Rock N Roll Nigger
| "Rock N Roll Nigger" | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Patti Smith from the album Easter | |||||||||
| Released | March 3, 1978 | ||||||||
| Recorded | Record Plant Studios | ||||||||
| Genre | Punk rock | ||||||||
| Length | 3:13 | ||||||||
| Label | Arista | ||||||||
| Writer(s) | Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye | ||||||||
| Producer(s) | Jimmy Iovine | ||||||||
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"Rock N Roll Nigger" is a rock song written by Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye, and released on the Patti Smith Group's 1978 album Easter. The song has since been covered by several artists, and a remix was included on the soundtrack of the 1994 film Natural Born Killers.
In the song, Smith self-identifies as a "nigger," meaning a rebellious and honorable outsider. Duncombe and Tremblay suggest in White Riot that Smith is continuing Norman Mailer's tradition of the White Negro, adopting black culture to express things she believes her own culture will not allow, and rejecting the oppression white culture has historically imposed on others.
Because of its title and repetition of a racial epithet, which in 1978 was already considered extremely offensive, "Rock N Roll Nigger" received no mainstream radio airplay.
In 2008, the song was listed in The Pitchfork 500, a music guide published by Pitchfork Media that lists the top 500 songs between 1977 and 2006.
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