Last time we at Code Z checked definitions, cool went something like "cooler than the other side of the pillow," or "turning desire into deed with a surplus of ease" according to Donnell Alexander. Common knowledge?
So we were particularly miffed, then annoyingly amused, to read standardized cool illustrated in, "Truly Indie Cool," a recent article in the New York Times. Jessica Pressler references the Urban Dictionary's blipster, "a person who is black and also can be stereotyped by appearance, musical taste, and/or social scene as a hipster."
So, black, plus stretch jeans, gently worn cowboy boots, a mohawk and a BLOC PARTY play list equals blipster? Interesting. According to our arithmetic, the equation seems blemished, or could that be the reason for publishing the article?
"I'm cool like this: I read fashion magazines like they're warning labels telling me what not to do," said Alexander. And although he and Digable Planets go on to further articulate cool, Pressler's article--her most emailed and blogged--produced blogger retorts, questions, and then discussion among the community. Maybe the article warns what to expect during black history month. Even so, it preempts a dialogue, or at the very least, acknowledgment of black rock and rockers, its synonymous supporters and catapults the so-called blipster phenomenon aboard the mainstream culture express. Or is it possible that the sole purpose of Pressler's article is to create a buzz, forcing the word on the tongue and into the fingers despite its sour taste? Possibly maybe?
The birth of blipster and "truly indie cool" implies a surge of black rock and rockers on the scene. When melanin sprinkled bands like TV on the Radio and The Crooners leave university radio stations and Parisian street corners to don the covers of SPIN and The Fader, people are forced to question why the bands are not reflective of their audiences Or are they?
This month's feature article at Code Zexplores Raymond Gayle's film Electric Purgatory, which highlights the story of black rockers. In exposing the pleasure in and plight of the black rockers, can future enthusiasts rework the hip-hop trend with a possible rebirth of cool amongst black, looking back on the likes of Fishbone, Living Colour, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, and TV on the Radio as the standard--and return to creating cool again? Maybe the alleged isolation will forge a fiercer, more defiant riff in rock?
Maybe like Gayle and his film, the creatives will focus on creating--in any method or scope--and worry about cool when it is defined.
