Dungeons and Dragons meets Rhythm and Blues

Dungeons and Dragons meets Rhythm and Blues

: james_nicoll; January 29th, 13:45

Here's a pop quiz. A new album is named for an alternate-universe version of a late-medieval king, and the lyrics throughout evoke imagery of quests, queens, giants, armies, battles, miraculous events, and (in one song) spaceships. The lyric sheet is printed in a pastiche medieval font, and the video for the lead single finds the singer wandering a forest in chainmail, encountering sirens, and defeating a mysterious foe by feats of arms. The final song on the album is built on a famous piece of classical music. What genre are we talking about?

If you answered prog rock or metal, you'd have a whole lot of precedent on your side. But the answer is R&B.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

( 13 comments — Leave a comment )

agrumer

2013-01-29 08:44 pm (UTC)

But what such cutesy nicknames obscure is that R&B music—and black American culture more widely—has embraced fantasy, sci-fi, or other "nerdy" subcultural tropes more often than many people realize.

Does this mean we’ll be seeing the “fake nerd” trope spread in application?

al_zorra

2013-01-29 09:29 pm (UTC)

And for a lot longer than most people realize.

Taj Mahal, George Clinton, for only two major examples, were there already by the early, mid-1960's.

This Atlantic writer evidently doesn't read anything his fellow Atlantic writers, like Coates, blog, does he?

Love, C.

Edited at 2013-01-29 09:32 pm (UTC)

beamjockey

2013-01-29 09:53 pm (UTC)

I'm not sure whether Sun Ra counts as R&B. He was a big-band jazz player who evolved into-- something sui generis, usually counted as jazz, I guess. Perhaps

al_zorra can say more.

Wikipedia:
From the mid-1950s to his death, Sun Ra led "The Arkestra" (a deliberate re-spelling of "orchestra"), an ensemble with an ever-changing lineup and name. It was by turns called "The Solar Myth Arkestra", "His Cosmo Discipline Arkestra", the "Blue Universe Arkestra", "The Jet Set Omniverse Arkestra", and many other variations.

al_zorra

2013-01-29 11:42 pm (UTC)

Well, Sun Ra was steeped in the blues from a very early age. He even threw the blues at young doo wop groups, and in earlier periods backed R&B groups. The thing is these are cats with an enormous range of chops, who can flip the script whenever they feel it.

David Rubinson thinks Sun Ra is full of R&B, at least according to many a conversation with him -- and this is a guy who really was there for it all.

Love, C.

fridgepunk

2013-01-29 11:51 pm (UTC)

The theology of the Nation of Islam has a space ship in it.

It also admittedly does the distinctly un-skiffy thing of having a bullshit racist biological theory that isn't actually impossible according to the then known laws of genetics, nor (even more impressively) which has been later disproven by biological fact (ignoring the whole "ancient astronaut" bit of the theology).

But at the same time having white and jewish people be the product of an evil black mad scientist's selective breeding program is also a distinctly pulp era style sci-fi premise. so it's a bit swings and roundabouts really.

But yeah, you wanna talk about black nerds, you kind of have to mention the Nation of Islam, who it should also be pointed out were wearing bowties before Matt Smith decreed them to be "cool".

Edited at 2013-01-29 11:52 pm (UTC)

al_zorra

2013-01-30 12:59 am (UTC)

Skiffy itself, as you seem to be thinking of it -- i.e. written by white guys -- has never in all its published history expressed preposterous racial and bigoted concepts, including eugenics?

Now I may be mistaken in how I'm taking what you said, but if I'm not, well, then, there are bridges in the desert I have on sale, good price, for you only, this week ....

Love, C,

james_nicoll

2013-01-30 01:08 am (UTC)

I think the point is that the NoI's nutty model is not, unlike so many SF nutty models, actually impossible.

fridgepunk

2013-01-30 01:48 am (UTC)

Not just "not impossible", I have this suspicion that Farrakhan actually did some research on genetics!

Because that bit of the theology reads a lot like he dropped Thomas Hunt Morgan's experiments to breed true a mutant fruit fly for genetics research into the theology he constructed, and replaced the fruit flies with people and then inverted the colours and made it all anti-semitic. A+ for effort.

If all sf biology was that well researched* I'd be a lot happier with sf treatment of biology.

* note that this bar would be hard to limbo but easy to high jump