The Rickey Vincent blog

RV's Favorite Funk of 2011

2011-12-24T01:03:00.000-08:00

Here’s my favorite funky music of 2011:

1. DENNIS COFFEY: Dennis Coffey

Any way you slice it, funk guitar master Dennis Coffey has put together the best jam session the year. Coffey’s mastery of pocket and groove, his nasty nasty high energy chops, his choice of killer guest musicians and badass songs to cover, all put together to smack the lightweight funksters off their perch. The hooks on tracks like “Space Traveler” and “Plutonius” just can’t be touched. So so many people are trying to do some 60’s retro (see Raphael Saadiq) and in some cases pulling it off, but 70’s funk retro is the hardest sheet to hit with. Dennis Coffey sounds like he did in 1972 with “Scorpio,” only better! No wasted tracks, no shallow detours. Thru and thru the best funk record of 2011.

2, BOOTSY COLLINS: Tha Funk Capitol of The World

We all know Bootzilla the most talented funky brutha alive, and the undisputed Number One Funkateer of All Time Baba! And he has produced a masterpiece that will stand the test of time. Some of the songs, like “JB-Still The Man,” and “The Jazz Greats” are incredible. His new album is a brilliant montage of music lessons and clean pockets of funk interspersed with vocal vamps from the likes of Dr. Cornel West, Samuel Jackson, Al Sharpton and others. That’s the only problem with this disc. As a “funk lesson” it is one of the most important recordings of the century (do not sleep on the Jim Henrdrix tribute “Mirrors Tell Lies”), but as a free-flowing funk spectacle you can listen all the way thru, it feels too standardized and market driven. Where’s the “Sloppy Seconds” funk blowout ? We know Bootsy can do this because his holiday album Christmas is For Ever from 2006 is a freeform Rubber Band ripping funkblast, not a tamed hip hop hopeful overproduction that this new disc often gives the taste of. But you still gotta love it. If this disc gets Bootsy onto Letterman, on the X Factor, on 106th & Park, onto Sesame Street as a household name, then it will be all worth it…My question is this: does this disc get Bootsy closer to hosting a Super Bowl halftime show? Yeah I said it.

3. ORIGINAL 7VEN: Condensate

The Original Seven here are the original Morris Day and The Time! Yes I mean THE originals, that means Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Jesse Johnson, Jellybean, Jerome, the whole band bringing it all back! Prince owned the name, but he couldn’t contain the funk in this set. The band provides a mastery of all those Minneapolis sounds, the two-stepping pop, the nu-wave rockin’, the nasty ballads, the lean and slick strutting funk jams, and Morris’ over the top ego tripping are all in the finest form – in years. My only issue is that some of the grooves are so tight that I’d like to hear one of those 8, 9, ten minute versions. Morris Day and the band hasn’t changed, and you can take that for what it is. They bring their flava back in full glory.

4. PTFI: Who The Funk is PTFI?

Who is PTFI? Phil Jones is Phil The Funky Instrumentalist, and he has been laying down some of the thickest funk tracks around the Bay Area for years. His work on the Zootzilla album P’n All Over the Place, and Dr. Illinstine’s CD last year Listen While I Tell You Of The Clones made it clear that some serious phunk in the bay is getting some serious production quality to boot. Check out "Beware of the Sample Troll" and "Everywhere there's a lack of funkin'" and you'll get it. Phil the PTFI has produced tracks for the new Ronkat and the Katdelic album, which is going to be one of the major funk releases of 2012. But until then, this thumpasorus set will put The Funk straight.

5. ZIGABOO MODELISTE: New Life

Far and away Zigaboo’s best solo album, and he’s had some good ones! Legendary New Orleans funk drummer Zigaboo Modeliste combines some great Mardi Gras jammies with some brick-cracking funk tracks that all tell a story in Zig’s patented soulful way. “New Life,” “Human Race” and “Keep on Groovin’” let the world know that Zig is as fresh as ever, and his great ballad “Holiday Kiss” shows he’s still got the sentimental chops. But what really kicks this CD over the top is how often and how well Zigaboo features his own phenomenal drumming on the tracks. On earlier records Zig was emphasizing his songwriting, but he has finally broken out with a true solo album from The Meters drummer we always wanted to hear.

6. OSAKA MONAURAIL: State of The World

A straight up deep JB’s pocket is what these Japanese bruthas bring once again on their latest. But these pockets are killer, deep funk grooves that would make Fred and Maceo proud. Their sense of style and appreciation for the JB’s entire presentation is evident here, and on covers like “Mother Popcorn” and “Ain’t it Funky Now,” but the real meat is on their own compositions like “The Archipelago” and “Syrinxology” that just hold it and hit it the way it is sposed to be done. Recorded and released in Japan, presumably since the terrible earthquake/tsunami/radioactive disaster there, this funk packet can only help folks there and everywhere get over the hump.

7. CHARLES WRIGHT: That Funky Thang

My homie the legendary Charles Wright gets back to business as only he can, with some sloppy stanky irrestible freestyle funkin’ all his own! A set of delicious dance grooves with CW’s own silly lyrics and stoney delivery make the entire record a delight. This is what people love about the funk, but have long forgotten how to get there. Charles Wright never left, and he will take you there if you follow him.

8. BIG OL’ NASTY GETDOWN: Volume 1

One of the most diverse records on the list, the Big Ol Nasty Getdown features big helpings of southern fried funk, with some deep ballads and crazee rapping tossed in. Their meat is the monster funk riffs on “College Funk,” “Room 2012” and “Platinum” but the band has an indescribably delicious self made sound, that one can feel across a multitude of styles, from metal funk blasting to laid back balladeering. This is no gimmick. They are big, they are nasty and they get down.

9. HEADHUNTERS: Platinum

Drummer Mike Clark took the name and produced his own very entertaining trip through jazz funk and hip hop crossover. There are a few “remakes” of classic Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters era material, like “Palm Nut” and “Salamander” that give the sound some familiarity while moving the jazz-funk fusion flavor into the future. Some guest rappers include Snoop Dogg, who vamps on hanging in the San Francisco Bay Area on “D-Funk (funk with us)” The mix of rap and slick jazz funk has its moments, and is worth a listen but this might be one of those CD’s you pluck the grooves you want and skip the others. Usually those releases don’t make my list, but the music is so strong you won’t be able to ignore it.

10. GOAPELE: Break of Dawn

Bay area soul vocalist put together her tightest, strongest and funkiest album so far. An ethereal sound permeates the music here, as her band captures an exotic, futuristic yet deeply soulful atmosphere for the gifted singer to explore. Goapele digs deeper and and delivers with more passion than on any of her earlier albums, and she kicks up a dance groove on more than a few of them. It is a self-contained slice of Bay Area soul genius that one should not pass up, whether a funk fan or not.

Other interesting music this year: Me’Shell NdegeOcello’s brilliant Weather, Raphael Saadiq’s Rolling Stones homage Stone Rolling, Martin Luther’s self released disc Extra Terrestrial Brother Vol. 1, (you gotta go to martinluthermccoy.com to find it), Steve Arrington's work on Stone's Throw (where's the album?!), and my homie Bobby Easton’s band Delta Nove, Imaginary Conversations. There was a time when some hip hop made my funky top 10 list, maybe that time has passed.

One thing I noticed about these releases is that they generally stick to around 10 tracks, sometimes less. They can make their point and not overload their listeners with a sense of quantity over quality, and I think other artists should heed this. Make sure the music you are doing is the best it can be, not simply as many tracks as you can muster. There are also a lot of O.G.’s on this list. They are showing up and representing, showing the young bucks how to do it, and I hope more will do just that. As for the P-Funk, there is a taste of it from PTFI, and Dennis Coffey does a couple of mean Funkadelic covers, and you can get some Pee from the Bootsy album, although he’s clearly trying to reach other audiences beyond the Maggot Brains that inhabit that zone of zeep funk.

Can't Stop Won't Stop Herbie Hancock!

2011-09-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

I just watched one of the greatest concerts of my life. I went to the Herbie Hancock show at Zellebach Auditorium at UC Berkeley on Wednesday night (9-21-11), expecting little more than a polite jazz quartet, playing some of Herbie Hancock’s 60’s standards and some of his modal jazz work with Miles Davis. Of course I have been a devout follower of Herbie Hancock since his days with the Headhunters band, a ferocious funk-jazz outfit that produced massively mind-bending Afro-futurist electronic funk back in the 70s, decades ahead of its time. I was thrilled in the 1980s when Herbie Hancock discovered hip hop beats, and jumped headfirst into electro-funk production, and won his first Grammy Award in 1984 with “Rockit!” I saw him perform at the Greek Theater at Cal in 1986 with the Rockit band (with Steel Pulse opening up), and Herbie’s band going through some incredible sonic fusions of funk, hip hop, rock, afrobeat and bop jazz. His music then was high tech and mindblowing, but after each thunderous song, he would politely say “thank you, this next song is….” His stage demeanor didn’t match the epic sonic and cultural onslaught that his music meant to me in 1986, and I felt then that maybe he was a quiet jazzman at heart, that just dabbled around in musical exploration.

Over the years, Herbie Hancock has ‘dabbled’ in some incredible collaborations, and made some extremely popular music, winning “Album of the Year” Grammy award in 2008 for River: The Joni Letters, beating out such acts as Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. He had come on tour in the past with the Headhunters, specifically playing his funky future-beats, he tours completely solo, and he had come to town with just a straight ahead jazz combo.

So I was left to wonder, which Herbie Hancock would show up at Zellerbach that night? It was simply billed as “jazz” with Herbie Hancock on piano. I had not heard of any of his backing musicians, a drummer, bassist and guitarist.

The night began with the band walking out one by one, hitting a dirty free jazz riff that sounded like “Actual Proof,” one of Herbie’s legendary Headhunters era fusion workouts. That is exactly what they did. Herbie kept burning, and bassist James Genus would burn with him. After one song, Herbie came out front from his keyboard perch – that had more than a grand piano, it had a small keyboard (I thought I saw the iconic MOOG label on it) as well as a computer screen and some other goodies.

Herbie began joking with the audience, and took his time to introduce each member of his band. Here was an artist not only a master of his craft, but a master of the stage and a master of the audience as well. I had seen Miles Davis in the same venue in the 1980s, and while the show was phenomenal, Miles never said a word the entire night.

Herbie was having a ball letting us know that his personality was as fun as his music was. He went into a long discussion of his classic “Watermelon Man” and how there are two versions of it, and his guitar player Lionel Loueke (a native of Benin, a small country bordering Nigeria) wrote an original composition (in 17/4 time he said) and that they were going to mix that into the song as well.

That is precisely what they did. The song had a brilliant funk feel, a strong blues tone, some wild African influences, and then the ridiculous time changes Herbie warned us about. As the jam heated up, Herbie reached around and put on his strap on mobile keyboard, and walked in front of the stage to let the synthesizer rip – in a thunderous give and take with the bass, as they cranked out what seemed like a 20 minute jazz-funk party jam.

