Editor’s Note: I conducted an interview with Nikki a few years ago at the dawn of her now successful career. You can read that piece by visiting the Archive section of our site.

Through the years you have read my editorials about the damage The Blues Foundation has inflicted on the art form they claim to support. I receive correspondences from many people, mostly musicians, who abhor this organization and all that it represents. However, very few, if any have gone on the record stating their feelings as it relates to The Blues Foundation.

Seeing as how they had their Blues Music Awards a few weeks ago, I thought it would be time to publish comments by a well known musician who is willing to stick her neck out and go on the record. Her name is Nikki Hill. To call her a blues musician wouldn’t be fair to her or the genre. She can sing the blues, but would prefer to not be pigeonholed into any one particular genre. Whatever she and her guitar playing husband Matt Hill do, whatever you want to call it, I love. It is exciting, infectious music. 

I've always wanted to write an op-ed of my experience of encountering the Blues Music Awards scene for the first time. So here goes... 

In 2010 I was going to Memphis with my husband Matt Hill, as he was playing a gig there as part of the hoopla surrounding this event. For my part, my career in music had not yet begun, so I was able to be completely low profile. I loved blues music, but only knew it through my records and the local festival in my home state.

When we arrived in Memphis I was shocked. The lack of diversity was shocking. The incredibly offensive put on black vernacular of many people in their clothing and speech was nauseating. The fake personalities...the terrible music I heard...the bullshitting I saw...especially dealing with people approaching me as if I was the current black female buzzing at that moment. I know we all look alike. The lack of originality in the people and the music was disturbing. The pure disrespect of the old guard...I had never seen anything like it.

I was shocked that the youth in this country have been sucked into this crazy “Disney” version of blues music. How could that even seem cool on any level to a young person? Music can’t continue to stay new or original without a youth movement as being part of an overall scene. There has to be something different coming from this generation. Instead, my peers got sucked into this. Now they just need the gigs and think they need to keep quiet for their own comfort and to maintain their own social profile.

That is not the history of this music.  That is not until the baby boomers felt like they saved the day by giving these old black men some gigs. Then they changed the entire structure of it all by exploiting this money and business aimed approach at a music that was never really meant to be touched in that way.

It's the sad conundrum of anything truthful. It doesn't go far because the masses will not accept it. I've lost a few gigs from running my mouth about the Blues Foundation and I suspect I've gained a few from it as well. However, I come to entertain and play good music. I’m not here to make folks comfortable and I’m definitely not here to be someone's puppet or mascot.

We stay away from all of this nonsense. We keep it about the music. I come at this music from a youthful, more potent, more rebellious approach. Now I'm more thankful for that than ever because it keeps my eyes above the phony façade of the Blues Foundation and my ears to the record.

My parents are from rural North Carolina.  They didn't have much and in truth, they didn't instill in me that I would have much either. They simply didn't know any better. They taught me the work ethic which I apply to my music. They taught me how to ball my fist up for a punch. They taught me how to survive. It was my music that gave me my balls...so to speak.

I am going to continue bringing it from the heart and soul, because it's all I've got. When the time comes when people don't want to hear it any more, then it's time for me to get a day job because I'm not playing that silly game they play at the Blues Foundation ...Never.  

- Nikki Hill

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