FISHBONE Both Living Colour and 24-7 Spyz had supported the crazed ska-funk Angelenos, who redefined black rock style—and had a great (ultimately ubiquitous) logo.

BODY COUN T The first Lollapalooza, in 1991, featured Living Colour as well as Ice-T’s metallic hardcore band, whose signature song “Cop Killer” provoked the ire of Charlton Heston.

The success of “Cult of Personality” leads to Living Colour opening for the Stones on their Steel Wheels tour. Soon, the major labels get into the black-rock business, signing up 24-7 Spyz, Eye & I and the Family Stand (two R&B-rock bands from New York), Urban Dance Squad (Dutch interracial rock-funk), Follow for Now (Atlanta hard rock), and King’s X (a Midwestern power trio led by biracial bassist Doug Pinnick). Fishbone, who signed with Columbia in 1985, seem on the verge of a breakthrough; Lenny Kravitz emerges as a one-man melding of all rock styles, black and white; and Ice-T goes hardcore with Body Count.

houses, with dogs eating chewing gum, sleeping in places where we didn’t know how we got there. MOORE: Lollapalooza was organic. There was no one saying, “You guys are black and what’s going on with that?” Even though the majority of the crowd was white, none of the artists were thinking about what color people were. We were flies in the buttermilk along with everybody else.

TATE: [“Cult of Personality” becoming a Top 20 hit
and Vivid going double platinum]
was a victory for this idea of black
self-determination in music and
black creative freedom. It says,
“Okay, we’re not as hated as we
think we are in America.” It grati-
fies on an almost existential level.
DARRELL McNEILL (director of
operations, Black Rock Coalition):
Fishbone changed the entire
game. At that time, we were told
to be B-boys and wear Nike and
Pumas and polo shirts. So to see
these black cats with peg-leg pants, suspenders, and
mohawks, and to have somebody slam you in the
head with “Party at Ground Zero,” was a complete
revelation. It was about freedom: You don’t have to
be this way; there are other things you can do.
HAZEL: The black media didn’t touch rock bands, so
our label ran ads [for 24-7 Spyz’s 1988 debut, Harder
Than You] in skater magazines and rock magazines.
We’d play the hardcore matinees at CBGB, and
the funniest thing is that we got embraced by the
hardcore kids. We were touring all the time, and if

we sold five records in one town, when we came back
we’d sell 30. We sold 300,000 copies.
DOUGLAS: I remember how happy everybody was
when the Stones did their press conference at Grand
Central Terminal [in 1989]. The question came, “Which
band is going to open?” Mick was sly about it, and then
Ronnie Wood ducked his head to the microphone and
said, “Living Colour.” It completely validated the band.
I found out later that the reason Jagger was so vague
was that they were still negotiating.
GLOVER: We were playing in some small venues, and
here we are, driving to the stage in golf carts. We’d
go to the after-parties and it wasn’t debauchery or
anything, but it was close enough. There were all
these hangers-on saying, “Well, I got this for you.”

Time’s Up, Living Colour’s ambitious but less com-
mercially successful follow-up, proves to be propheti-
cally titled. Urban Dance Squad are dropped after
a second album. Both Eye & I and the Family Stand
fall between radio-format cracks. Some of the most
lauded black rock bands, such as New York’s the Deed
and Virginia’s the Good Guys, never get so
far as releasing a record. Only Kravitz is
embraced by the mainstream.

“WHITE GIRLS, BLACK MAN,
SURFER BODYSUIT—
IT JUST SEEMED TO CONNECT.”

Greg Tate

REID: That tour was wild and weird. They actually
served mixed drinks. Usually in a stadium you get
beer [backstage]. But part of Keith’s rig is a full bar.
GLOVER: Once I fell off the stage. The stage was so
big that the band didn’t even realize it.
HAZEL: [When 24-7 Spyz opened for Jane’s Addiction
in 1990] we were playing rooms that were three
times the size of what we’d played. That’s when we
discovered the other side of rock’n’roll weirdness. Me
and Rick, we’d party our asses off with Perry [Farrell]
and Dave [Navarro]. We would end up in strange

GLOVER: When we were making Time’s Up, our mantra was, “No more ‘Cult of Personality.’” Which was really stupid. If we were smarter about it, we would’ve come up with something as compelling. CAPLAN: The sales of the first album were about “Cult,” and then you didn’t have a “Cult” on the second record.

TATE: That song was a combination of factors that were not repeatable. You can only wear a bodysuit once.

HAZEL: [After our second indie album, 1990’s Gumbo Millennium], we had four major labels interested in us, and East West came to us with an offer. The worst thing we could have done is go to a major. We go out to support the record [1992’s Strength in Numbers], and kids are coming up to us saying, “We can’t find the record in stores.” We found out that the label decided to pull tour support, and they only pressed up 18,000 copies of the record.