This was no acoustic jazz combo, this was a funk masterpiece performed at full throttle by a Master Of His Craft with some untouchable protégés in the mix with him.

That set a tone that I did not think could be matched or exceeded, but Herbie is NO JOKE. He introduced his guitarist again, and left the stage while Lionel Lueke did an indescribably brilliant piece of African (click) vocalizing, percussive and melodic guitar work at the same time, and just blew all our minds all by himself.

When the band came back, they hit into a punishing funk jazz groove that I did not recognize, and could barely handle. The riffing was so hard, the bass thump was so relentless, the soloing was so mindblowing, it was clear that Herbie was in territory NOBODY ALIVE can match. The music had an intensity only matched – I said only matched -- by George Clinton’s band during their 7 day stay in the Bay in July.

That is how strong the jam factor was. And I was convinced that Bootsy Collins’ visit to the Fillmore in June was the best concert of the year, until George Clinton did his week of noise at Yoshi’s. But here comes Herbie Hancock with a list of funk credentials that can stand up to any funk-master, and Herbie comes from the jazz side of things to RIP THE SH*T OUF THE JAM.

I had passes to this show because I was invited to be on a panel with two jazz experts who loved and still live with Herbie from his modal jazz mode. On the panel earlier that day I claimed that I felt that “all of herbie’s musical explorations were sincere to him” but conceded that a night of polite dinner jazz might be in store. Oops.

I did say Herbie connects all of the genres of improvisational music, from hard bop to hip hop and beyond, but I did not believe that he would do this all in one night.

After the thunder jam, Herbie and the drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bass player Genus delivered some hot and heavy free jazz that just burned the stage up. This is where the drummer starts channeling Tony Williams. It was hard to imagine what was happening – as it was really happening – as the collective improvisation and relentless rhythm fire would not stop, and the three sustained a pocket that is rare for any jazz giant – then or now. I have seen artists like Branford Marsalis and Joshua Redman, who enjoy the collective improvisation of free jazz and cut loose now and then, but they wouldn’t heat it up. To cook a high intensity freeform jam and keep it there like Herbie did, that is out there with Michael Hampton’s Maggot Brain for sustained intensity. There I said it.

After that, I was stretched out. Herbie had me in the palm of his hand. The band left, and Herbie proceeded to play an improvised love song on the grand piano. It sounded like he was making the entire thing up as he went, ‘freestyling’ a thing of beauty. That’s exactly what it was, beauty, put to music, plain and simple. Herbie doesn’t play ‘wrong’ notes. He can jam the most wicked ‘out’ jazz, or cuddle up with a warm melody, but everything he plays has that essential love element in it. Herbie just doesn’t go sour.

The band came back and breathed fire into a version of “Cantaloupe Island” that was anything but the gentle Caribbean feeling romp that it is on the record. Before I knew it he had saluted the audience and was heading offstage. We brought them all back of course, and the band got started on “Chameleon.” Herbie walked out last, with his strap on “keytar” and proceeded to get down and funky with that thing. After grooving on some synthesizer trickery, he reset the thing to play samples and voice bytes, like James Brown chants, and proceeded to give us a hip hop mixtape live with his jazz band. And Herbie didn’t just play funky, he was funky, letting it all out and getting a little wiggle (waggle) going as he grooved on.

No other artist alive is capable of reaching this much of a range of great sounds and styles of music and make it smoke, let alone own it as part of his own catalog. But Herbie can. And for what it’s worth, the entire show was basically from the Funk side of things. Yes it was a (deceptively) billed as a jazz concert, but Herbie came with The Funk, brought The Funk, and delivered The Funk, peeriod.

Herbie showed his jazz audience just how fundamentally The Funk is the heir to the throne of improvisational music; and he showed his hip hop/ electrofunk audience precisely where all of those (funky) rhythmic sensibilities come from. He gave a music lesson across 60 years of black traditions, and kept it On The One. This is THE Herbie Hancock to see, no matter what style of Herbie you may have come to know him from. And especially if you see on the bill the players James Genus on bass, Lionel Loueke on guitar, and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, drop what you are doing and get a ticket to that show.

The End of Space

2011-08-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

Last month the final space shuttle mission ended with Atlantis touching down in the dark of night, a fitting image for the end of the U.S. manned space program. It doesn’t seem to register much on the national scale of issues to be concerned with, but it has been hanging on me for a while.

As a kid, I watched all the Star Trek episodes (on a tiny black & white TV, I didn’t know Star Trek was in color until 1976), and followed the US space program with the idealism and enthusiasm of a kid that believed that space “colonization” was just around the corner.

I watched in awe when the 1969 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Space Odyssey showed a gigantic spinning space wheel in orbit, as a shuttle slowly docks with the massive station as classical music plays in the background. On the station, the lead character makes a ‘telephone call’ to his daughter from orbit, on a video phone that seemed so far ahead of its time, yet now is commonplace.

The infinite possibilities offered by the Apollo moon landings from 1969-72 gave a lot of us idealists the impression that space travel was the next frontier, and that all other space ventures were variations on that theme of exploration, and “advance” of the human condition in some way. This has always been problematic of course, and Gil Scott Heron deconstructed the situation the best on his song “Whitey on the Moon.” I was thrilled to hear that song, but I was also still excited about the prospects of human space flight.

In the stoned out 70s I got into the psychedelic music. Jimi’s “Third Stone From the Sun,” Sun Ra’s “Space is the Place” and of course the Mothership Connection. I remember when George Clinton chanted “We have returned to claim the pyramids” and it seemed like an outerspace encounter was right around the corner. If you count the cosmology of P-Funk, and their “specially designed Afro-nauts capable of funkatizing galaxies” it seemed like this kind of thang was gonna be hella cool.

This was still years before the blockbuster Star Wars film would come out and deposit a space based mythology on a new generation. But I never doubted as a teen that we would all at some point have a chance to touch the sky, and look down upon the round home of earth from above it.

In college I hustled my way into Cal through a math/science recruitment program as an Astronomy major. I was way into space by then. I went so far as to go to the ROTC office and ask point blank if their program had a pipeline for the space program. For someone that grew up in anti-war Berkeley and had actually participated in anti ROTC protests, that was an extreme, very creepy event, that also put an end to my lofty space ideas.

After that, I settled on more terrestrial pursuits, like playing the funk.

“A Slow Death”

From the first space disaster the space shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986 to today, the US space program has been bleeding a slow death, and the landing of Atlantis was basically the final curtain. It is not the complete end, because private enterprises, and other countries, especially Russia today and most likely China in the future, will be taking this space exploration thing to the next level, presumably to Mars. Maybe in my lifetime. Maybe not.

Maybe we shouldn’t care, but as one science fiction writer put it, space travel ensures our immortality as a human race, in case something calamitous should happen to our home planet earth, we would still be out there. Maybe we don’t deserve to outlive our planet, but that is for another blog in another century I figure. But it may never come to that.

One of the hitches to all the science fiction I watched, and all of the heavy lifting the early space program did, was in the real world of human spaceflight, they had a helluva time getting off of earth, out of earth’s gravitational pull. That problem has yet to be solved, and the costs and dangers have not really been improved in 50 years of trying.

Another sad turn of events is the fact that it still takes months and months to get from one planet to another. The moon is just a few days away, but Venus and Mars, take many months, and Jupiter or Saturn we’re still talking about years. Either way you are in for a long haul.

I was really intrigued watching the intro to the film Avatar, when they said a crew took 6 years to get to the star where the lush, jungle moon Pandora was located. That was compelling science fiction, and will probably lead to even more in the sequel, when we can presume a 12 year round trip to and from that place.

But if one does the math - and it gets wild here – this is a big problem. If we assume that Pandora is located orbiting the nearest star to us, Alpha Centauri, which is 4.5 light years away, and it took 6 years to get there, then we are presuming that the spaceship was capable of traveling at 3/4ths the speed of light. Not accounting for all the relativistic effects (a 6 year flight experience on the ship, but at home decades would pass), there is a presumption that humans can get going to speeds near light speed.

This is so far from human capability right now. At the rate of our fastest ships known to man, it would take 10,000 years to reach the nearest star. Period. The idea that human spaceflight is in our future is not just years away it is starting to look impossible.

But I’ve started to look at some other issues. What if there were some forms of bug life in our solar system? This brings up the question of contamination. This one goes back as far as HG well’s novel “War of the Worlds” in 1898. In that tale of Martians attacking earth, the invaders finally succumb to the germs that abound on our planet, as there was no immunity to them.

In a similar vein, scientists have had to face the prospect that if and when we come across a potential bed of biomass, or even organic molecules that might become life forms one day, it is logical to reason that there is no way we could go and scoop a spoonful of this stuff and analyze it without dropping a few molecules of our own germs on them, potentially creating a ghastly hybrid creation like the movie The Thing.

This issue already has the scientific community in a bind. There was a recent discovery of a pristine underground lake beneath Antarctica. It is such a pure specimen of million years old ecology that there is a conundrum with sending a probe down into it. We would presumably contaminate the lake with 2011 DNA. As a result, scientists from all countries of the world have agreed to a moratorium on exploration of the lake until a fail safe means of examining the lake without contaminating it can be found.
This has implications because a similar situation is in Saturn’s moon Titan. An icy surface is believed to have an ocean underneath it, possibly heated by the moon’s core. This is the most enticing possible home for extra terrestrial life we can reasonably reach. But how do we send a probe down there without mixing earth microbes with the life there? Or does it matter?

Either way the idea of ‘beaming down’ to a planet getting dirty and like Captain Kirk, getting it on with the alien females and then leaving the planet like nothing was done, well, that is a myth of major proportions.

So there it is, we not only are not flying into space, may never know space travel, and have major questions about what to do if an when we find even other microbes, let alone animate life forms – or Pandora-like humanoids… But some of us are dreamers, and we must dream.

So what about all of the visitors we seem to keep getting? All of the alien abduction stories, the many many unexplainable lights in the sky all around the world, maybe we are being visited. All I can say to that is, we must surely look like a population unworthy of membership in the galactic community, And if we don’t qualify for membership, I hope we’re not roadkill on some galactic superhighway, As I’ve said before, I hope they like The Funk.

Me'Shell NdegeOcello does Prince

2011-04-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

Review of Me’Shell NdegeOcello’s set of Prince songs, 3/11/11 @ the New Parish.

If there was ever a hot east bay show to catch, the Me’Shell show of Prince covers is it. Anyone that knows the music of Prince knows that there is an endlessly interesting, freaky, original and entertaining supply of awesome tracks to choose from, but only a MASTER has any business trying to take them on.

How many artists have done good Prince covers? I can count ‘em on one hand. But now Me’Shell has done exactly what a funkateer would like to see done, a truly polished treatment of Prince that captured all of the Artist’s uniquely intimate sexuality and emotional intensity, while bringing the raw power of The Funk to kick it into a new gear. That is what Me’Shell did, and probably no one else in the biz could do.

