this day I see lots of people, even those who have any sense of rhythm at all, clapping on the 1 and the 3 while listening to blues or rock, like it's bluegrass or something, rather than the clearly defined backbeat - unh - which swings, is a little subversive and a lot sexual, and indicates a secret knowledge The Man doesn't have. God bless 'em for being there and digging it, but this is more than a coincidental mistake, having more to do with nurture (exposure to cool music) than nature (genetics), but like all things human, must be both. I don't mean to paint with too broad a stroke and falsely ennoble or demean people based on skin color or musical ability, which are both beautiful and for all to appreciate, but this clearly observable phenomenon and a whole lot of other not so trifling cultural and political evidence make you wonder.