Several weeks ago in this space, I
a curiosity of National Public Radio’s musical coverage: that NPR has “a strict preference for music that few actual living African-Americans listen to.” NPR’s taste in black music, I wrote, can be described by the acronym DORF—it prefers black musicians who are Dead, Old, Retro, and Foreign.
I asked
Slate
‘s readers to email nominees for the DORFiest musical artists of all time and to identify other, non-NPR bastions of DORF taste. Here are some results.
The most frequently mentioned name was
Bob Marley
, whose recordings were also nominated in multiple DORF categories. Marley’s “One Love” was the consensus winner for DORF National Anthem.
Two readers, Jesse S. and Shelly V., hailed the late Malian singer and guitarist
Ali Farka Touré
as the ultimate DORF icon. Jesse wrote: “He was old, now he’s dead. He’s from Timbuktu, and he’s so retro he sounds like John Lee Hooker’s grandfather.” Both Jesse and Shelly noted that Touré’s song ”
” provides the theme music for the daily “Geo Quiz” segment on the Public Radio International broadcast
, which airs on many NPR affiliates. Jesse also pointed to Touré’s
association with renowned DORF-connisseur Ry Cooder
, the American guitarist behind multi-DORFiest-of-the-DORF nominees,
.
Several other African artists received nods, including Nigerian Afrobeat hero
;
legend
; and South African choral group
, who, as reader Patrick S. wrote, qualify for “The DORF grand slam … O, R, F, and two sad, racially-charged D’s.”
Closer to home, frequently cited DORF icons included
B.B. King
(who, to be fair, is neither D nor F);
Ray Charles
; and
Nina Simone
. In the case of
,
Slate
reader Maldo argued that an honorary F be appended to her D, O, R on account of her long, self-imposed exile from the United States.
One of the most intriguing ideas came from journalist Carolina Gonzalez, who proposed a parallel “FIB Theory” of NPR’s taste in Latin music: “Folklorical (’pure’ musics away from corrupting modern influences); Impersonators (non-Latins who earnestly take up Latin sounds); Boundary-Breaking (usually expressed as ‘doesn’t sound the way you expect Latin music to sound’). The Latinos as phantom theory lives!”
I received just a few suggestions about DORFy media outlets. A couple of e-mailers mentioned
magazine. An insightful reader, Frances J., identified the 1983 film
The Big Chill
as a landmark in the codification of DORF taste—a truth whose full horror no viewer of the movie’s famous
will fail to grasp.
But the most interesting DORF development in recent weeks is a striking de-DORFicization under way at NPR. If you visit the
on the NPR Music Web site—cited in my initial Brow Beat post for its unmitigated DORFiness—you will find the following message: “Every weekday from Nov. 9 to Nov. 20, Song of the Day is surveying the past decade, one year (and one song) at a time, with an emphasis on America’s most popular music. These picks don’t exactly qualify as musical discoveries, but they do have something to say about the 10 years we’re about to leave behind.”
Say
what
? America’s most popular music? Sure enough, “Song of the Day” has gone full-bore poptimist and full-bore anti-DORF: The series so far has included smart considerations of 50 Cent’s “In Da Club,” Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean,” Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella”—all of them actual hit records by living African-Americans. If this keeps up, DORF lovers may well have to get their fix
.