After Martin Luther did a set of far reaching Beatles covers that I thoroughly enjoyed (but the crowd may not have recognized), The exotic, ethnic, original Oakland audience milled about in full color, waiting for their hero…

Me’Shell had a quartet of funk geniuses, with drummer Deantoni Parks, guitarist Chris Bruce, and keyboardist Keefus Ciancia that all understood the requirements of Prince’s music.

The quartet had a perfect sense of the tone needed to deal with the exotic arrangements of Prince properly, and the eerie keyboard work (from an original MOOG synthesizer and some other keys) captured the spacey emotional techno tone of early 80’s Prince.

She began with Pop Life, and just hung every word out to delicious effect. Then she got into a thumping party groove and did Irresistible Bitch which sent me over the top. The audience wasn’t as familiar with that track, a one-off single from back in the day, but it is most definitely part of Prince’s legend.

Then Me’Shell began a light version of “I Wanna Be Your Lover” by just singing it, but you could tell the tone of the band was going to escalate, and when Me’Shell picked up her bass and brought the thump, she hit the most exquisitely erotic rock hard THUMP I’ve heard since Bootsy Collins came this way.

IT was clear from the third track that despite Me’shell’s affection for all of Prince’s many delights as a soul piercing songwriter, this show provided Me’Shell with more freedom to RIP throbbing funk riffs all night.

While there were some disruptions to get their sound right, there was nothing missing when they got cranking, and the band kept things just a silly millameter slower than the record, so the delicious grooves – sometimes overlooked by the shrill vocals and guitars of Prince’s most recognizeable songs – can just be soaked in in full intensity.

After an utterly throbbing version of Controversy, She said ‘now that I finished the standard issue, I’m going to cut loose’ She then did a warped version of Dirty Mind, turning it into a metal mash.

Her rendition of Annie Christian was brilliant, and at the end, she just casually quipped ‘Prince was more interesting before he found Jehovah” which caused a surprising amount of groans from the audience. Me’Shell was clearly surprised by the reaction, and tried to joke about it. I suspect she figured the Oakland crowd would be far more "post-Christian" in their sensibilities.

The new Prince generation of fans may have another perspective on the Purple One than those of us that experienced his music as it happened in the 80’s. Me’Shell clearly did, saying that she “Loved Prince” and that “he changed my life” which I think a lot of people share, but nobody and I mean nobody has been able to DO Prince properly in the past 30 years until Me’Shell did. Hands down.

Me'Shell was clearly one of the many folks that caught one of Prince's Oakland concerts in February, and got inspired. I was definitely one of them, and felt blessed to see one of our generation's greatest acts giving it up for Oaktown, for Larry Graham and for Sheila E, and the Bay Area. Me'Shell took it one step further.

From my vantage point as a P-Funker that appreciates Prince but always wondered what would happen if Prince’s music acquired some Thunder Thumbs type of bottom, how much Ultimate Phunk would be unleashed? Well, Me’Shell did EXACTLY THAT, and then some.

This funky generation is FINALLY doing its homework, studying the deep jams in all their intricacy and liquified attitudinal genius, and then blasting them out with a brand new tone. The Roots & John Legend did this with Soul last year. Folks is WAY beyond sampling riffs, they are digging deep. Much Respect to Me'Shell for showing the way.

Props to the folks at the New Parish for making this happen. Some days it is a blessing to be into The Funk, and to be in Oakland.

Could the global rebellion happen here in the U.S.?

2011-02-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

An amazing sequence of events has taken place in which one of the largest and most strategically important countries in the world disposed of its dictator of 30 years in a matter of weeks, through the sustained actions of the people there. Of course a lot of other factors went into this people’s revolution, but one thing is spectacularly clear: the people ain’t taking this sh*t anymore.

Many believe that a global rebellion going on, with thousands upon thousands of people (most of them young & ready to take their future in their hands) standing up to tired, corrupt regimes, demanding and sometimes actually bringing about change. It is not just happening in Egypt. Or Tunisia, or Jordan, or Yemen, or just the Middle East. In Albania there were 20,000 protestors demanding the corrupt regime there resign, and 3 protesters were killed by police in January. There was a travel alert in Bolivia last summer when protestors shut down 1/3 of the country demanding better finances with the government, and in December massive protests over fuel price hikes. Similar protests in Chile over fuel price hikes last month. Many of these protestors are young and wired to the internet, so they know they are not alone.

In Bolivia last summer, tourists were trapped and had to flee. In Chile last month, tourists were trapped and had to flee. In Egypt, tourists were trapped and had to flee. Amazing how this sh-- is going on and we’re just sitting around watching sports & playing video games.

So I’ve been wondering what is keeping this type of “unrest” from taking place in the U.S.? Here are five reasons why it will spread to the U.S. and five reasons why it won’t.

1) There are hundreds of thousands of poor, underemployed or jobless, hopeless, pissed off Americans with just as many reasons to protest as those in any other economically oppressive nation. What’s to stop them from rising up by the millions? It would be a helluva thing to see Americans demanding ‘freedom’ again, but this would be about economic freedom, freedom from the ripoff by the rich. It is amazing that we have social freedom, but are just about as economically trapped as those in any struggling nation in the world. Funny that we have the ‘democracy’ everybody else wants, but are losing ground faster than people in some totalitarian nations…

2) Everyone is wired to the internet, so if a giant scandal or greed driven economic disaster took place, or if something jumped off, say, in Tulsa or Oakland or Jacksonville, Florida, folks would know in an instant and would be able to compare notes on what went down and what is going on. And if the “government” tried to stop the internet, there would be a whole other strata of society up in arms, ready to take their anger to the streets over being “censored.”

3) Most of these protestors are challenging corrupt, belligerent regimes and tired old leaders. Well, Obama has been brown-nosing big business for so long, most of us have just given up on his message of “change.” Everything is being cut, and yet we see big business fatcats giving themselves $100,000 bonuses, with Obama administration approval. We all know Obama’s abandoned the working class in favor of kissing the ass of the rich, and he’s just about lost all of the cache he had going in, being a cool, black president and all. That only gets you so far. Michelle notwithstanding, folks might just let Obama know what they think of his slobbering over the rich the past two years.

4) In the past, global upheaval has had a deep impact on social changes in the U.S. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s got a great deal of inspiration from the anti-colonial struggles of nations in the “Third World” such as India, Ghana, Nigeria, Vietnam and Cuba. In the 1980s the worldwide efforts to isolate and sanction the modern day slavery of Apartheid in South Africa eventually sparked a grassroots movement in the US to compel congress to finally cut off ties with the racists there. Who is to say that this youth movement around the world won’t inspire people with nothing to lose here to do the same?

5) It’s the dead of winter and the spirit of protest worldwide is at a fever pitch. What happens when things thaw out in the northern countries? And on top of that, what happens if there is a lockout and no NFL football? And an NBA lockout too? With no distractions, things could get dicey. As my friend Pat Thomas put it: “If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for a week, they'd have to bring out tanks to control everyone.”

Not advocating, I’m just saying…

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On the other hand, while most Americans are reaching a state of economic desperation - if not already there - Obama said to Congress in his State of the Union Address, “none of you would trade places with anyone in another country.” Maybe so, maybe not, but that doesn’t mean sitting still while we’re being gouged, ripped off, incarcerated, abandoned, indoctrinated, demonized, and taken for granted all at once.

The media says that this thing began with a people’s uprising in nearby Tunisia, and that protests in Jordan and Yemen are about Middle Easterners finally gaining a notion of what is possible with a Democracy. To the extent that ‘peaceful protests’ against ruthless dictators have successful a track record anywhere in the world, the influence of some western countries plays a role to be sure. But the Egyptians and others aren’t doing this because they dream about America’s Democracy, because they know that it is America’s Democracy that has kept Mubarak and these other S.O.B.'s in power all these years.

Our "democracy" has become a joke because while political power appears to change every election cycle, real power does not. Yet too many of us are ok with the status quo, sh*tty that it may be. So we act like the U.S. is somehow immune to these protests. Maybe it is our ‘system’ that will prevent an uprising here.

Here’s why we won’t have a rebellion; I’m not advocating, I’m just saying…

1) While there are plenty of poor people in the US, they are so busy hating each other, harping on irrelevant right wing fabrications, watching 800 channels of worthless consumerist garbage, and swallowing up the American myths of opportunity, there is no time left to clearly analyze one’s own socioeconomic status, and to organize with others of similar persuasion. We have ‘normalized’ trivial activities like reality TV shows & sports to the point where actually working in the community is seen as a distant abstraction. So while there are millions of poor in the US, they don’t see themselves collectively as victims of a system, only as individuals suffering in silence while they watch & envy everyone else.

2) Everyone is wired up, but is that good? There is access to so much information, too many folks just use the web to look up irrelevant sh*t, like that commercial with people blabbering data they searched on the web, leading to search overload. On a deeper level, Cornel West calls the digital gaming epidemic “Weapons of Mass Distraction.” It has a generation addicted to a tiny plastic box, with the only world they can control at their fingers, not in their city.

3) Obama is brown nosing but because he’s brown we don’t’ see the shit there. Yes he has a long way to go before he’s in the dysfunctional category of Bush, but so what? He’s still selling us out. But the trick is, the presidency changes over each 4-8 years and that saves the country from itself. When we get pissed enough, the ‘regime change’ takes the form of a "demopublican" color change, which is not really a change at all. In our Orwellian complacency, we figure that is great. We have democracy and f**k everybody else. We really don’t have a choice.

I started wondering, what if in 2008 Bush ‘stole’ the election again, and found a way to claim Obama was not a citizen, and find a loophole to remain in office? What would be going on in the streets? Same as in Egypt… people wouldn’t stand for it. But we wait to exhale every four years while the poison keeps working on us.

4) As for the protests inspiring people here, well, international influence means nothing to the mainstream. Look at how we trashed the metric system. We don’t care what the rest of the world does. Further, we have a lunatic fringe right wing and a middle and a left wing and they would all be going at it, so there is no clear sense of he bottom vs the top that is seen in so many of these other countries. Further, unlike the protests in all the other countries, we have guns everywhere, so instead of camels and sticks we’d have cracker vigilantes in souped up SUV’s wilding on colored people (and vice versa), so a sustained rebellion that the army “allows to happen” could easily degenerate into chaos that the ruling classes would be content to blame on the poor themselves.

5) As for sports, drugs and distractions, the US rules the world in this one. Like kids & cartoons, give some Americans some sports to watch in HD and they will be so obsessed with it, outside issues won’t matter. By comparison, every four years the rest of the world’s nations get caught up in World Cup Fever, and stop what they’re doing to watch. In the US we do this every four months, for baseball, football, March Madness, NBA & other playoffs. Who wants to challenge the system, when we’re just about as blissfully plugged in as those pod people in the Matrix?

So it looks like the U.S. has as many reasons why there won’t be any rebellions here as there will be. I’m not advocating, I’m just saying…

It will come down to the people here, whether or not they will overcome their generations long biases against each other, unplug from the “Weapons of Mass Distraction” and clearly articulate and focus upon a singular goal, a target of universal wrath that transcends the window dressing of the Oval Office. We blame the political leaders because they are the visible targets of a larger power structure that stays just out of view, so we bitch and moan and vote, and not a damn thing changes.

