Black Men With Guitars: How Did Rock N Roll Get So Racist?

“This is a Black-fronted punk band, and that’s really important. Rock’n’roll is mostly white suburban kids — that’s what gets promoted. But we are Black and we out here. I was inspired to make rock music when I saw a Black guy on stage, and if someone sees that in us, I hope it will inspire a new generation to go after this.” – Densil McFarlane of The OBGMs

The OBGMs (aka The oOohh Baby Gimme Mores) are a Canadian, Toronto based punk rock band. Their stellar 2020 album The Ends was shortlisted for Canada’s highly prized Polaris Music award in 2021.

And yet, despite the unfolding of a brand new shiny century, there are still people puzzled by the sight of a black man with a guitar.

Black men and guitars. Really? Really?

Jimi fucking Hendrix.

Chuck fucking Berry.

He INVENTED Rock N Roll guitar. A decade later Hendrix rocked it through the exosphere. A generation earlier Rock N Roll was birthed through the creation of black electric blues.

Lawrence, the CliffsNotes please:

After World War II (1939-1945), a significant cultural shift occurred in American cities that had experienced substantial African American migration from down South up to Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, St. Louis, and the West Coast.

Newly settled black musicians found themselves in a noisy, urban environment which necessitated the creation of a new amplified music, a genre that gained widespread popularity in the lively inner city clubs and house parties that characterized this new urban landscape, giving us the first Urban Music.

T-Bone Walker

Not surprisingly, the guitar was the first widely amplified instrument. Renowned black guitarists T-Bone Walker in the 1930s, along with John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s, are credited with pioneering modern electric guitar.

John Lee Hooker

Their distinct styles contributed to the development of regional variations, including West Coast, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues. Sound familiar?

Muddy Waters with Willie Dixon on bass

But I digress…

Back to The OBGMs.

They are not your typical punk rock band. Fronted by vocalist/guitarist Densil McFarlane, drummer Colanthony Humphrey, and bassist Joseph Brosnan, this power trio is on a mission.

Their journey began in 2007 when McFarlane and Humphrey were at the centre of a racial profiling incident. Both were unjustly singled out and tackled by police during Toronto’s Caribana Festival.

After being tossed into a riot van, McFarlane learned he was up on charges for assaulting a police officer. These charges prevented him from attending school in the States as he was not free to leave the country until the legal matters had been settled.

This jarring experience led McFarlane to pick up the guitar and start writing music as a way to tell his own stories in his own way. Eventually the charges were dropped but his guitar remained a constant.

McFarlane & Humphrey went on to get booked for mostly urban music shows and struggled to break into the local punk scene.

In an essay written for the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, McFarlane remarked:

“The tragedy of George Floyd’s murder brought me online for the first time. I actively looked to share my experiences with police brutality and the Black experience today. It felt like for the first time, people were paying attention to what Black people had to say regarding racism, and now was the time to learn how to communicate. As a Black man in a punk band, I also discovered that there were so many other bands filled with PoC members who were feeling how I felt — the outsiders in an industry filled with systemic barriers”.

Despite facing adversity with the odds stacked against them, the band continued to push forward, struggling to break into the predominantly white punk scene.

Pursuing their goals and aspirations within the strict confines of the music business, The OBGMs faced discrimination and numerous other challenges their white counterparts did not. Lack of diversity in downtown venues inhibited the growth of many BIPOC artists who were systematically kept in the margins.

On occasion The OBGMs were singled out for success by the likes of Green Day and PUP, yet still did not feel welcome in certain punk circles.

In the years since their formation the band has bore witness to many Toronto based punk groups feted for their contribution to the genre, yet a common question asked of them is whether they are a punk band at all. For McFarlane, it feels personal, telling Vice Magazine:

“I do feel like it’s vaguely built on racism. The Clash and The Cro-Mags are both punk bands but sound completely different…I do and don’t care about the validation of being labeled punk, but the fact that people question our legitimacy in the genre is really weird. I bet a bunch of Black fronted bands feel like that. They never know where to place you.”

As a Black-fronted band The OBGMs commonly get grouped alongside other Black artists, regardless of whether the music is simpatico or not.

In the past they have worked stages with The Roots, Pusha T, and Saul Williams. But getting booked on punk shows has proven more difficult. Seems industry insiders and deal makers alike want the band to fit into a mold they can easily understood and market.

“Quite often I found us falling through the cracks of what is our belonging, people would often question if we were a punk band or a rock band or just rappers,”

McFarlane told CBC host Saroja Coelho in an interview from November 2020.

“If you question me in this rock space, you literally delegitimize the band.”

Despite these obstacles, The OBGMs have continued to make a name for themselves. The band’s dedication to using their platform to advocate for racial justice is evident in their music and actions.

Two years after forming, The OBGMs released their 2009 debut EP Interchorus. Momentum picked up in 2014 when beer company Budweiser chose the band for their Epic Concert campaign, performing at the Made In America Festival as well as the Afropunk Festival in New York City. They released their self-titled full-length debut album that same year.

The band quickly made a reputation for themselves with their short, explosive guitar-driven songs and incendiary live shows, all of which the scrappy first record lived up to.

In 2017, the OBGMs signed with Black Box Recordings out of Mississauga, Ontario, who remastered and reissued the band’s debut album that same year.

Grammy and JUNO award-winning producer Dave Schiffman (Trash Talk, PUP, Rage Against The Machine), previously employed to helm the band’s remastering work, accompanied The OBGMs to Dream House Studios in Toronto to record their career defining 2020 sophomore album The Ends.

Of their music, McFarlane says:

“We all actually sound pretty different. We all have really, really different experiences with music, we all grew up loving something else or being exposed to something else, you know? And I think we all want to do something that stands out.”

McFarlane, affectionately known as Denz to friends and family, has made it his mission to amplify melanated voices by challenging industry gatekeepers and speaking out for the underrepresented, telling Vice Magazine:

“Right now in Canadian music, I don’t see a band that looks like me. I don’t see a band that sounds like me. BIPOC artists want to tell different kinds of stories and make different kinds of sounds. We want seats at the table. And if they don’t give them to us, we’re going to take them.”

On June 13, 2022 The OBGMs released the single Same

Their latest single GET UP was released February 6, 2024

Most recently Denz appeared live playing Replacements songs at the Left Of The Dial tribute show for the late radio host Dave Bookman, Thursday, June 6 at The Garrison in Toronto.