Lawrence is a city known for its diversity. It’s also a city renowned for its music scene.

But whether the music scene is diverse remains a nagging question — especially to black musicians trying to carve a career in a locale brimming with indie rock bands and acoustic folk artists.

“There’s a wide-open door, and if you present something passionately and present something that you really believe, you can grab people’s attention with it,” says Sean Hunt, who fronts a live funk/hip-hop band under the name Approach. “I don’t think it matters what color you are.”

Hunt believes Lawrence is receptive to these opportunities, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people are taking advantage of them.

“There are a lot of black musicians, but outside of hip-hop the black musician is really missing around here,” he says. “I mean that in the leader-of-the-band sense. There are plenty of drummers and bass players, but that presence is missing, especially in the rock circuit. There’s not really a black BAND presenting rock ‘n’ roll.”

Wade Kelly, singer-guitarist with the band The Sound You Say, contends the genres of music in Lawrence are really diverse.

“But I don’t necessarily feel like it’s really diverse culturally or ethnically in terms of musicians,” he says.

Kelly represents one of the rare black men to lead a Lawrence rock act. As a kid raised on Talking Heads and Ramones music, he naturally gravitated to the style.

“When you grow up and that’s what you listen to and that’s what all your friends listen to, you quickly forget the fact that you are out of place,” the 27-year-old says. “You actually feel totally in place.”

Kelly occasionally gets reminded of that reality when performing live. He recalls a gig in Kansas City where audience members unfamiliar with his “catchy, avant rock” band accosted him by yelling out requests for reggae tunes.

“They thought we were a reggae band because I was a black guy up front with dreadlocks,” he says. “That’s the downside: You have people who are unwilling to even listen before they make some sort of judgment on what you’re supposed to be playing. And when you do play it, it may not be ‘black’ enough or ‘soulful’ enough for their tastes.

“The upside of playing in the Midwest and being a person of color is you kind of ‘have the mic.’ People are always looking at you, and they are always saying, ‘Whoa, there’s a black dude playing rock music with an electric guitar. You get more attention than you normally would, and it’s up to you what you want to do with that attention.”

Martinez Hillard can relate to that circumstance. As frontman for the pop band thesistermaria, the 22-year-old guitarist knows the experience of dabbling in a style of music not generally teeming with black folks.

His band was originally “rooted in Byrds and Beatles-influenced folk-pop” but has since expanded to include “references to a lot of synth-pop artists.” Ironic, considering Hillard was raised on urban music, even forming a rap group back in 1994.

Audio interviews from Lawrence artistsQ: Lawrence is a city known for its diversity. Do you think that also applies to the music scene? Audio: Sean Hunt Audio: Joe Good Audio: Wade KellyQ: Considering the sheer amount of musicians in this town, is there a shortage of black artists? Audio: Jeremy NesbittQ: Have you ever experienced racism on an artistic or professional basis? Audio: Martinez Hillard

“I was feeling the same emotion from folk or pop as from hip-hop,” he says about making the transition.

“In high school, the reason I was asking questions to myself like, ‘Why am I making this music? What does it mean to me?’ was I was dealing with a lot of people who were questioning my intentions,” he recalls. “A lot of people who were my own race were asking me, ‘Why do you play a guitar? Are you trying to be white?'”

Hillard doesn’t believe there is such a thing as “white music” or “black music.”

“With blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, be-bop, those are things that were born out of impoverished minority communities,” he says. “But I define music as music. I wouldn’t put it in any kind of categories, especially within the realms of race.”

The hip-hop allure

Regardless of the style of music these players favor, there is one key issue on which they agree: The burgeoning hip-hop scene in Lawrence is far more inclusive than any other contemporary style.

“Hip-hop is the most diverse scene we have,” says Hunt, who describes his music as “an open-minded journey.”

“It goes from me and (collaborator) DJ Skew being a black cat and Skew being a Latino/Mexican guy. Then SoundsGood is a black and a white act. So is Archetype, who has one guy who is half-white and half-black. Every group is really mixed pretty well.”

Sean Hunt performs under the name Approach and co-owns the Lawrence-based label Datura Records.

Producer Jeremy Nesbitt, who records under the name Nezbeat and also performs as part of the group Archetype, believes most of the black musicians in Lawrence are hip-hop artists.

“Besides that, there are a few jazz musicians and blues artists,” he says. “As far as rock goes — or country or bluegrass — I haven’t personally witnessed any black artists, which is surprising because any other city I go to there are a lot of artists that do rock ‘n’ roll and whatnot.”

The studio-savvy 23-year-old claims hip-hop is more enticing to black artists than other modern sounds.

“Black artists are more familiar and can relate more to hip-hop because of what is going on with multiculturalism in hip-hop,” Nesbitt says. “Pretty much hip-hop is unlimited now.”

The only thing hampering Lawrence’s diversified hip-hop scene is the physical makeup of the area, according to Joe Good, the rapping half of the duo SoundsGood.

Joe Good is half of the hip-hop duo SoundsGood.

“The population of black people in this city is more of a deficit,” Good says. “But when you compare it to the amount of black musicians in the scene, there are a lot more black musicians in the scene than there is (relative) population in the city.”

In terms of numbers, black musicians seem to be at a disadvantage in Lawrence. According to the 2000 census, blacks account for only 5.5 percent of Lawrence’s population, compared to 11.7 percent in Topeka and 30.1 percent in Kansas City, Kan.

Yet these stats don’t seem to hinder artists from connecting to Lawrence audiences.

“There is a lot more opportunity to play to a larger crowd in Lawrence,” says Good, whose band has performed everywhere from the city’s rock clubs to the Spencer Museum of Art. “Trying to get a lot of people at one place in Kansas City is a feat. They got to know you to want to come see you. It just takes a lot more work.”

‘Turn that noise off’

Regardless of their style of music, none of the performers allege to have been the victims of outright racism during their professional careers. But some admit skin color has factored in how their music is perceived.

Nezbeat, right, is one of the rising musicians in Lawrence's hip-hop scene.

“It hasn’t been blatant here,” the 26-year-old Hunt says. “But there have been times in the journey where we have not been allowed to play a show because the type of music we do draws a certain type of crowd.

“I ran into that a few times in Kansas City. Starting out here, we ran into that a little bit. But I know that since I made an honest attempt to work my way into the system on their terms, I knew that if they saw me play and saw what I did, they couldn’t deny it. It was just honest, pure fun music.”

Although Good emphasizes he’s never had any trouble in Lawrence, in his hometown of Kansas City, things are sometimes more dicey.

“We did a show at a school for an event while they had relays going on,” he says, judiciously avoiding naming the institution. “We set up our sound and turned it on, and it happened to be blasting over the stadium and they couldn’t hear a gun go off during the relays. So the coaches, like 10 of them, ran up the hill saying, ‘Turn that noise off!’ I think that’s just more of a misunderstanding of what hip-hop is. It was more like noise to them than music.”

The irony being that it was upsetting to the school personnel to hear music drown out the sound of gunfire.

Wade Kelly, left, fronts the rock band The Sound You Say.

“I’ve NEVER had any experience with racism in music,” Nesbitt says. “That’s why I like it so much. I’ve had racism in jobs, like when I’m trying to hold down a regular job. But I never have in music, because I think people in music are more wise to the world. I think it’s a more open-minded field.”