As Gil Scott Heron put in so well in Winter in America, "Ain't nobody fighting, 'cause nobody knows what to save."

...just saying...

Here are some other important discussions to read about:

Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution?
North Africa and the Global Political Awakening, Part 1
by Andrew Gavin Marshall
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22963

The Fall of Mubarak and the Bankruptcy of Western Empires
By Rosa L. Blanc
http://www.decolonialtranslation.com/english/the-fall-of-mubarak-and-the-bankruptcy-of-western-empires.html

Could What happened in Egypt Ever happen Here in the US?
by Davey D
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/

A great year for funk lp reissues on CD

2010-12-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

2010 is the best year for funk reissues since the 90s

My funk collection is way too big, but I always keep an eye out for CD’s of classic or rare funk, just so the lp’s don’t get worn out anymore. I had figured that after the major labels exhausted their big hit makers’ catalogs there would be no more classic funk to come out on CD. But I was way way wrong here.

The big hitters like Earth, Wind & Fire, Parliament, Sly & the Family Stone Rufus & Chaka Khan now have just about all of their catalogs on CD. Columbia gave us all the Isley Brothers, all of the Herbie Hancock jazz/funk, and a great deal of the Philly Sound – O’Jays and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Other labels have released Grover Washington (“Reed Seed”), Patrice Rushen (“Shout it Out”) & Ramsey Lewis’ funk period (“Salongo”), and it keeps on coming.

Warner Brothers has finally brought out all of Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, Graham Central Station, and Bootsy’s Rubber Band. Zapp and Prince CD’s have always been easy to track down. Thru Rhino you can get nearly all the Average White Band, War, Slave, and Tower of Power.

Polygram/Universal long ago (thanks to Harry Weinger) put out their entire Ohio Players, Parliament, Barry White, Stevie Wonder & Marvin Gaye, and most of their Kool & the Gang, Cameo and a handful of Bar Kays and Con Funk Shun from back in the day. Their James Brown reissues are legendary, although there are still a few JB albums in their original form that are waiting out there.

But waiting right behind these radio hit funk bands are a slew of lesser known (but just as funky) groups that are FINALLY getting more of their catalog out.

First off, itunes is making available all the JIMMY CASTOR BUNCH from Atlantic! This is an incredible find, and any fan of the funk should look into what is available from him there. Check on “E Man Groovin” “Life Truth & Death” “Maximum Stimulation,” “Equal People” and one of my all time favorites: “Bertha Butt Encounters Vadar.” You can also get the complete STEVE ARRINGTON solo albums, like “Positive Power” with the ridiculous “15 Rounds of Lovin’”. Other groups like Mass Production are finally available in full. Now and then a stray funk classic like ADC Band’s “Long Stroke” would pop up on itunes that you can purchase, but that has become a hunt too, although somewhat easier and less dusty than perusing lps at a record shop.

Out of nowhere it seems, a number of indie and import labels (Soul Brother, Wounded Bird, FunkyTown Grooves, Demon/Edsel, Verve, Strut, Soul Jazz, Harmless, Ubiquity, Light in the Attic, Luv & Haight, Thump, etc.) have cranked up their reissuing of great funk, and I can’t be happier. Most if not all of these can be found at dustygroove.com, and I’m happy to shamelessly promote them. I can often find the used CD at amazon.com somewhat cheaper, but nobody give you discs weeks before the scheduled release date like dustygroove.

Since I like to hold CD’s in my hand (it helps doing radio to have disc info, liner notes, etc handy) I am thrilled to be able to finally complete my record collection with some of these long LONG lost funky albums.

SOME GREAT ALBUMS TO COME OUT ON CD IN 2010:

ROY AYERS – LOTS OF LOVE (1983)
This was a lost album in between Roy’s transition from Polydor to Columbia around 1983. It is one of his most party blasting - and most Fela-influenced. An absolute MUST HAVE!

BAR KAYS – FLYING HIGH ON YOUR LOVE (1977)
Their 2nd lp after joining Mercury in 1976, the Bar Kays are in full effect on this one, total funk and soul blowout. Unfortunately this lp is available on a 2in1 CD with “Too Hot to Stop” (most of us already have this one) and the mix is not very good. And something horrible happened to “Let’s Have Some Fun” it is an alternate mix and not the complete song. That track (the hit single) is unplayable. A real disappointment. It also sounds like it may have been from someone’s lp – played to a CD player. Not cool if it is sold as an original mix. But at least I can put that album in my Bar-Kays collection, a definite for any funkateer.

BEGINNING OF THE END – BEGINNING OF THE END (1973)
This is an incredible surprise!! This lp is way hotter than the first lp from this Bahamas based funk outfit, their big hit “Funky Nassau” was great and this is a brilliant follow up, with better songs and a totally great feel. If you like “Funky Nassau” get both lp’s (now on CD) from this fantastic band!

BRICK – AFTER 5 (1982)
Nobody knows about this one but it is ON HIT! The last album from Brick on their great run on Bang/CBS in the late 70’s, this one did not even chart, but it is HOT! Killer tracks like “Free Dancer” and “Wild and Crazy” are as hot as anything from the “Dusic” album. A great surprise because I figured it would NEVER come out on CD. It is packaged with “Summer Heat” as a 2-in-1 CD.

BRICK – SUMMER HEAT (1981)
A 1980 session produced by Ray Parker jr, with a lot of crazy-cool grooves. “Sweat (Til You Get Wet)” was the single. The sound is a little polished - but to me Brick needed no one’s help - but that’s alright, it’s extended Brick, ‘nuff said! Comes in a 2-in-1 cd with After 5, a real bargain.

BRICK – WAITING ON YOU (1980)
Their 4th album, after “Good High” “Brick” and “Stoneheart” This is a very deep pocket session that will have you tripping off the advanced groove consciousness of Brick. These guys are very mature here, and their vocals and riffs are just exquisite. It is not your typical 1980’s R&B, but some of the songs here will become your favorites.

BRASS CONSTRUCTION II (1976)
Unrepentant disco-funk genius here! If BC1 was a 10, then this is a 9. A must have for any fan of Brass Construction, and anyone that wants some HOT dance grooves. FINALLY available after 34 years! This jam session is the reason I was moved to make this list.

BRASS CONSTRUCTION 5 (1979)
Randy Muller was trippin on BC 3 and BC4, but he gets back into a killer funk pocket with thumpers like “Right Place” and “Get Up to Get Down” This is advanced thump for those who know what I mean. ADVANCED.

CHUCK BROWN & THE SOUL SEARCHERS – BUSTIN’ LOOSE (i) (1979)
A little known masterpiece, the entire album of Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers is just a soul/funk/go go delight! It is really the album that started Go Go! It is upwards of $30 to try and get the import CD reissue of this, but you can download the entire album from itunes and its all good.

CHOCOLATE MILK – WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER (1977)
This was one of my all time favorites back in the day, for me right up there with Kool & the Gang’s “Light of Worlds” and some EWF as deep conscious, creative, grooving funk genius. But the sound was always too scratchy and murky to enjoy the old RCA lp. Now it is finally available (along with “Milky Way” as a 2-in-1 CD) and I’m in Chocolate Milk heaven.

JUNIE MORRISON – EVACUATE YOUR SEATS (i) (1984)
P-Funk madman Junie has a number of outrageous solo albums, from Westbound and later on CBS, most of which have yet to be reissued. But you can finally get his outrageous 1984 Island release “Evacuate Your Seats” in full noisy techno-funk effect on itunes I would start with the mixes of “Techno Freeqs” and “Stick It In” and go from there.

MANDRE – MANDRE 4 (1982)
Mandre (Andre Lewis) is a stone trip. Guitarist, arranger and writer, he produced his wife MAXAYN’s three trippy early 70’s albums, then did a stint as bandleader with Frank Zappa. After that he recorded for Motown some spacey dance groove albums as “Mandre.” His mysterious monicker left him and his cosmic groove music on the margins for years, and collectors and re-issuers MUST get to the three Mandre albums on Motown. After Motown, Mandre did one more lp on a tiny indie label, which was just as funky and trippy as the others. A recent lp reissue of Mandre 4 generated a lot of excitement, but my copy was terribly scratchy. Then a CD reissue came out – with just as many scratches as the lp!! A huge disappointment ‘cause the music is great.

MFSB – SUMMERTIME (1976)
A fantastic groove music session from the house band at Philly International. This one has a ‘summer’ theme throughout. The only other album as tightly themed from this time is ‘Motor Booty Affair” the underwater album from Parliament. The work is truly creative here, and the CD comes in a 2-in-1 CD with their “Philadelphia Freedom” another killer session from around 1976.

PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL ALL STARS – LET’S CLEAN UP THE GHETTO (1978)
I never thought a release as odd as this one would ever get reissued, but it came in a 2-in-1 CD with a live Philly stars album. This is the lp with the killer all-star track about the trash on NYC streets, and choruses from Teddy Pendergrass, O’Jays, Lou Rawls etc. Was hunting down the long version of that song online and the whole album popped up.

PLEASURE – JOYOUS (1977)
For my money the best album from Portland's jazz-funk masters, Pleasure. The legendary title cut is only slightly above the awesome jamz throughout the entire disc. I gave it five stars ***** in my book back in the day. Ace finally woke up and put this record out on its own. Two more Fantasy lp’s from Pleasure still need to be released: “Future Now’ and “Special Things.” A 1982 Pleasure album “Give it Up” came out this year, but aside from the (hot) single “Sending My Love” that lp is forgettable.

SUGARFOOT – SUGAR KISS (1984)
This is a real trippy lost gem. Roger Troutman is at the top of his game, producing the legendary Sugarfoot of the Ohio Players. A highly original session, with a fantastic sound, but no hit single left this great disc forgotten for years.

BILL WITHERS – ‘JUSTMENTS (1974)
Another long lost masterpiece from a living legend. This lp followed up the great “Live at Carnegie Hall” album. Then the label (Sussex) folded, and it seemed like Bill wasn’t heard from again until “Lovely Day” in 1977, but he had been putting together some strong, creative, original funky soul here.

BILL WITHERS – MAKING MUSIC (1975)
A powerful session that just got lost in the shuffle of other great funk band breakouts, but this is a VERY STRONG record. Bill has Louis Johnson on bass on some incredible cuts, and some all-star musicians with him. Bill is in full effect, but again, no million selling single just left this piece of genius on the margins.

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There are probably others that came out this year, but these are the ones I’m bugging on. One noticeable theme with these 2010 CD reissues is that most of these records did not have a monster radio hit to support their sales, and the blockheads at these record companies over the years never knew the music in the first place, so it just sat around.

That is why the efforts of the reissue labels to the the REAL SH+T out there should be commended. There is still a great deal of great funky music from the classic funk era, if folks just keep on digging.

