![]() Like so many in his industry and the world he occupies, he seems unaware that the wider world has changed along with the attitudes of those that inhabit it. ![]() It’s as though the politics of that student back there in Rhode Island in the 1970s are accompanying him into his Seventies. All that continues to make him unique and relevant, all that brings a dignity and originality to him as a performer at the pensionable age of 68 is absent. Despite the brilliance of Talking Heads back catalogue, the innovation and musical eclecticism of his solo work and the unexpected collaborations, when it comes to Byrne’s politics there are no surprises. On some occasions a few not so die-hard fans made for the exit. Some nights the routine was met with silence. “Say Their Name!” he and the cast chorus as though at a revivalist meeting, in anticipation of a response. As Byrne himself once sang: Facts don’t do what I want them to.īyrne seems unaware that the world has changed along with the attitudes of those that inhabit it ![]() Stats and facts are overlooked to accommodate a stunt that conveniently confirms the black victims of systemic white racism narrative. No matter how much Byrne may be embarrassed by a skit involving race all those years ago it pales, or at least it should, beside one of the few dud moments in the American Utopia musical – a percussive interpretation of Janelle Monáe’s Hell You Talmbout in which the cast list names of black men and women killed by police officers. Whatever those claiming to be offended project onto a situation becomes the official interpretation and the mob descends. Context and intent serve no purpose these days humour and irony provide no excuses. Spike Lee is in the director’s role which possibly prompted Byrne’s public mea culpa for his black face routine, as well as the swell of celebrity support for Black Lives Matter. These charges, along with previous accusations of cultural appropriation and the blacking up incident have little relation to the reformed figure in the HBO concert film. I think he probably just decided that he could catch more bees with honey.” “But friends of mine assure me that he hasn’t. The Broadway show featured eleven choreographed musicians barefoot in egalitarian silver-blue suits shifting about the stage, breaking with the stationary concert band formula. “It’s true that his public image has changed,” Frantz said in a recent interview. These days he champions community and inclusiveness. At least according to this summer’s Remain in Love, the autobiography of erstwhile bandmate Chris Frantz, who formed Talking Heads with Tina Weymouth – his wife – and Byrne when they were students at Rhode Island School of Design in the 1970s.įacts are overlooked to accommodate the systemic white racism narrativeįrantz alludes to Byrne’s competitiveness and failure to acknowledge the creative contribution of other band members. That awkward, nervy figure unable to keep eye contact made for a mesmerising frontman, but a difficult fellow musician. Byrne wrote on Twitter: “I’d like to think I am beyond making mistakes like this, but clearly at the time I was not.” As he concedes in his 2019 Broadway show American Utopia – a 2018 album, and now an HBO film – he needed to change.Ĭhange is central to the gist of these projects as well as the David Byrne persona that’s surfaced in his later years. It’s aeons since he first sang of losing his shape trying to act casual. His racial sin occurred in a promotional video for the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense in 1984. David Byrne recently became the latest in a list of celebrities to apologise for “blacking up” in the past.
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