"And then you get idiots, like people who think you're a security guard," he said.
Damon Locks, a Chicago-based publicist and singer in a hardcore band called the Eternals, said he is frequently mistaken for "one of the other three black guys" in the city's rock-music scene. "We joke about it," he said. "We've been thinking about getting together and starting a band called Black People."
That kind of isolation is one of the reasons Spooner, the documentary director, regularly showcases black and mixed-race rock bands at clubs. For a band to participate, the lead singer must be black. This caused some friction early on, he said. "A lot of white people were offended that I was saying, 'This is for us,"' Spooner said on a recent evening at the Canal Room, a club in downtown Manhattan, where he was the DJ between sets for multiethnic bands like Graykid, Martin Luther and Earl Greyhound.
But, he added: "almost every black artist I know wants to play in front of their people. This is bigger than just rocking out or whatever."
Thomas, of This Moment in Black History, said that white fans sometimes want to know why he is not rapping. "It's the stupidest question," he said.
Just as often, it is blacks who are judgmental. "There's an unfortunate tendency for some black people to think if you listen to rock music or want to play rock music, you're an Uncle Tom," Thomas said.
LaRonda Davis, president of the Black Rock Coalition, an organization co-founded by Vernon Reid of Living Colour in the mid-1980s to advocate for black rock bands, said the resistance is rooted in group-think. "Black people were forced to create a community," she said. "We're so protective and proud of it, like, 'We have to protect our own,' and why should we embrace something that has always excluded us?"
Nelson George, author of Buppies, B-Boys, Baps & Boho's: Notes on Post-Soul Culture, suggested that the rock 'n' roll aesthetic had been a major deterrent. "Black kids do not want to go out with bummy clothes and dirty sneakers," George said. "There is a psychological subtext to that, about being in a culture where you are not valued and so you have to value yourself."
But lately, rock music, and its accouterments, are being considered more stylish. Mainstream hip-hop artists like Lil Jon and Lupe Fiasco rap about skateboarding, and "all of the Southern rap stars are into the '80s punk look, wearing big studded belts and shredded jeans," said Anoma Whittaker, the fashion director of Complex magazine. At the same time, the hip-hop industry's demand for new samples has increased the number of rock songs appearing on hip-hop tracks: Jay-Z's latest album features contributions from Chris Martin of Coldplay and R&B artist Rihanna's current single samples the New Wave band Soft Cell.
"Hip-hop has lost a lot of its originality," said Brown of Everything Must Go, the East Harlem skateboard shop. "This is the new thing."
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