Honestly, if you've spent any time digging through the dusty crates of 1970s New York punk, you’ve hit a wall. A loud, abrasive, and deeply uncomfortable wall. It’s a track from the 1978 album Easter. It features a driving, tribal beat and a vocal performance that sounds like a woman possessed. But the title? It stops you cold.
Patti Smith and Rock N Roll Nigger remains one of the most polarizing artifacts in music history.
It’s not just a song. It is a massive, messy collision of 1970s "transgressive" art and the harsh reality of American racial history. Most people today see the title and immediately recoil. That is a natural, human response. But if you want to understand why a "Godmother of Punk" thought she could—or should—record this, you have to look at a very specific, very weird moment in time.
The Idea of the "Outsider"
Patti Smith didn't just wake up and decide to be offensive for the sake of it. Well, maybe a little. But she had a "theory." In her mind, the word she used wasn't about skin color. She claimed it was about a state of being.
Basically, she was obsessed with the idea of the "artist-mutant."
She took her cues from people like Lenny Bruce and Norman Mailer. Mailer had written an essay called The White Negro back in 1957. It argued that hip, white jazz fans were becoming "urban adventurers" by adopting the language and rebelliousness of Black culture because they were both marginalized by a plastic, conformist society.
It was a flawed, romanticized view. Obviously.
Smith ran with it. She wanted to "redefine" the slur as a badge of honor for anyone living on the fringe. In the liner notes of the album, she wrote this wild manifesto claiming the word was "made for the plague" and that "any man who extends beyond the classic form" is one.
She wasn't just talking about herself. She was name-dropping.
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In her eyes, Jimi Hendrix was one. So was Jesus Christ. She even threw Jackson Pollock and her own grandmother into the mix. She thought she was being inclusive. She thought she was "defanging" the word by stripping it of its power to hurt.
She was wrong.
Why Rock N Roll Nigger Still Matters (And Why It’s Gone)
You won't find this track on Spotify or Apple Music anymore. Not easily. Around 2022, it was quietly scrubbed from most major streaming platforms. You can still find it on YouTube or your old vinyl copy of Easter, but the industry has largely decided this is one "artistic experiment" that didn't age well.
Why does it still matter? Because it marks the boundary of where white "rebellion" hits a brick wall.
When the song came out, rock critics were split. Dave Marsh, writing for Rolling Stone in 1978, didn't hold back. He called it an "unpalatable chant." He pointed out the obvious: Smith didn't understand that the word isn't about "outlawry." It’s about a "vicious kind of subjugation."
That’s the core of the controversy. Smith was a white woman from New Jersey who could "opt in" to being an outsider. She could play the rebel on stage and then walk back into a world where she wasn't targeted for her race.
People who actually have that slur hurled at them don't get to "redefine" it at a dinner party.
The Sound of the Song
Forget the lyrics for a second. If you just listen to the music, it's one of the most powerful things the Patti Smith Group ever recorded. Produced by Jimmy Iovine, it has this massive, "in-your-face" kick drum. It’s primal.
It usually followed a poem called "Babelogue."
In live shows, Smith would work herself into a frenzy. She would bark the lyrics. It was supposed to be a moment of "transcendence." But as the decades passed, that transcendence started to look more like a "twisted luxury," as writer Abigail Covington put it.
The song became a staple of her live sets for forty years. She didn't stop playing it because she felt guilty; she stopped because the world shifted. The "Lenny Bruce method" of saying the word until it loses its meaning doesn't work in a world that finally understands how words carry the weight of actual, physical violence.
What Really Happened With the Backlash?
Interestingly, there wasn't a massive "cancel culture" moment in 1978. The album Easter was a hit. It had "Because the Night" on it—a song co-written with Bruce Springsteen. That song went to the Top 20.
Patti Smith was a superstar.
The song was controversial, sure, but it was seen as "edgy" and "avant-garde." It stayed in the cultural zeitgeist for a long time. Marilyn Manson even covered it in 1995. Trent Reznor included a remix on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. For a long time, the "industrial/goth" crowd used the song as a shorthand for being a social pariah.
But by 2019, Smith stopped performing it.
She hasn't issued a massive apology, but her silence speaks. In her memoirs like Just Kids, she paints a picture of a woman deeply in love with the "mythology" of the artist. That mythology often blinded her to the reality of the people she was "honoring."
Actionable Insights for Music Lovers
If you’re a fan of Patti Smith or just interested in the history of punk, here is how you should handle this:
- Listen to the context, but don't ignore the impact. You can appreciate the raw energy of the Patti Smith Group while acknowledging that the lyrical choices were, at best, a massive blind spot.
- Read the liner notes. If you can find a physical copy of Easter, read the "Babelogue" text. It’s a window into how "New York Intellectuals" of the 70s viewed themselves.
- Look into the artists she mentioned. If you want to see the "outsiders" she admired, go listen to Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys or look at Jackson Pollock’s "Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)."
- Acknowledge the evolution. The removal of the song from streaming isn't "erasing history"—the history is still there in the vinyl and the books. It’s just a reflection that the platform doesn't want to profit from a slur.
The story of this song isn't a simple "she's a racist" or "she's a genius" narrative. It's a reminder that art doesn't exist in a vacuum. You can be a visionary poet and still be completely, utterly wrong about the weight of the words you choose to use.
Next Steps:
Go back and listen to the rest of the Easter album. Tracks like "Till Victory" and "Ghost Dance" show the same intensity without the baggage. If you want to understand the New York scene better, pick up a copy of Patti Smith's book Just Kids. It’s a much better representation of her "outsider" spirit than that one controversial track will ever be.