E YE & I Along with the Family Stand and Sophia’s Toy, New York City’s Eye & I, led by DK Dyson, were one of the few black rock bands fronted by a woman.

24-7 SPYZ They have the distinction of being the only band to be exiled from the Black Rock Coalition—after they pretended to gangbang an inflatable doll onstage.

CAPLAN: I signed Eye & I; they were fucking great.
The band come out and they’re laying down this
wicked groove, and all of a sudden there was this
caterwauling and [lead singer] DK Dyson comes out
of a coffin. But the consumers voted no.
GLOVER: We realized that this door had opened but
it was closing just as quickly.
DOUGLAS: It was demoralizing and
encouraging at the same time. It was,
“Oh, man, we got through!” But then
the rules changed. Alternative music
came in, and suddenly Living Colour
was thrown into that old guard. The
mainstream thought of them as an ’80s
metal band, and that wasn’t the coolest
thing at the moment.
MOORE: The industry says, “We need to
change this music: Change the tempos
and the lyrics.” So after a while, Columbia
wanted us to write music that was more pop-oriented.
When we were playing Lollapalooza, the president
of our label came on the bus and said, “We’re gonna
discontinue your record.” I was like, “If you look out
the window, you’ll see that big sea of people, and
that means record sales.” He wouldn’t even look. We
were dropped.
TATE: That moment is one of such lost opportunities.
It seemed like the Highlander situation: There can be
only one. You’re dealing with all the chronic problems
of American racism. It was just transferred to the
music business in that moment.
REID: A lot of the cracks [in Living Colour] began
to reveal themselves. People saw them-
selves as rock stars. That was maddening
to me. I wish I’d hung out with Mick Jag-
ger more, because we didn’t know what
we were doing. When young bands are
hot, they’re not trying to hear anything
anyone is saying to them.

CAPLAN: By the end [after 1993’s Stain], Living Colour was starting to fall apart. Then we got this opportunity to do a song for True Lies, a cover of “Sunshine of Your Love.” The band weren’t really talking by then, but we spent $130,000 doing one song. Then I went to see the movie. The end credits

“We Care a Lot”). But its legacy lives on in rap-rock, Afropunk, and any current rock band that features a black musician.

start rolling and classical music starts playing. They’re going through the credits, and then the screen goes black, and then “Sunshine of Your Love” comes on. There was no one in the theater except me and my wife. And that was the end of the band.

Slowly, the black rock scene rebuilds, albeit on a smaller scale. Living Colour reunite in 2000 and still tour. (Glover also plays Judas, Carl Anderson’s role, in a touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar.) Fishbone are still on the road. 24-7 Spyz, who broke up in 1997 but also re-formed later, self-release a new album, Face the Day, in 2007. The Black Rock

Coalition still exists and has an outpost in Los Angeles. The movement also lives on in Grand Theft Auto and Guitar Hero III (both of which include “Cult of Personality”), and in Rock Band and the TV series Dirty Jobs (which used Faith No More’s Mosely-era hit

GE T MORE FOR MORE DISCUSSION OF RACE IN ROCK, GO TO SPIN.COM/ RACEINROCK

AKWETEY O.T. (guitarist, Dragons of Zynth): In the

’80s, bands like Living Colour represented this thing of, Music can stand on its own, and even if it looks like a novelty, it’s not. They showed black people from a different musical background, beyond the cultural status quo. I saw Fishbone two years ago, and they were still jumping around and going crazy. McNEILL: I don’t look at the industry the same way I used to. We all thought in a fair and just world that we’d have the same opportunities as our white counterparts. A lot of people gave up on music altogether. A lot of really great bands broke up. At a certain point it just wears on you.

HAZEL: You thought you killed Spyz and Living Colour and all those poor bands who only got to make one record? But you have P.O.D. and Limp Bizkit and 311 and every white band under the sun who cut their teeth on those records.

MOSELY: My new album will be called Will Rap Over Hard Rock for Food. I’ll accept the blame, like the title says, for all the rapping over hard rock that was done by white guys. Whenever Kid Rock or Limp Bizkit come on, my friends say, “Thanks a lot, Chuck.” CAPLAN: No one questions a black guy playing rock’n’roll. For that, it’s a great legacy.

REID: Sometimes things don’t turn out the way you want them. But I never dwell on what was. My one regret is not buying that whole building in Brooklyn. HAZEL: After our first gig with Fishbone [in 1986], the booking agent said, “Okay, what if I book you two more shows, at $500 a show?” We’d be like, “Wow, that’s over a hundred for each of us!”

SKATORE: That’s still the way it is!

“THIS DOOR HAD OPENED
BUT IT WAS CLOSING
JUST AS QUICKLY.”
Corey Glover