Black (Collaborative) Genius:
Some Thoughts on the Nas ‘Ghostwriter’ Controversy
Some Thoughts on the Nas ‘Ghostwriter’ Controversy
by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
The recent “ghostwriter” controversy regarding Nasir Jones and his 2008 untitled album, has less to do with questions about authorship and authenticity, but is rather a product of a generations of Americans so enveloped in their insecurities and tethered to a relentless individualism, that they see little value in the collaborative spirit. The irony of those who might deny Jones his legitimate claim on artistic genius is that the very traditions of Black expressive culture that he has so brilliantly upheld throughout his career is rooted in collaboration.
“Strange Fruit” is generally regarded as one of the most important protest songs of the 20th century, and the song has long been associated with Billie Holiday, who first recorded the soon in 1939. Given the history of violence against African American and the trauma that Holiday often had to transcend throughout her life, it is rather easy to believe that Holiday was the “author” of the song. “Strange Fruit” was written by a Jewish school teacher from the Bronx named Abel Meeropol (his pen name was Lewis Allan), and that fact does nothing detract from the fact that when Holiday opened her mouth and performed the song, it was indeed her song.
What the most brilliant artists understand is that there are, in fact, limits to their creativity, and they are secure enough in their talents, that they are more than willing to reach out to artistic collaborators that could help them better realize their artistic ideas. One great example of this is Duke Ellington, arguably most important American composer of the 20thcentury. Though Ellington was a gifted pianist in his own right, he needed musicians like saxophonists Ben Webster and Johnny Hodges to help him fully realized his sound. Indeed Ellington’s most notable collaborator, Billy Strayhorn (who was an out gay man in the Jazz world) was responsible for many signature Ellington songs like “Take the A Train,” “Lush Life” and “Satin Doll.”
Even James Brown, who is singularly credited with creating Funk and providing the most important musical building blocks for rap music, would have had little impact on American music without collaborators like Fred Wesley and Pee Wee Ellis. Brown had a head full of intricate rhythms, but without the ability to read or write music, he absolutely needed Wesley (who was classically trained” and Ellis to help transcribe the ideas he had in his head into musical notations that his band could learn. Without Wesley and Ellis, Brown would have simply been another angry black man looking for an outlet to express the rage, pain and desire trapped in his head (remember Nick Cannon’s character from Drumline? ).
In some cases some Black musical geniuses were incapacitated without the use of collaborators. Every one of Marvin Gaye’s recordings from his mature era where the product of collaborations: for What’s Going On it was musicians Elgie Stover, James Nix, Al Benson and his wife Anna Gordy Gaye; on Let’s Get it On, Gaye collaborated with Ed Townsend; when Gaye returned to the studio to record I Want You it was the hot young songwriter Leon Ware who helped him crystallize his ideas. When Gaye was without collaborators, he didn’t work, yet no one would think to diminish his genius because of it. Ask Stevie Wonder what his great output in the 1970s might have been like without Tonto’s Expanding Head Band—the duo of Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil—who created the Moog machine that fundamentally changed how Wonder imagined his music.
In a telling response about the ghostwriter controversy Dead Prez’s Stic.man wrote on his Facebookpage “My contributions to his album was a collaboration and an honor and under his direction of what he wanted to convey and say.” As the tradition goes, that’s par for the course, so pipe down younguns.
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Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking For Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press). He is professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African & African-American Studies at Duke University and the host of the Weekly Webcast Left of Black. Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.
