Is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame racist?

I should win an award as a mystery writer.

No, really.

Keep in mind: I haven’t written any mysteries, but I am a writer. I’ve written a bunch of books, so that should be enough, right?

Yeah, I know that sounds ridiculous.

Which is why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducting people like Jay-Z is absurd. When I say “people like” Jay-Z, I do not mean Black artists. I mean people who don’t play rock ’n’ roll music.

Honoring Jay-Z as a rock artist is like giving me an award for writing mysteries because some of my stories have twists. Or giving George R.R. Martin an award for writing history, because he writes about the “history” of imaginary worlds he creates himself. That’s world-building, not history writing.

Maya Angelou is a great poet, but she shouldn’t get an award as a sports journalist.

Stephen Curry may be the best basketball player in the world. He’s also a decent golfer, but he doesn’t deserve a spot on the PGA Tour. Former NFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow played minor-league baseball, but that doesn’t mean he should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. (He doesn’t belong in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, either.)

Yet the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame insists on inducting artists who don’t play rock and roll music. This year’s six inductees were Jay-Z (a rapper), the Go-Go’s, Tina Turner, Foo Fighters, Todd Rundgren, and Carole King. Jay-Z does is not a rock ’n’ roll artist. Does he belong in the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame? Absolutely. But not the Rock Hall.

Does King belong? It’s debatable. As a songwriter, definitely — and she’s already been inducted for penning a number of seminal rock and roll hits in the 1960s. She’s also in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, too. Deservedly so.

As a recording artist, she released a phenomenal pop album called Tapestry, which deserves to be in everyone’s record collection the same way everyone should have read To Kill a Mockingbird. But Harper Lee didn’t deserve a Hugo Award for science fiction and never received one, because To Kill a Mockingbird isn’t The Martian Chronicles any more than King’s It’s Too Late is Won’t Get Fooled Again (which came out the same year Tapestry topped the pop charts).

LL Cool J got into the Rock Hall with a special award this year. That doesn’t make sense, either. Neither do NWA, Tupac, or the Notorious B.I.G., who were all inducted earlier.

John Sykes, chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, argues for their inclusion in a Rolling Stone interview by putting forward the rather absurd argument that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame isn’t about rock and roll. It’s about how much music has influenced youth culture.

“In order to be relevant, the Rock Hall has to evolve with the music that is impacting youth culture,” Sykes says. “Our mandate, which started out as purely rock and roll, [has become] to honor artists that have moved and changed the sound of young America.”

If that’s the case, Frank Sinatra, who was the prototypical teen idol should definitely be in there. Long before he was in the Rat Pack, he influenced youth culture and “changed the sound of young America” more than most of the people in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today.

Or maybe they should induct the Backstreet Boys or the Spice Girls. How about David and Shawn Cassidy? Or maybe the Monkees? Andy Warhol and Timothy Leary had a big impact on youth culture, but they’re not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, either.

When Sykes is asked in the interview whether country music artists might be included, he’s quick to answer, “Absolutely, in the same way Johnny Cash was inducted [in 1992] because of his impact on youth culture.”

Not, evidently, because of his work as a musician.

Sykes’ quick answer about Cash almost sounds like the kind of tokenism spouted by white people who object that “some of my friends are black.”

Well, hey, we’ve got Johnny Cash!

When pressed about the fact that no country artists were on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot this year, Sykes demurs that they’re “looking at young artists that have made country records.” (Not that Johnny Cash was particularly young in 1992.)

I have no problem with country artists not being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There’s a Country Music Hall of Fame for that.

But the real absurdity is inducting Jay-Z on the first ballot when iconic and influential rock acts like Emerson Lake & Palmer, Pat Benatar, Motley Crue, and Judas Priest aren’t in there. Neither are Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden, or Jethro Tull.

All these artists are clearly rock and roll performers who have had immense success. They were also popular, for the most part, with white audiences.

Is that why they’ve been disqualified? Or is it because critics have dismissed their music as either too derivative or too pretentious? If you use Sykes’ single criterion of influence on youth culture, it’s all but impossible to argue against any of them. All were, in their time, extremely influential: Maiden and Priest for ushering in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the United States; Benatar for her breakthrough status as a woman and MTV stalwart (not to mention her killer voice); ELP and Jethro Tull as progressive rock pioneers second only to Yes in that genre.

And yes, it’s called progressive rock. Hip-Hop isn’t “hip-rock.”

Speaking of MTV, it started out as a white-bread cable channel catering to suburban white kids with music by white artists. Eventually, under pressure, it started including Michael Jackson videos, and later became more diverse — which was fantastic, because it was Music Television, not Rock Television.

But if it had been Rock TV, there have been plenty of Black artists who did and do play actual rock ’n’ roll. People like Chuck Berry and Little Richard invented it, and people like Jimi Hendrix and Tina Turner helped define it. You don’t need to induct rappers to recognize Black artists. Eminem’s a rapper, and doesn’t belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame either, and he’s not there, even though his impact on youth culture is huge.

Now I’m going to ask the question people think about but don’t voice: Is it because he’s white?  

Of course, it would be easy enough for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to just change its name to the Music Hall of Fame, but Sykes doesn’t want to do that: “There’s no reason to flip the switch and change the name. Our behavior will define the name. The artists we induct will define the name.”

Could you even ask for a much more arrogant statement?

“Rock and roll” was defined long before Sykes and his organization came along, and it means the same thing it’s always meant. It’s not folk or classical or rap or country, just like romance novels aren’t science fiction and cookbooks aren’t Emily Dickinson or Dostoevsky. The sheer audacity of saying that “OUR” behavior and the artists “WE” induct will define what rock and roll means is both the height of conceit and utterly mind-boggling.

Rock and roll is rock and roll. It’s not some vague catch-all for anything that influences youth culture. That’s so absurd Sykes and those who think the way he does should be laughed off the stage for spouting such idiocy.

Are they racist? I’m not sure. But they sure as heck are either disingenuous or stupid as fuck.

Stephen H. Provost is the author of Pop Goes the Metal: Hard Rock, Hairspray, Hooks & Hits, chronicling the evolution of pop metal from its roots in the 1960s through its heyday as “hair metal” in the 1980s and beyond. It’s available on Amazon.