San Francisco Overload - Sly Stone and the SF Giants

2010-10-29T15:21:00.001-07:00

Thursday October 28th will go down in history for SF Giants fans as one of the highest highs of the teams 50+ years in The City. Anyone at or near the stadium, or watching it knows what I’m talking about. Nonstop unrelenting joy and pride in The Bay just spewing out is a beautiful thing.

I had another experience that night as well. Just as the game finished, I remembered that there was a film showing of the long awaited movie about Sly Stone, at the Roxie in the Mission. You don’t get much more San Francisco-ish than that, and I took the opportunity to cross the bay and headed out through the San Francisco streets. There was great weather that night -- after gloomy forecasts of rain – that reinforced the notion that Giants Fans in Heaven were making sure the stars were aligned for that nite.

The drive and walk were jovial, magical, and very hard to compare to anything else. Everyone from the panhandlers to the limo riders were flying high, no doubt about it. My mission was another Giant High, and that was to see the latest incarnation of the film about Sly Stone produced by Willem Alkema and "starring" the Dutch twins Edwin and Arno Konings. The three had been “Searching for Sly" like many others for years but their dedication and insatiable desire to find Sly Stone has finally paid off.

The film is titled “Coming Back For More” because as fate would have it, Alkema and the twins tracked down Sly Stone and engaged him with perhaps the first filmed interview in decades, and certainly the first frank and fresh interview since Sly did David Letterman in 1983 (those were the early years of Letterman, late late on NBC after Johnny Carson).

I got to the Roxie a few minutes into the film, and the scene on 16th street was nuts. People partying in maximum Giants ecstasy, and some Sly fans still milling about the theater entrance. Sly couldn’t have had a better entrée. The early segments of the film were incredible: fantastic early footage of Sly Stone, never ever before seen, and stories and vignettes of the great old days of 60’s San Francisco with a funky multiracial twist.

The song selections themselves denoted a level of love for the music that truly has stamped a generation, or many generations at this point. Alkema and the Koning twins did a good job of capturing the musical magic of the early Sly & the Family Stone, although it would have been nice to hear from Freddie or Larry about the nuts and bolts of the groove at that point.

The Woodstock days kind of fly by, but Sly’s underground genius period, the Riot album and the Fresh album are lovingly portrayed. There is a live rendition of “Family Affiar” with just Sly and Rose on piano from that time, that just made me weep. Then the craziness really begins, and Sly’s “wedding” at Madison Square Garden is shown, and all kinds of crazy things Sly either gets into or accused of are discussed.

Somehow in the midst of Sly’s shenanigans in the 1980s and his time with George Clinton, the story shifts to the Koning brothers’ attempts to locate Sly Stone for an interview. The turn is quite satisfying because the filmmakers had made sure that Sly himself was definitely a worthy target for their search. Anyone seeing the flavors of those spirited times, the brilliance and joy of the Family Stone early on, and the nonstop mischief Sly got himself into, anyone would want to put themselves into the twins’ places and do their own Search for Sly.

Most of us know that in 2006 Sly had agreed to do the Grammy awards, and Alkema & the twins bring their cameras there like the ultimate groupies they were, and they get some initial shots of their hero. Connections made there lead them ever so closer to Sly, and with the help of new technologies, and new financial burdens on Sly, Sly’s isolation dissolves, and the inevitable interview is finally accomplished.

There are some incredible sequences in the interview. The man is more brilliant, humorous and charming than we might have expected, yet he is also more worn down and broke than we might expect as well, and we are faced with a combination of transcendent genius, a life force of our generation, coming to grips with the struggles of a senior citizen in our modern times. The juxtaposition of fantasy and reality are mind blowing, and ultimately very satisfying in this powerful film.

When the film ended at the Roxie, Greg Errico, Cynthia Robinson and Sly-book author Jeff Kaliss did a question and answer period, and felt the love of the house (not packed but well attended), and I made a few connections and re-connections, and made my way back onto the San Francisco streets, where the endless World Series celebration was taking place.

It was an amazing night that I am still trying to process. I lost my dad last year, and he was a hardcore Giants fan, and if there is a Heaven, I know he is one of those souls directing events so that this joyous title can finally come to the Bay. My dad also turned me on to Sly & the Family Stone, and I know he would appreciate this night as I did. There was definitely some San Francisco magic in the air that nite.

5 Transcendent Moments from the Long Beach Funk Fest

2010-08-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

On August 7th, Bobby Easton put together the 2nd Long Beach Funk Fest, in which 5 blocks of downtown Long Beach were converted to an all day free festival of fun and music. Once again the entire party went off without a hitch, and some moments were magical...

Some transcendent moments from the Long Beach Funk Fest:

1) The pure shouts from the crowd as the Original Stone City Band brought the house down and brought Rick James back to life. The songs sounded EXACTLY like Rick James was in the house. You could see and hear the shouts from people who had that kind of visitation – an unforgettable feeling.

2) When Dawn Silva and her massive band – featuring Blackbird McKnight on guitar, & Cherokee on bass, brought the ‘Mothership Connection’ and Dawn called out to Gary, to Catfish, to Mallia, to Glen and all of the fallen funk soldiers. Then when the badass women Jeannette Washington, Dawn Silva, & Sueann Carwell blew such stirring soul, you knew it was heard by the spirits jamming with us all.

3) An incredible thing happened when Jimmy Castor hit those classic notes to the break beat standard “It’s Just Begun” – a spontaneous break dance cipher took place by the stage as youngsters were cranking, crimping and popping to one of the greatest break beats of all time – PLAYED LIVE IN THE STREETS BY THE ORIGINAL E-MAN HIMSELF – All of a sudden hip hop and funk were breathing the same air. An overwhelming experience for me.

4) Bloco Nove’s rock hard Go Go grooves and world funk beats that punctuated their set. Their relentless rhythm assault was one of the hardest rhythm funk overload sessions I’ve heard since Trouble Funk came to the Bay Area in 1986.

5) The delicious groovallegiance of Weapon of Choice featuring Meganut and the ever so dynamic miss Eurie...

6) ...and when the big ol nasty getdown got down and spooked folks with some stirring funk standards, driven by guests Patryce “Choclet” Banks and her daughters Unique and Cynthia. I can still hear echoes of “I Wanna Testify” blowing through the streets of downtown Long Beach.

+ The entire vibe in which people came for the love of The Funk – not for profit, not for the hustle, but to give and get the most natural positive life force out in the world…

I Have Accepted Disco Into My Life

2010-07-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

A few months back I purchased a trippy instrumental album from DJ/collector Oliver Wang thru his website. The disc had a crazy riff on Barry White’s “Love’s Theme” and I thought the beat just had an infectious groove. The album was from jazz arranger Peter Nero and was clearly a throwaway disco effort by him (It is called “Disco, Dance and Love Themes from the 70s”).

But the crazier part for me is the fact that I went out of my way to get all up into this record, an album of derivative disco interpretations! First off, and it is well documented in my book, I am very adamant that the rise of disco meant the death of The Funk on the radio and untold damage to the careers of so many of my super funky heroes.

At the time I considered disco records to be utterly shallow, monotonous, non-musical assaults on the integrity of music in general, and definitely the kryptonite for the funk. It was hard to enjoy even the most pleasant productions because of what the entire disco movement represented.

Now, thirty years later, that period of funk and disco dance is all mushing together, and good dance music from the late 70’s is standing on its own, regardless of source or style. It is also the richest untapped ground for CD reissuers digging around the greatest era of dance music ever. At the time I considered that time (my high school years 77-79) to be the best time for dance music because great funk bands had been forced to stretch out their music for ultimate dance satisfaction. Thus, stormers like “It’s All The Way Live” by Lakeside, “Movin’” by Brass Construction and “Rigor Mortis” by Cameo all broke through the dance funk blackout on the strength of their party licks, but were 100% funk to boot.

Other artists like Marvin Gaye (“Got to Give it Up”) Johnnie Taylor (“Disco Lady”) and Chaka Khan made the most of the new style and stayed relevant, even if their music was dumbed down a bit from what it once was. Of course Kool & the Gang was the worst offender, turing their back on the Afro-centric genius of “Let the Music Take Your Mind” and “Jungle Jazz” and producing “Ladies Night” instead. At the time I was easily offended by these disparaging digs at the funk. When jazzmen like Herbie Hancock and Lonnie Liston Smith drank the disco kool-aid I was about through with it all.

But with the endless onslaught of talent-challenged jokers masquerading as pop stars, the lameness of the music has put disco songs in a new light. There were actually melodies on some disco cuts. There was actually some singing on some of the songs, and some musicians actually played on some of the tracks. At the time, when Nile Rogers of Chic talked about how he was using jazz chords and putting them on a disco beat, I wanted nothing to do with what he was saying.

Now that we have been lobotomized by the standardized nature of American pop beats, even the disco beat features a relatively lively rhythmic interplay, one that does not drone into eternity like so much techno and tired club rap.

So I’m digging into my dance compilation CD’s that have disco and funk hits, and finally checking the other tracks and discovering that some songs aren’t insultingly insipid. Maybe it is just generational, but I’m finding more satisfaction in disco tracks than I ever thought was out there.

Recently I played Yarborough and People’s “Don’t Stop The Music” the O’Jays “I Love Music” and “You + Me = Love” by the Undisputed Truth. These are all very good songs, but would have had a hard time making my “History of Funk” playlist in the past. These songs were all informed by the funk, so they belong in the funk family, and some put a new perfume on the funky mix.

Not that I’ve forgotten what’s really going on. Certainly, to be sure, we as a generation have suffered from a very deep lack of musical leadership, and standards of dance music in America have dropped so low, that one does not need to sing – or even rap – with any quality to get a big hit. This is all real, but my respect for some disco is not entirely based on a rejection of modern music. Okay maybe it is.

Obama and Carter, too many paralells

2010-06-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

Now that we are 1/1/2 years into Barack Obama’s term, a fuller appraisal of his strengths and weaknesses has emerged, and with world events going south on him, a picture of his long term legacy is emerging also.

We all knew how charming he was in 2008, and how he used that to overcome the race barrier and to tap into sense of fairness within even the most cynical voters to parlay that into an ‘opportunity’ to transcend doubts about his race and get elected.

It is important also to note that Obama played on a sense of hope that America’s populace had the potential to save the country in the wake of the Bush administration driving the US into the ground. In short, Obama was elected in part because the Bush era was a new low in American political life and Bush was roundly dismissed as the ‘worst president ever.’

Former President Jimmy Carter used that term on Bush, which is interesting because Carter had some of his own troubles as president. Not that he was anything close to the ‘worst president’ in fact, he may be one of the most morally sound people to have served the nation in that office. But his situation bears eerie parallels to Obama’s:

Carter gained the presidency after the American political system was in ruins, after Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon, a time when nobody thought America’s government could sink any lower (sound familiar?). The Democrat Carter emerged as a decent man in my opinion, that was overwhelmed by the sheer forces of raw power and evil that surrounded his term as President.

