People are always saying the Sioux Falls music scene needs a consistent and good venue for live concerts.
This has become a clichéd, but warranted, desire. Though, right now I'm thinking the scene really needs a mathematician.
There seems to be some illogical number-crunching going on in the local music scene. For instance, let's take a look at the numbers surrounding Gabe Night Shield.
The local rapper has been nominated for two Nammys (the Grammys of Native American music). He says his Night Shield Entertainment label has sold nearly 10,000 copies of his albums. Though, the number that's most important is zero. That's the amount of concerts Night Shield has performed in Sioux Falls in recent months.
Part of the problem is that he can't book a show for less than $2,000 of his own money. What about the clubs and bars? Well, then we're back to zero, the number of local establishments interested in booking one of the most successful Native American rappers in the nation.
Looking at this objectively, Night Shield isn't the best rapper in the city, much less the state. But the guy's not bad. He's at least more entertaining than 33 percent of the rock groups in Sioux Falls. He has a decent fan base (remember, lots of albums sold). But Night Shield has a better chance of catching SARS than a break in the local scene.
That's why it's no surprise he's venting on the track "Hip-Hop is Dead," from Maniac the Siouxpernatural's upcoming sophomore disc. Two lines into his cameo, Night Shield calls Sioux Falls a racist scene.
"If your skin got some color they ain't supportin' (expletive). I got 10,000 sold but no venues for shows. No song on the airwaves, and you gotta hear me," Night Shield raps.
To test Night Shield's theory, I picked Vaney Hariri's mind. The rapper's always a good quote, and as part of The Young Nobles, he's another Sioux Falls MC who can't book a show without going into debt. Simply put, Hariri says Night Shield isn't exaggerating. It seems if you're a rapper with dark skin - Hariri is black - Sioux Falls doesn't care about you.
And it's not that the town hates hip-hop. Soulcrate Music regularly packs people into various bars. But the crowd is usually whiter than Adam Morrison, with one black dude standing in the back.
This isn't Soulcrate's fault. The problem is that our city's nightlife scene is afraid of accepting or incorporating "ethnic" qualities into its business approach.
Empty PSAs
Considering the city is being inundated with poorly-produced public service announcements about how Sioux Falls youths are all "diverse" despite skin color, this should alarm our city leaders.
It doesn't. Just look at the plight of Arrive.
A coffee shop/bistro/dance club combo that two white women are trying to open on Phillips Avenue, Arrive is exactly what downtown needs. The city's heart lacks a dance club that caters to night owls. Yet, Arrive probably won't ever find life because some of the downtown business owners are afraid of allowing diversity into their imagined utopian business district.
Last week, in an Argus Leader story about Arrive, Laurel Lather said, "We've finally got downtown nice and clean. We just don't want to see the problems that night clubs tend to bring." She's the owner of Food and Fermentations, a downtown food and wine shop.
No one will say it on record, but what the downtown business owners mean is that they're afraid of letting ethnic culture into a downtown that caters to people who work there.
Yet, the downtown business sector is surrounded by residential areas full of lower-income people, many with dark skin tones. They don't care about wine and cheese. They want to dance. They want to have fun. They want to be accepted.
It won't happen in downtown Sioux Falls. It won't happen in nightclubs. It never will, until Sioux Falls truly understands what diversity really means.
Robert Morast is ready for a social rebellion, but he's not sure who should lead it. He can be reached at 331-2313 or
rmorast@argusleader.com.
