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Shallow Nation

August 29th, 2008 at 4:34 pm

Robin Thicke Billboard Magazine Cover 8-30-08 + Interview on Race, Music and “Something Else”

Robin Thicke Billboard Magazine cover 2008

R&B singer-songwriter Robin Thicke is on the cover of the August 30, 2008 issue of Billboard magazine. In his interview with Billboard, he discussed a range of topics including his musical influences, growing up as the child of famous parents, and the persistent issue of race and music; his experience as an R&B artist pigeonholed in the so-called “blue-eyed soul” category.

“What’s great about the bigger cities are the numbers of interracial couples who come,” he said. (The singer-songwriter, who is white, is married to actress Paula Patton, who is black.) Thicke added, “I’m seeing a cross between the girls who want to come out and have fun and the couples who come to enjoy a loving environment.”

Race never seems to be far from the mind of Thicke, who was heralded for furthering the next generation of blue-eyed soul after the platinum success of his second album, “The Evolution of Robin Thicke.”

He described “Something Else” as a cross between “classic Philly, Motown and ’70s black disco meets the creativity of the Beatles and Bob Dylan. It just felt to me that a lot of stuff out there sounds the same. It’s a time for change, for something else.”

The new album (due September 30 on Star Trak/Interscope) isn’t the only thing on Thicke’s plate. He has written the theme song for the movie “Push,” a drama directed by Lee Daniels (who produced “Monster’s Ball” and “The Woodsman”). Co-starring Patton as a teacher, the film takes place in ’80s Harlem amid the crack epidemic. Thicke is also penning a screenplay (“a spy thriller love thing like ‘The Bourne Supremacy’”) and writing a book of poetry.

Robin Thicke Something Else album cover

He’ll tour with Mary J. Blige in September and October. And his latest Lil Wayne collaboration, “Tie My Hands,” will appear on “Something Else” (it’s also on Wayne’s “Tha Carter III”) and will be featured in the upcoming Forest Whitaker film “Hurricane Season.”

[...]

Q: Do you buy into the “blue-eyed soul” tag you’ve been given?

Thicke: It’s a joke. It’s like saying I can’t do rock ‘n’ roll. As musicians, we’re dying for those things to go away. We’re just hoping we can make the music that we want to and not be pigeonholed by our skin color. Yet it affects me all the time.

Q: What is it like trying to break the color line from the other side?

Thicke: When I did a recent interview with Vibe magazine I asked, “Why can’t I get the cover? This is a magazine I love. If there’s one magazine that I’d want to be on the cover of, it’s Vibe.” Their response was they don’t have white artists on the cover; that the only white artist they’ve had on the cover was Eminem. I guess if that’s what it is, it is what it is. And I respect that because I live in a house with a black woman.

I won’t use the word “racism.” I will say it’s a tough — but rewarding — fight. I look at Mary J. Blige, somebody who has had only a few pop hits and yet has changed culture, generated new sounds and inspired leagues of artists. She’s now a worldwide phenomenon. And it’s because of what she stood for; she never gave up. She kept making great music, pouring her heart out to people.

You can’t always expect people to be as color-blind or open-minded as you want. What you can do is keep giving your heart and soul, like Bob Marley did. His music became so overwhelmingly loving; it was a relentless love in a sense. Keep beating them down with love and they can’t stop you.

Source: Q&A: Thicke reflects on race, music and “Something Else”

Robin Thicke Billboard Magazine Cover 8-30-08 + Interview on Race, Music and “Something Else”