Common: Like Water for Chocolate: Pitchfork Review – so here’s a question, following on from Tanya’s Marvin Gaye dissection in IHM. Is the idea of ‘soul’ – whether as genre or innate musical quality – actually preventing critics from appreciating the breadth of music being made by black artists? Or to put it another way, is the constant insistence by critics that albums by black people be ‘soulful’ itself a ghettoizing position? Or to put it a third way – do the words we sling around as critics have more implications and societal weight than we perhaps think?
I’m not entirely sure what I think about these things, but I’m interested to hear what you do.