We’re Howling Forever: Two Black Rockers Enjoying Mainstream Recognition and Being Taken Completely Seriously

TV on the Radio, “Wolf Like Me” (live on the Late Show)

TV on the Radio has a new album I probably should be listening to, but honestly I’m still reeling from their big 2006 single, “Wolf Like Me.” Before I heard it I was excited enough just to have them around; the existence of rock idols who looked like me and were not Jimi Hendrix was an unprecedented thrill, even if their debut LP Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes was a little too weird and rambling for me to listen to all the way through. “Wolf Like Me” changed the game; I no longer needed to qualify my praise. It wasn’t just great because of the improbability that an art-rock jam full of fuzzed-out guitars, sweeping tempo shifts, and racially charged lyrics, written by a bunch of dudes with afros and dreads, would get such huge exposure (including being featured in a freaking XBOX game). It was also one of the most blistering, impassioned, totally amazing songs I had ever heard. Crispin Glover’s winning 1987 appearance notwithstanding, this performance wins my vote for Most Badass Thing to Ever Happen on Letterman.

Santogold, “Lights Out”

I’ll admit, with some contrition, that until fairly recently I was part of the vast crowd who assumed they could know what Santogold’s music sounded like just because she was a black woman in hoop earrings. We were wrong: “Everyone is just so shocked that I don’t like R&B,” she said in an interview this spring. “Are you shocked that Good Charlotte isn’t into R&B? Why does R&B keep coming into my interviews? It’s pissing me off.” In fact, the solo debut by the former frontwoman of Philadelphia punk band Stiffed is a powerhouse of gleaming pop—it may be beat-savvy, dub-tinged, and even dancehall-ready in certain moments, but the lady has clearly listened to some Pixies, Go-Go’s, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs in her day. I heard “Lights Out” on a friend’s blog last month and bought the album immediately, rabid to find out what I had been missing all this time.