As everyone arrived, I played top radio hits that I was sure people had heard, at least in passing, over the past few years. And I was right: Everyone either sang along, danced, or bopped familiarly to the various songs I played.
Now that they were warmed up, I told the group that we were going to test everyone’s musical knowledge. Over the next hour, I played a random assortment of music from all different genres, time periods, and cultures. The one thing all of the songs had in common was that at one point or another they were very popular.
Whether it was Ariana Grande, the Jonas Brothers, Katy Perry, or Maroon 5, if the songs were mainstream hits by white artists, everyone in the room would say that they’d heard them before.
And not only did people in the room know the songs and the artists, for the most part they also knew deeper information about them, such as other songs of theirs, people the artists had dated, or when the artists had become popular.
Remember, it wasn’t just the white people in the group who knew these things; it was everyone.
Well, except me. I personally don’t care about how many people Ariana Grande has dated or how long her ponytail is. But it would seem that I’m in the minority on that.
The point is, across the board, people from various backgrounds had a great sense of who the artists were and what their music was all about. This didn’t surprise me; as I mentioned, everyone there was involved in music in one way or another.
Next, I decided to play songs that were extremely popular based on listens and views streaming but that weren’t by white artists. This is where things got interesting.
I thought the first song should be easy, so I played “Ms. Jackson” by OutKast. As soon as the beat dropped, people started moving and then rapping along with the song. I knew I had picked the right song—until I looked at the white people in the group.
Of the six white people in the room, only one of them even seemed to know what was on. I was deeply confused. So I asked the other five white people if they knew the song. Not only did they not know the song; they didn’t even know the group.
I almost passed out! I couldn’t believe that they didn’t know the song, let alone recognize the voices of André 3000 and Big Boi. OutKast was hardly some little-known group; they were actually one of the highest-selling groups of all time.
Their last album went diamond. I mean, as of this writing, only 122 albums have ever gone diamond. EVER!
After that, I needed a moment, so I gave the aux to other people at the party to see what people knew. We played all sorts of genres, from hip-hop to bachata, and generally all of the people of color had a familiarity with the music, even if it didn’t belong to their culture. As I said before, knowing or liking things that are rooted in other communities has always been normal for the people of color that I know. But song after song, genre after genre, if it wasn’t an artist or song that had crossed over into mainstream whiteness, my white guests didn’t all know it.
Before everyone left, I decided to give the game one last try. First I played a few songs I was absolutely sure everyone in attendance would know.
I played “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi, the quintessential white anthem. Every single person in the room sang along. I followed up with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana and “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, to the same results.
Everyone was singing along, and my house sounded like a crappy college bar.
Next, I played “Gasolina” by Daddy Yankee, and people started laughing, because that song is laughable. I expected to look around and see everyone singing along, but only two of the white people knew it.
For my final song I decided to play “Hot in Herre” (don’t look at me; Nelly decided to spell it that way) by Nelly, and everyone knew it. I was wonderfully pleased that at least everyone knew one of Nelly’s worst songs.
As people were preparing to leave, one of my friends said, “You can’t have the last song of the night be one of those terrible Nelly songs.” He wasn’t wrong, so I jumped back on the aux and told everyone I was going to play another Nelly song. A second later I threw on “Flap Your Wings,” a classic and a staple for many. Everyone was hyped. Well, almost everyone.
I looked at my white friends, and they looked confused. I asked one of them what was wrong. She said, “I thought you were going to play Nelly.”
I stared at her for a second, then said, “This is Nelly playing right now.” She said, “Oh, wow! Never heard it!”
I proceeded to kick everyone out immediately.
Maybe you’re thinking that my white friends—who, let me remind you, work in the music industry or are musicians themselves—just happen to be unusually ignorant when it comes to music. But you’d be wrong. And my conversation with Naima Cochrane proves it.
Naima’s musical knowledge and passion have garnered her a large social-media platform. Fun fact: she’s named after the John Coltrane song “Naima,” so you could say she was born into music.
I’m sure many of you don’t know who John Coltrane is, because life is unfair. I don’t blame you, but go listen to “Naima” by Coltrane right now. Just know that if we meet and you haven’t listened to any Coltrane songs, we are going to have an issue!
I figured she was the perfect person to ask about her experiences in the industry, since she is a person of color with varying interests in and knowledge about music and entertainment that rival those of her white counterparts.
While she was growing up, Naima’s parents played all types of “Black music,” so her understanding of the spectrum of what Black people supposedly did and didn’t listen to was shaped from a young age.
NAIMA: My parents were into the Nigerian singer Fela, jazz, and Santana, in addition to soul and stuff like that. But they didn’t necessarily listen to contemporary R&B aside from, like, Luther [Vandross], and Janet [Jackson], and then Sade. I had a very global understanding of my Blackness, not a super-defined and rigid cultural understanding of my Blackness.
This was similar to my own musical upbringing, which was very diverse and dynamic as well. Which is part of the reason why, as a teenager, I didn’t understand why so many of the white people I met thought people of color enjoy only certain things.
NAIMA: During elementary school and the first half of middle school, I went to a predominantly white school, and specifically a predominantly country white school. I was listening to the pop stations. I was listening to Guns N’ Roses, and I was listening to the little bubble-gum pop music or whatever. In high school, I had to catch up on some of this early hip-hop. I had to catch up on Salt-N-Pepa. I had to catch up on the first N.W.A. album.
Because of how I grew up, during my career, I didn’t just have opinions on the Black music. I had opinions on the alternative music, and the white music, and the straight-up pop music, and informed opinions, since I could tell you if I liked it or if I didn’t like it, and why. It made me a better marketer, because I was pulling from broader experience. I remember we were doing something for Foster the People when I was at Columbia, and I mentioned something about Hacky Sack because I remember watching kids at school play Hacky Sack. The band members were surprised, because they figured that’s not a reference that a lot of Black kids are going to throw out, or that a lot of Black people are going to throw out.