Operating on a platform of ‘human rights’ Carter had to manage the US out of the shame of losing in Vietnam in 1975, out of the Energy crisis and the new humiliation of the US being beholden to Middle Eastern Oil interests, and then the domestic “malaise” that was both cultural (think disco) and economic (industrial base in the Northeast collapsing), as well as the crises caused by the so-called “Marxist” revolution in Nicaragua and the fundamentalist revolution in Iran. Carter appeared to be timid and confused when these crises emerged, and as most of us old enough still remember, things would get a whole lot worse.

The Iran Hostage crisis began in 1979 when Iranian students stormed the sovereign territory of the US and held US staff members & citizens hostage in their own Embassy. The situation was an international embarrassment that never seemed to end. It fact, it only ended when Ronald Reagan was elected, and the hostages were released the day Reagan took office in 1981.

While rumors swirl that a back-channel deal was engineered to keep the hostages in Iran until after the 1980 Presidential elections, (look up the book “October Surprise” by Gary Sick) the fact is that there were far too many sharks in the waters for Carter in his little shrimp boat of a foreign policy to try to manage. The Hostage Crisis ruined Carter’s presidency, and opened the door for Ronald Reagan’s radical right wing restart of America’s national image.

To me, Obama needs to study this period closely, because the gulf oil spill is starting to look like Obama’s ‘hostage crisis,’ a disaster that never ends and derails his presidency. The media is using the “count up” that was used during the hostage crisis. As of June, the gulf oil disaster is around “Day 55”, and the hostage crisis went past “Day 440” so it is not the end of the world…yet.

Obama is trying everything he can, calling out the oil fat cats and using slang (“So I know who’s ass to kick”) to show he’s tough, but it may not be enough. The sharks in the water may be able to frame Obama as weak against the very interests they support (big oil) and convince the populace that a ‘traditional’ a**hole is a better way to go.

I want to be optimistic about Obama’s chances, considering he worked the administration on the financial bailout, the stimulus plan and healthcare reform, he is definitely a doer. But Jimmy Carter engineered the Egypt Israel truce that stands to this day, and yet he is regularly ridiculed by the media as a limp noodle that just presided over US defeats.

The Democrats did ok in midterm 2010 primary elections, but this fall will show us whether or not the haters now have the crisis that can sink the first black president from re-election: an ocean of black oil.

The Golden Years of The Funk

2010-05-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Many of us funk fans have been giving our thoughts and prayers out to Garry Shider and the entire George Clinton family of funk. And his determination to continue on stage even after his diagnosis with brain and liver cancer is all the more inspiring and distressing at the same time. It has been especially hard for our super-hero --and for many of us, dear friend --George Clinton because he lost his mother, and son Georgie over the past few months, as well as everyone’s best friend in the funk, the one and only Mallia Franklin, who also passed earlier this year.

George and his son Georgie

That is a lot of loss for one person to take, regardless if they are the indestructible, indomitable Dr. Funkenstein.

I think it is ironic, yet emblematic of The Funk that despite these very real losses and setbacks, the touring P-Funk show over the past couple of years has been the strongest it has been in about a decade. P-Funk is of course hard to measure because there are no comparisons, except to other P-Funk jam sessions, but the new blood, the new guitarists, the new drummers, the new singers, the new keyboardist Danny Bedrosian all are holding up the banner very well. Many of the folks aren’t ‘new’ exactly, but they are fully formed entities in the act, and there are no down spots anywhere in the show, except when one steps back and wonders how long it will continue.

It has become possible now to imagine P-Funk even after the Clinton era is over. This is not really conceivable for me, considering I figured the good doctor would live to be 205. But if he were to retire at this point, no one could possibly blame him, (except for maybe a few creditors) and a few bandmembers that might selfishly want to keep the gravy train going.

But The Funk Mob as we know it is easily 40 years into it now, and I’m only talking about the touring psychedelic monstrosity that was and is Parliament-Funkadelic / P-Funk All Stars that began its road assault as a black rock funk soul band on the road around 1970. That is quite a long time for anyone to be doing anything, even something they love, that is in their bloodstream, and will be in their dust once it scatters.

So I’m looking forward, cause funk ain’t never looking back, it’s always comin’, and I will consider it a blessing that we still get so many legendary funkmasters still cranking at the highest level. Ain’t nothing like it. Ever.

Just talking about the funk stars themselves only tells part of the generational story. I’ve been doing radio – funked up radio – since 1983, and I think I’ve been doing a weekly radio show just about every week since 1985. That is a LOT of funk. And some shows are still on an advanced level of groovallegiance, which is a joy to be a part of. But there are days and times when I’m looking at winding this up too.

I have been at KPFA radio since 1991, and have been on the same Friday night slot since 1997 doing “The History of Funk.” It is what I always wanted to do, so I ain’t never gonna complain about it. But my homie and co-host The Funkyman, has had his own overnight show at KPFA for about ten years, and he just “retired” from it, announcing it last Friday on my show. He simply needed to get back to his life and quit trying to sustain the funkativity of his fans at his own expense. Another friend and colleague of mine, Gary “The G-Spot” Baca, had been on KPFA for around 20 years, and basically burned out this year too. His great overnight Saturday night/Sunday morning show “Live From Aztlan” was a fantastic trip through funk and soul, and G was and still is one of the best interviewers in the Bay Area I’ve ever heard. KPFA management removed him earlier this year from his show, and just like that a radio legend is blowing in the wind.

RV and The Funkyman

Dang, so now I’m hanging on with this funk, watching generations pass, waiting for the revolution to come that The Funk promised us, embedded so deep into our soul. I must now conclude that may never happen, but as George Clinton always says, ‘funk aint about getting there, it is about the pursuit’ And I guess we are all in pursuit of the funk, till the edge of time…

Avatar spelled backwards = TARZAN

2010-02-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

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I was hoping this film would just go away, but after winning Golden Globe awards as best picture of 2009, and breaking all attendance records, it looks like Avatar is here to stay. Yet another epic spectacle of American exceptionalism and White Privilege has been playing in 3D, in IMAX and in every theater across the country.

It should not be such a big deal, but huge grossing fantasy films have a far reaching impact on their audiences, of all races and nationalities. The similarities to Tarzan, the mythical white man that becomes “King of the Jungle” were too hard to ignore.

The Tarzan tale, first written in 1912 by American author Edgar Rice Burroughs, details the story of a white man left in the jungle and raised by apes, who by his sheer skills and ingenuity goes on to become “King of the Jungle.” The idea was popular among young Americans looking for an escape for much of the last century, but it also represented the worst examples of white privilege– that a white man can “Go Native” , join the “tribe” like Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves – and then emerge as their leader!

The story would be incredible except for the fact that it is ingrained in our thinking process as Westerners. Whether the ‘tribes’ are Pacific Islanders, Native Americans or Na’Vi from the planet "Pandora" , it is very hard for Hollywood (or any American fiction) to break out of this mold.

It may seem silly, but characterizations of members of racialized groups in American fiction have a sad way of affecting public opinion, and affecting social policy toward those groups.

As for Avatar, I really thought that the juvenile plot would be exposed by folks critical enough to see the colonial baggage hanging over every “exotic” flower, every “magical” ritual of the natives and every alpha-male effort of the protagonist, (named Jake Sully, if you can believe that).

Yes the film is gorgeous, and that is the draw on the way in, but I’m afraid the lasting images on the way out of the film do a lot of damage to the “Native” in the imagination of the audiences. Since Pocahontas in the 1600s, the (false) story of the benign tribespeople enabling the courageous white patriarch has been indelibly (and often cruelly) marked on our national psyche. For director James Cameron to bring this tale to the largest venue on earth comes as no surprise.

I’m afraid this film represents the best and worst of American film-making. As a technical project, this is one of the most ambitious and overwhelming experiences ever put in a film theater. But technical achievement in Hollywood films has just as often led to some of the most backward racial characterizations.

How about these examples:

In 1915 “Birth of A Nation” was hailed as a “cinematic triumph” in 1915, replete with its fiercely racist characterizations of “free” Negroes;

In 1933 “King Kong” was one of the greatest sci-fi productions ever made at the time, complete with the giant “super nigger” chasing the white woman across the jungle and dragging her up the Empire State Building;

1939 -One of the first ‘color’ films was “Gone With The Wind” that lamented the demise of the Old South (and the old ways of the Confederacy) with spectacular visual imagery;

In 1963 the most expensive film ever made (to date) was “Cleopatra” a four hour monolith that featured a white woman in the lead role, Elizabeth Taylor commanding her multi-colored subjects.

In 1969, As a reflection of the cynical, revolutionary sixties, racial domination was flipped in “Planet of the Apes” a hugely popular film (with four sequels and a TV series) that imagined the mess that would incur once apes (read:blacks) took over the world.

In the late sixties things began to change. It was a time in which visionary sci-fi producers imagined space journeys in which the humans were not the dominant species, but mere trifles on the galactic road map. Stanley Kubrick’s essential 2001: A Space Odyssey imagined a distant – incomprehensible intelligence that sought to guide humanity through its transformational phases. It was clearly a break from the colonial mentality of so much sci fi.

Much of the appeal of the original Star Trek for many of us was that the intrepid Enterprise crew were not merely understood as space police, but that they regularly encountered beings far more advanced than humans, beings that were annoyed by the trivial and savage ways of earth beings, and the humans were lucky to get out of orbit in time without getting vaporized.

In 1979, and reprised in 1984, Sigourney Weaver single-handedly pushed the feminist envelope in sci-fi as the indomitable (yet still complex, courageous and feminine) Ripley. But by this time however, the overblown era of hyper-masculine bombast began to overtake the imagination of film makers, as steroid enhanced Austrian body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger became the #1 box office sci fi action hero in the 90’s.

We are back full circle now. With American Empire on the precipice, no Hollywood film maker wants to spend their money openly critiquing the system that created their privileged space to begin with.

So we are left with a story of a white man who “Goes Native” and joins the tribe, a la Dances With Wolves (another blockbuster white man fantasy of the other), and after disowning his own people, joins the fight against them and becomes essentially the greatest of the native warriors, the King of the Jungle, a la Tarzan.

We see once again the benevolent and naive ‘earth people’ that put their trust in the invaders without serious suspicion, and we see the European invader magically obtain powers and status of a ‘chosen one’ that outpaces the warriors and leaders of the people there. What, these natives were afraid of the big bird all these years, and the whyteboy is the only one courageous enough to fly it? Give me a break.

And don’t get me started on the tired broken English accents, straight out of movie westerns and Mutiny on the Bounty. All this praise about ‘creating a new language’ for the aliens, but the actors deliver them like Pat Morita in Happy Days.

As a film with a “message,” despite its anti war and corporate greed overtones, in terms of its characterization of the other, it is warped, tired, abusively stereotypical and ultimately unwatchable. So much energy, so much effort, so much care and precision, down the drain. But that’s just me. I’ll probably watch it again and hope I don’t feel the same way, but it is hard to hide from what you can see in 3D.

