Could Nashvilles Lower Broadway Finally See A Renaissance Of Live Black Music?
Brassville plays on top of Acme Feed and Seed for The Change Up, a series that brings hip hop, R&B and rap to Lower Broadway. Preston Evans Acme Radio Live  Listen /  Acme Feed and Seeds rooftop towers over people milling around Lower Broadway in cowboy hats and bridal sashes. On a recent May evening, the sun is setting behind musician Sarina-Joi as she thanks the venue for making space for Black musicians like her. Her thank you pulls back the curtain on a tension in Nashville. Im glad for what theyre doing because theyre trying to shine a light on a part of Nashville that doesnt really get talked about a lot, she says, guitar in hand. Because were here, and weve got music and stuff, and people just dont want to hire us. But Acme has always been a place where you can hear diverse music.  This show is part of The Change Up, a series at Acme that is trying to diversify what live music looks like on Lower Broadway. The street has not historically been an inviting place for the citys Black musicians, especially not hip hop, rap or R&B artists. Acmes Carson Bedenbaugh says many of their neighbors on Lower Broadway think that the citys predominantly white tourists dont have an appetite for that kind of music. My biggest goal with this is to show the rest of Broad, and to show the rest of Nashville, that this is not only something we should be doing in including diversity but also, it is profitable, Bedenbaugh says. It is something that people want in this city.  On the street outside, tourists pass by on peddle taverns blasting hip hop and rap, further proving her point. Eric Holt is the mind behind The Change Up at Acme, but hes been doing this work for a lot longer  his promotion company Love Noise has been pushing for more space for Nashvilles Black musicians since the early 2000s. (Holt is also on the board of Nashville Public Radio.) We created the company as a platform for Black music because at that time, Black music in Nashville really did not have a stage, Holt says. So Love Noise sought out that stage. They started by putting on hip hop shows at Second Avenues B.B. Kings Blues Club on Sunday nights. The shows were selling out, he says, but when they wanted to expand  There was nowhere else on Lower Broad that we had a place to do it in, and even B.B. Kings, even though its a blues place, wouldnt let us do hip hop shows necessarily on Fridays and Saturdays, like on prime nights, he says. Hes seen some progress on Lower Broadway since then. The street is now bookended by spaces for Black artists, with Acme on one end and the new Fifth and Broadway development on the other, with Slim and Huskys Pizza Beeria and the new National Museum of African American Music. But he also calls himself the realest realist  and says Nashvilles music industry still has a long way to go. The highest level of participation within that industry is to own a live music venue, Holt says. There are zero Black-owned live music venues in this city. Not just Lower Broad  in the city, period.  He says if he were to try open his own venue, hed look to a different part of the city altogether: North Nashville. Thats where historically Black music thrived. Its where famous artists would snag student musicians for their backing bands. Its where people spilled out of packed Jefferson Street clubs. And its where Fisks Jubilee Singers earned Nashville the Music City moniker. But that history is often eclipsed by the massive money-making machine of country music and culture, says trumpet player and professor Larry Jenkins. Its more cowboy hat and boot than anything else, Jenkins says. And that doesnt represent the entire picture of what Nashvilles music scene is. Theres so much more.  Where Holt is a realist, Jenkins is more of an optimist. Hes a band professor at Tennessee State University, and he plays Lower Broad with the brass band, Brassville. He wants his students to be able to say theyve played some of Nashvilles most popular stages, including Lower Broadway. Places like Acme and the museum will pave the way, he says. Theyre providing these opportunities for a culture shift  a paradigm shift  to happen in Nashville, he says. For him, the motivation for what he calls a Black live music renaissance goes beyond just getting Black artists on a lineup. Lower Broadway is a cash cow. He says Black musicians deserve the chance to finally profit on the Music City brand.