Why America needs hip hop more than skinny white boy rock – Kip Berman of indie rockers The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Indie rocker Berman is dismayed Donald Trump is president, but says rap and R&B stars are better qualified than rock bands to protest. He also praises his band’s devoted fans – especially those in Hong Kong – ahead of gig this month
But that is just fine with American indie rock darling Kip Berman. He is happy – actually, he is adamant – that the sort of music he makes with his band, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, should take a back seat for a while. The world needs rap more than it does skinny white boys with guitars.
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“Hip hop is really important in America now because we have very pressing social issues that most indie rock doesn’t really address,” Berman says in an interview with the Post before his band returns to play Hong Kong for the third time next week. “It’s not even just having an overtly racist president, but broader problems in everything from criminal justice, police brutality, and discrepancies in educational opportunities and safety.
“It is a hard time in our country, and the language of dissent and critique naturally will come from communities that are the most oppressed by the racism and violence that is happening here. So, hip hop and R&B – art forms commonly associated with black artists – are pushing these issues into the mainstream in important ways.”
Fans fear not. This is not Berman’s excuse for bailing out of music. In fact, four months after releasing Pains’ fourth album, Echo of Pleasure, with the single When I Dance With You, he is on the road on one of his biggest tours ever and he is already talking about recording his next album.