Michael Jackson: The Original Post-Racial Soul Brother

2009-09-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

(Here's the text of my talk at the UC Berkeley Michael Jackson Symposium, Oct 1, 2009)

Good afternoon, I’m happy to be here on this panel with my colleagues here.
We are here to discuss Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. I am here to frame Mr. Jackson as the Original Post-Racial Soul Brother.

What do I mean by that? This past year a lot of discussion has taken place regarding the election of Barack Obama and the heralding of a Post-Racial society. Some Obama critics such as Shelby Steele have claimed Obama was a “bargainer” that manipulated whites desires to transcend race, while relying upon his own racial identity to garner support from his racialized base.

I would submit that Michael Jackson became the greatest entertainer on the face of the earth in a similar fashion. Jackson initiated social breakthroughs as a de-racialized entity, entertaining and appealing to all, yet Jackson remained relevant because of his effective use of the Soul Music aesthetic, and the moral imperatives of Soul, as I will explain.

As a public entity, Mr. Jackson was a transitional figure, one who emerged on the national scene as a child in the 1960s during an era of overt expressions of racial consciousness, yet as a young adult in the 1970s was forced to navigate in an arena where race based social movements declined, and the presumption of racial equality dominated the discourse of the entertainment industry.

Mr. Jackson, like others of his era such as Bill Cosby, Diana Ross, O.J. Simpson, and Prince, sought public acceptance by distancing themselves from the overt racial identification in their works, seeking to be judged – by the content of their artistic character – if you will.

Michael Jackson was by far the most successful, and succeeded in utilizing the performance aesthetics of the Soul Music environment he was raised in, and applied them to the international arena to emerge as a global superstar.

SOUL BROTHER
Michael Jackson, the 7th of 9 children born in the working class neighborhood of Gary, Indiana in 1958, came of age when the demographics of the great black migration north afforded opportunities for those most ambitious. The family patriarch, Joe Jackson, ruled the home with an iron fist, driven to make something of his boys, that he could not do with his own fledging musical career. Joe Jackson came from the old school, where force and violence circumscribed daily life in Jim Crow Arkansas. Growing up in Gary Indiana in a touring band, rehearsing with their father sitting by, whip (a big belt) in hand, the young Jackson boys learned how the legacy of Jim Crow violence would shape the Sound of Young America.

Michael Jackson internalized the lofty standards of Soul, a conception that emerged in the crucible of the Civil Rights Movement, in which the desires of generations of African Americans would explode in a dazzling array of actions, artistic expressions, and social upheavals.

Soul Music incorporated the emotive elements of the blues, with the moral imperatives drawn from the back church and the gospel music, to produce a new standard of black music – one that was forged by, but no longer bound to the historical memory of slavery. The new sound, the Sound of Young America promoted by Motown Records represented a popular interpretation of changing ideals on the streets of young America.

Michael Jackson interpreted these ideals as a youth, dancing the “James Brown” during his audition for Motown Records in 1968, and wearing the trademark “Afro” hairstyle in the early seventies as a teenager along with this brothers in the Jackson 5.

Mr. Jackson was to become the world’s greatest interpreter of black styles, from soul to disco to pop and even hip hop.

Michael Jackson emerged in the 1970s, when black popular culture was straddling the contradictory impulses toward the celebration of black identity and the desires of many for popular acceptance at any cost.

As Mark Anthony Neal writes in Soul Babies: “Despite the drive toward self-determination that the soul aesthetic encapsulated, it remained a project that essentialized black identity and culture for one consumer public demanding inclusion into the mainstream on its own terms…and another looking for non-threatening markers of difference…) (Soul Babies p.7)

In the 1980s,popular music would become re-segregated, as rampant stereotypes of jerry-curled Super-Freaks like Rick James played on timeless tropes of the threatening, uncontrolled black buck encroaching on polite white society, which was being reconstructed under the traditionalist mandate of Ronald Reagan and Reaganism.

Michael Jackson, with the aid of his mentor and producer Quincy Jones (himself a legendary integrationist jazz arranger), was positioned as the great unifier. Building on his expressive talents and soulful pedigree, Jackson utilized the talents of popular stars from outside of the black music world such as Paul McCartney, Eddie Van Halen and Vincent Price on Jackson’s landmark “Thriller” album. The resulting soul based, all star pop collaboration became what is still the greatest selling record of all time.

Michael Jackson, spawned from Soul, created a new brand of ‘post racial’ pop music, and became as the first post-racial black superstar.

Jackson’s commitment to humanitarian causes is another significant part of his legacy and of his roots. Jackson’s support for causes that support terminally ill and abused children was constantly backed up by public presentations of his donations. In much the same way that his mentor James Brown would stop a concert midway to give a donation to the local NAACP chapter, or showcase a civic leader, Michael Jackson would make public appearances on his tours to give to numerous charities that included the United Negro College Fund and Transafrica. (although records are hard to find, he was also a great friend to the Nation of Islam, which was revealed in the memorial issue of the Final Call published after Jackson’s death)

As the “King of Pop” in the 1980s and 1990s, Michael Jackson stood at the mountaintop, as a Soul Music giant, philanthropist, and humanitarian, with cross-racial appeal enjoyed by no other American since the days of Paul Robeson in the 1930s.

In his own way, Michael Jackson ushered in an era of post-racialism in popular music and by extension, popular American culture. As a result of his constantly whitening skin condition and numerous facial reconstructions, Jackson became a living symbol of a de-racialized celebrity. But Michael Jackson never lost his soul…

Of the many social breakthroughs Michael Jackson could be given credit for, from “integrating” MTV, to breaking sales records worldwide, to his global humanitarianism, it is not a stretch to claim that his prominence as a Post-Racial Soul Brother primed a generation of Americans to accept a new President that applied the same strategies for success…

Upon his death, and elegant memorial, the global public was reminded of the totality of the man’s gifts to the world. We recognize that like few others American icons, like Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and Dr. King, Michael Jackson was larger than life while he was alive, and was perhaps never destined to grow old. His youthful spirit will transcend all of the doubters. The King of Pop is dead. Long Live The King.

Ted Vincent 1936-2009

2009-06-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, June 14, 2009 I lost my dad.

He had been recovering from a heart attack on May 22nd, and there are some controversies about the change in his care when he was moved to Kaiser Oakland two days before his passing, but it is not important right now because he cannot be brought back.

Ted was always his own man and was courageously original in his ideas and how he went about pursuing the issues that mattered most to him. A central part of his values had to do with social justice and racial justice in particular. As an historian by trade, he wrote five books and dozens of articles in papers and magazines all over the world. Most of his writing had to do with uncovering the many untold elements of the struggle for racial equality for blacks in America.

As a white man dedicated to black equality, his life and career took some bittersweet turns, but his legacy will stand on its own for generations. My cousin calls him “the last of the white black nationalists.” One of his first teaching gigs was at Merritt College in Oakland in 1964, and the class featured a young, talkative student named Huey P. Newton, eventual founder of the Black Panther Party.

Ted was an avid runner, political activist, musician and teacher. He was born in Washington, D.C. in 1936, and earned a Master’s Degree in History from UC Berkeley in 1970. He had entered the doctoral program in History at UCLA but left to write the books he wanted to on his own terms. He always was self -driven, self-taught, and self defined, and I believe that’s where I got my open-minded approach to The Funk as a way of life.

His three children are testament to this belief and faith in humanity. He had three loving wives at different times in his life. Toni, my mom, shared Ted’s radical politics and forward thinking social values, and my brother Teo Barry Vincent and myself are proof of those values. Ted’s second wife Selma and their daughter Mimi shared much of the counter-culture Berkeley lifestyle values we always enjoyed while growing up, and his third wife Bernice kept up with him as he was running his marathons for much of the 1990’s.

Then there is his massive track record of writings, in essays and books, ranging from comparisons of slave overseers to modern cops, to pioneering research on the runaway slave Yanga, an African prince that founded a city if his own in southern Mexico in the 1600s which survives to this day. Ted uncovered the writings of Malcolm X’s mother, Louise Little, which she contributed to the Marcus Garvey paper The Negro World. Historians now agree that both of Malcolm’s parents were Garveyites, not only Malcolm’s father, which was implied in Malcolm’s autobiography. These are the quiet contributions great historians make to our world.

He was a frequent contributor to the Berkeley Daily Planet, and had recently been translating contributions to the mixed race heritage publication Somos Primos. He was also a consultant to the Oakland Museum's current exhibit "The African Presence in Mexico" and was a scheduled speaker the following day when he took ill on May 22nd.

Ted’s most enduring legacy will be his books, which are paradigm shifting, often epic and groundbreaking re-evaluations of the established historical record. Here is a list of them, they are all fascinating, accessible reads:

1970 - (as Theodore G. Vincent) Black Power and the Garvey Movement Ramparts Press, San Francisco (reprinted by Nzinga press, 1987, and reprinted by Black Classic Press, 2007);

1972 - (as Theodore G. Vincent) Editor: Voices of a Black Nation: Political Journalism in the Harlem Renaissance Ramparts Press, San Francisco. (reprinted by Afrika World Press 1991)

1981 - (Ted Vincent) Mudville's Revenge: The Rise and Fall of American Sport University of Nebraska Press (1981; reprinted in 1994)

1995 - (Ted Vincent) Keep Cool: The Black Activists Who Built the Age of Jazz London, Pluto Press

2003 - (as Theodore G. Vincent) The Legacy of Vicente Guererro, Mexico's first Black Indian President. University of Florida Press

Ted was a Berkeley fixture and will be deeply missed. I am still processing the scope of the loss on a personal level. Knowing we won’t be going to any more baseball games, or watching him playing any more piano, or discussing black history or modern politics, or watching him teach my kids those little bites of wisdom, will be a brand new struggle for me. But I know he lived a full and rich life, saw his children grow up, enjoyed the unconditional love of his grandkids, and lived to see a Black President. I think he will be at peace with all of it now.

Barack Obama, President of The World

2009-06-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Barack Obama’s magnificent speech to the “Muslim world” in Cairo on Thursday, 6/4. (Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_889oBKkNU). He said all of the right things. He showed a surprisingly strong recognition and respect for Islam, Muslim people, their traditions and their values. He gave Israel the historical recognition that so often grounds its rhetoric of defiance, but he gave Palestinians an actual acknowledgement of their misery, saying their plight is “intolerable.” This was some very bold truth, especially coming from the mouth of the leader of the most powerful Western nation on earth.

At times I was ready to quip with my own issues with some of the topics he brought up, but to mention them at all was a spectacular breakthrough in the global discourse of justice that Barack Obama now is operating in so enthusiastically. For example, he acknowledged the US role in overthrowing the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister in the 1950s – before denouncing the extremist government that followed. And if you listen carefully, he also acknowledged that some people felt the US “deserved” the 911 attacks, before denouncing those people too.

I thought that admission was incredible. Amiri Baraka lost his title as Poet Laureate of New Jersey (whatever that means) because he put forth similar sentiments. Under Bush 2.0’s Patriot Act, it has essentially been a federal crime for some to speak words that amounted to blaming the US for fostering the sentiments behind 911.

