Craig's Pop Life: 6.18.22

Jun 19

Hey, party people!

Hope you had a great week. Mine has been, um, interesting. I posted one simple tweet suggesting that it was a micro-aggression to refer to all dance music as "oontz oontz” music. I explained that it was reductive. Also, most of the younger people using the term don’t know enough about club music to make distinctions between what they should respect and what they should critique. It is very simply a way to dissmiss an entire genre of music—with Black queer roots—and the people who listen to it.

Craig Seymour, Black gay music critic @craigspoplife

“Oontz Oontz” is a micro-aggression, suggesting Black-rooted forms of dance music are so indistinct & lacking in complexity that they can be summed up by the sounds of an infant. This has largely been the discourse on Black dance music for the history of recorded sound. 💥

I’ve gotten thousands of racist and/or homophobic responses and even a coupla death threats, where I had to get Twitter involved.

Craig Seymour, Black gay music critic @craigspoplife

The thousands of QTs of my post about this term, which some say is benign or onomatopoeia, have been overwhelmingly racist &/or homophobic. They’ve included death threats, which Twitter has taken seriously. You’ll never convince me the term doesn’t have malicious implications.

Craig Seymour, Black gay music critic @craigspoplife

Anotha one!

All this to say, please don’t use the term, and when you feel comfortable, ask others not to use it.

On to happier things, I have an extraordinary Pride edition of the Craig’s Pop Life podcast. It’s an interview with singer Marc Sandane (some might remember him as the original vocalist that Luther replaced on “The Glow Of Love.”) Anyway, this legend has crossed paths with a number of cultural luminaries, including James Baldwin, Phyllis Hyman, Sylvester, Larry Levan, Cissy Houston, her daughter Whitney, and Labelle. He has stories! (And some pictures).