Getting Down to Their Roots

According to conventional wisdom in the music business, black musicians do rap and soul, whites do rock 'n' roll. So what to make of a group like Follow for Now? Their dreadlocks and fade-style haircuts seem to come straight out of a Yo! MTV Raps video clip. So do the lyrics to songs such as White Hood, their spirited diatribe against skinheads and other white supremacists. But the thrashing guitars and drum licks the five members of the band play on their eponymous debut album leave little doubt that their musical roots reach deep into hard rock.

Ever since Living Colour broke through the color barrier four years ago and went on to pick up two consecutive Grammys for Best Hard Rock Performnce, growing numbers of young African-American musicians have begun jamming to a rock beat. Says Living Colour lead guitarist Vernon Reid: "Rock 'n' roll is black music, and we are its heirs."

That legacy dates back to the early 1950s, when Chuck Berry and Little Richard first introduced white teens to the wildly exuberant sounds that eventually became known as rock 'n' roll. Even after the British invasion of the 1960s, black rockers like Jimi Hendrix, the Ohio Players, and Sly and the Family Stone danced back and forth across the color line. That ended with the disco era of the 1970s, whose slick, producer-driven, synthesizer-motorized tunes created a racial schism in pop music that has yet to mend.

Now, however, eager for any opportunity to prop up sagging sales, record companies are rediscovering the appeal of black rock 'n' roll. Virgin Records has signed up neohippie Lenny Kravitz, whose latest record, Mama Said, has sold about 2 million copies worldwide. Sony Music produces Fishbone, seven musical renegades who have attracted a cult following with their energetic mix of rock, punk and funk. Elektra Records is pushing Eric Gales, 17, a wunderkind who leads a musically adventurous three-man band. Epic recently released a debut album by Eye & I, a genre-busting quintet propelled by the lusty vocals of female singer DK Dyson. And pop music maestro Quincy Jones has given his blessings to the movement: his label, Qwest Records, gave newcomers Who's Image a $750,000 advance, an unusually high bid for unproved talent.

As in traditional rock, the guitar is the central instrument for these musicians, but their riffs resonate with blues and jazz, reggae and rap, and all the other rhythms of the black musical experience. "We didn't watch MTV and take a little of this and that because it was hot," says Follow for Now guitarist David Ryan-Harris. "We grew up among a lot of various musical influences, and we use them all." Lyrics in these songs deal with race relations and other social issues that reflect a consciously black sensibility. "A lot of rock is about coming of age," says Living Colour's Reid. "And one thing that's a definite, salient part of a black person's coming-of-age is dealing with racism."