The US right wing and the “Muslim extremists” have served each other’s hateful interests for most of this decade. Obama is navigating an environment where the haters on both sides had been setting the terms of engagement, but now he’s the one blowing up things. It was astonishing, stupefying, and uplifting to hear such magnanimity and humility from the leader of the “free world.”

There was also an implication in this: that if you say ‘Muslims are people too, there are just some wackos you have to watch out for,” then what does that say about us here in the majority Christian US? That’s right, we have wackos too that are killing doctors, shooting unarmed black people on subways, and voting into law marriage discrimination too. Okay he didn’t go there, but I did.

I also found it ironic that it was Obama’s Muslim elements that almost derailed his Presidential campaign are now some of his greatest assets. From the right wing pundits emphasizing his middle name of Hussein, to falsely accusing him of taking his Congressional oath on a Qur’an. In his speech, Obama made prideful mention of his Muslim heritage, his childhood in Indonesia, and the fact that the first American in the House of Representatives (Keith Ellison, D-MN) took his oath on Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an.

Yes it is all superficial rhetoric from Obama. But from the point of view of this new agenda of respectful global engagement, it is more “change” than I could have imagined when I voted for the brother last November. And think about the number of folks considering Islam for themselves that just got pushed over the fence by Obama’s not so subtle endorsement? That is tangible, and beautiful.

His outline for economic redevelopment started to lose me however, because it started to sound like a campaign speech, with a lot of promises. But as it turns out, to me the speech really was a campaign speech: a speech in which Barack Obama was campaigning for President of the World. But not through crude brute force in the way Bush 2.0 tried to do it, but through smooth sentences, heartfelt sympathies and much cultural affinity.

George Bush 2.0 saw American “Exceptionalism” in terms of its ability to use brute force, tired colonial objectives, and blatant white supremacist values to rule the world.

Barack Obama is a paradigm shifter. He is changing the center of the world’s discourse away from America’s exceptionalism in terms of economic & military domination, towards the fancier gloss of morality, a global community, and the myth of “opportunity.”

Obama did this during the campaign, by fusing his own biracial and immigrant narrative into the larger American mythos of immigration and opportunity, something many of us felt were primarily the pervue of European migrants. Barack Obama has integrated the American Dream in many ways, and now he’s spreading that hype – that hope – to the rest of the world.

It feels great. So did the election. But we also now have some of the worst urban violence in decades, and an economy on the brink, so the brother still has some work to do. But if he wants to be President of the World, I’ll vote for him.
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Malcolm X and the Birth of Hip Hop

2009-05-19T11:54:00.001-07:00

While it is great to recognize the indomitable character and racially empowering vision of Malcolm X on his birthday, I don’t think it is a stretch to recognize Malcolm’s singular impact on the creation of what we now call hip hop music.

Malcolm X changed the way black people saw themselves, and gave black folks an insoluble pride to express themselves on their own terms. Before Malcolm, the sound of Black America was based in The Blues, and the swaying emotions of sorrow and survival were a part of a collective past that spoke to every Negro alive at that time. Those emotions were expressed through Gospel music, through jazz and blues, and through the emerging soul music of the day. Malcolm changed everything. Malcolm’s voice and direct delivery created a new music – funk – that spoke the truth, locked in a syncopated rhythm.

Just think James Brown in 1968 – raw rhythm, raw soul, Black and Proud, freestyling rhymes about “we’d rather be dying on our feet than be living on our knees.”

If you believe that the Last Poets were some of the first “rappers” those guys will tell you that they formed as a group on Malcolm X’s birthday, May 19th, 1968 at Mount Morris park, only weeks after Dr. Martin Luther King had been shot, and the times were exploding all around them. They had been writing love poems and other fluff, but the event that day demanded more, and Abiodun Oyewole David Nelson and Gylan Kain did a “freestyle” cipher on the black revolution.

Malcolm changed the way black folks use language. Of the many distinctions between Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X during their rise to prominence in the early 1960s was the differing oratorical styles. Dr. King came from the Southern Baptist tradition of preaching/singing sermons that roused his followers with grand rhetoric and imagery of hope and transcendence. Much of the problems facing his audience were referred to in biblical terms such as “down in the valley,” and the possibilities were also referred to in metaphors such as “been to the mountaintop”.

Malcolm on the other hand was practical and precise about what he saw as the problems and the possibilities facing black people. Malcolm did not use religious metaphors in his speeches, and his words did not sway, sing or moan as he delivered them. His phrase “things wont start getting better until you make them better” was a slap at the Negro leaders who kept saying in vague platitudes that “things are getting better.” Malcom told the truth directly, with forceful diction and a catchy rhythmic cadence that Barack Obama clearly emulates.

So when you listen to BDP’s “By All Means Necessary” or Dead Prez’ “Lets Get Free” just think we might all still be singing “we shall overcome” if it weren’t for Malcolm X.

Star Trek is back!

2009-05-11T02:10:00.000-07:00

If you never really got into the Star Trek phenomenon, you now have a cool way to get exposed to it. If you were into Star Trek in the past, you will be satisfied with the new film treatment. You can finally see a new production that honors the original Trek vision, celebrates the original characters, and still flips the script and keeps things fresh.

The film has enough thought provoking character examinations for old school Trek heads, and enough explosions and glitter for the video game generation to be able to hang with it. Through it all, the timeless characters of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, Scotty and McCoy all are reinvested with a freshness that was long lost from all the retread films of the past.

Trek is far more than a sci-fi series, because its characters and its messages have seeped deep into the American consciousness. The show has been proclaiming a deeply held hope for a positive, humane, post-racial future since the 1970's when it became a national phenomenon.

Of course the program began in the fall of 1966 and ran through the spring of 1969, during the wildest years of counter-culture protest in America, but Star Trek truly took off in the 1970's as a syndicated television show that steadily grew its audience of teenage idealists and outcasts that are now today's social and political leaders.

President Obama is a well established Trek fan, and reportedly asked for his own White House screening of the film.

It is likely that the character of Mr. Spock, with his half-alien, half-human mixed race issues played out on a galactic scale, played some sort of an inspirational role for a young mixed-race Barry Obama trying to navigate a 70's America as a teenager.

I thought I knew Trek trivia as a kid, until my first trip to a Berkeley co-op dorm in 1978 and some Trek heads were watching the show speaking every word ahead of the actors for the entire length of the program. I wasn't sure if that was cool, or the ultimate in dorkness. This was a few years before William Shatner's classic plea on a Saturday Night Live skit for the Trekkies to "get a life!"

I used to watch Star Trek on a small black & white TV as a kid and marveled at Mr. Spock's use of language, the diversity of the characters (for that time), and the mind blowing story lines.

Now, for a minute at least, the soul stirring power of those original episodes can be revisited for the awe inspiring, horizon-traversing, transcendent adventures that many of them are. (the original series only-don't get it twisted)

I identified with the strong & quiet Spock, but understood the cranky emotionalism of Dr. McCoy, and enjoyed Captain Kirk's ability to reconcile the two extremes of his closest confidants and make his own world-changing decisions on the fly.

But that was just the beginning. The program worked on a great number of levels, On an intimate, personal level - great actors exploring fantastic stories - to some major ruminations on Empire and the soul of humanity.

As most of us know, Star Trek is set about 200 years in the future, where space flight is commonplace, and earth is among a dozen 'civilized' planets in a "federation" of allies that explores the Milky Way in starships, with a lot of symbolic references to the age of exploration in the colonial past. As a child, these references to the wild west, and to "colonizing" planets did not offend me. Nowadays I see how strongly Star Trek both critiqued and yet reaffirmed American "exceptionalism" (i.e. racism, colonial mentality, manifest destiny, white supremacy, patriarchy et al.)

But I also saw the vast expanse of both social and technological imagination applied in the show, and the self-criticisms of western ways in Star Trek to be an opening for a deeper set of transformative, revolutionary possibilities. Then I grew up.

In many ways, Obama is the embodiment of both the sweet and sour of Star Trek's lasting imaginary. Certainly, Obama represents a degree of racial reconciliation in American life in 2009 and I'm not ashamed to celebrate that fact. However, Obama can also very easily be seen as a 'shaded' face on white supremacy and merely a colorful figurehead for Western colonial rule running unabated.

But that is still change, and I'll take my critiques and deal with them, but I'll also be at the party when it is time to celebrate a moment of humanity shining through. The Star Trek movie is nothing more than an action film, but it opens the door to ideas that were once a delight to imagine, and I say its okay for them to be imagined again.

What if James Brown was President?

2009-05-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

On The Godfather of Soul's birthday, many of us funkateers, soul brothas and soul sistas like to entertain the phrase "James Brown for President" and play his 1974 hit "Funky President."

Now we actually have a Funky President, and I think Obama is doing a better Job than President Brown might have done. I stopped to think what realisitcally would be James Brown's policy positions?

First of all, Brown endorsed Richard Nixon and supported Nixon's "Black Capitalism" campaign, which was frought with contradictions. He would likely support the major corporations ideas of de-regulation and small government. He would probably not support Affirmative Action,as he was adamant about self help and community self determination without intervention.

Brown took his band to Vietnam in 1968 at the height of the anti war protest movement, defending it through his proclamations of patriotism for America. All this did however was put him on the government's watch list. But President Brown would probably be as pro Iraq war as Bush, or at least as most of the Republicans have been. dang.

Remember Watergate? Brown wrote the song "You Can Have Watergate, Just Gimme Some Bucks and I'll be Straight" which, while it empathized with the bro on the street, it also supported the notion that government snenanigans should not be investigated. I think Brown would be an obstructionist and secretive administrator.

Imagine all the white girl interns running around the white house.

Having said all of that, James Brown would definitely be Soul Brother Number One in the White House, and be King of the World, let's be real about that one. He would stand up to any petty dictator on the planet and roll with legit world leaders like...like Obama has done.

Not sure about Brown's stance on women's rights. He believes "It's A Man's World" after all. Not many women appoointed to the Supreme Court from President Brown. But he would definitely be a strong leader, making "Soul Power" a party platform.

Regardless of all of his contradictions, James Brown allowed us to imagine our own greatness as Black and Proud people for the first time, and he has a singular legacy across the entirety of the black community in that respect.

What is the purpose of a blog?

2009-05-03T00:45:00.000-07:00

As if we don't get enough of the trivial info from each other across long distances, here is yet another means of getting to know someone superficially and yet still peruse inside the mind of someone else.

I was inspired and urged on by Davey D, who was blogging long before email was around, back in the 1980s when folks such as Davey, Bruddah K, Beni B, G-Spot, Tamu & Sediki, Natty Prep, Billy Jam, Jeff Chang and myself were at the forefront of an exploding east bay hip hop radio scene at KALX.

A lot of what we were doing then is just as relevant today, and maybe more so, as we are now hip hop elders, storytellers, hip hop griots with info for the historically minded fans of hip hop based culture. I've grown and developed a lot of new ideas since those KALX days. We'll see where this goes.