Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1017

20th Anniversary of the New Wave of Black Film | Plenary with Nelson George, John Singleton & Matty Rich

from November of 2011.

Rap Sessions: Hip-Hop and Politics at San Jose State | Hip Hop 4 Change Conference

A panel discussion on the intersection of Hip Hop and Politics took place at the Hip Hop 4 Change conference March 10th 2012 at San Jose State. 
The discussion ranged from grassroots organizing, to whether or not voting makes a difference, building a movement to holding elected officials accountable. There was also an in-depth analysis of race; The panel included Boots Riley of the Coup and Occupy Oakland, Shamako Noble of Hip Hop Congress, Ohio based political organizer Angela Woodson and author/ scholar Adam Mansbach. Author Bakari Kitwana of Rap Sessions was the moderator.

Religion, Politics and the Black Church on the March 12th Left of Black

Professor Obery Hendricks w/ Rev Jesse Jackson @ OWS
Religion, Politics and theBlack Church on the March 12th Left of Black
Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype©by Professor Obery M. Hendricks,author of TheUniverse Bends Towards Justice (Orbis Books) and visiting scholar atThe Institute of Research and African American Studies in the department ofReligion at Columbia University.  Hendricks shares his recent experienceat singer Whitney Houston's home going ceremony, and explains how it gavepeople access to traditions in the Black church.  Neal and Hendricksdiscuss why gospel music does not get the same kind of criticism ascontemporary R&B and hip-hop for not being conscious and engaged in theworld.  Lastly, Hendricks discusses the biblical vision of economicsociety. 
Later, Neal is joined via Skype© by Rev. OsagyefoUhuru Sekou who is a documentary filmmaker, public intellectual,organizer, pastor, theologian, and author of the book Gods,Gays, and Guns: Essays on Religion and the Future of Democracy (Campbell & Cannon Press).  Rev. Sekou shares about his relationshipwith the late Manning Marable and discusses the breakthrough religious conceptsin Marable's last book Malcolm X: A Lifeof Reinvention (Penguin Group).  Rev. Sekou highlights the importance ofholding President Barack Obama accountable, and discusses homosexuality andhip-hop in the context of the Black church.
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Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on the Ustreamchannel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/left-of-black. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitterconversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags#LeftofBlack or #dukelive. 
Left of Blackis recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International andInterdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.
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Follow Left of Black onTwitter: @LeftofBlackFollow Mark Anthony Neal onTwitter: @NewBlackManFollow Obery Hendricks: @UniverseBendsFollowRev. OsagyefoSekou onTwitter: @RevSekou
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The Cultural, Political Impacts of Notorious B.I.G.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

New Video | Julie Dexter "New Again" (dir. Alex Magana)

Julie Dexter's FIRST EVER OFFICIAL VIDEO feat. ATL's own Winston Warrior & Brenda Nicole, directed by Alex Magana

New Again available on itunes, see link below
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/new-again/id433427228?i=433427261&ign-mp...

www.juliedexter.com

New Again written by Julie Dexter, produced by Steve Miggedy Maestro

Trayvon Martin, Black Teen, Shot in Gated Community in Orlando Suburb

Trayvon Martin's Family Calls For Arrest Of Man Who Police Say Confessed To Shooting by Trymaine Lee | HuffPost BlackVoices
Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager, was shot and killed in a gated community in Florida late last month by a white neighborhood watch captain, according to police. But the watch captain, George Zimmerman — a 26-year-old college student who has admitted to police that he shot the young man — still walks free. And Martin's family is pleading for answers and demanding justice.
At this point there are more questions than answers in the young man's death, but this much is known: Martin was packing little more than a bag of candy and a canned iced tea on the night he was killed.
"He had a gun, and Trayvon had Skittles," Benjamin Crump, a family attorney, told The Huffington Post this afternoon.
Martin, 17, a high school junior who lived with his mother in Miami, was visiting his father and stepmother at their home in Sanford, a suburb of Orlando, on the weekend of Feb. 26. During halftime of the NBA All-Star Game, Martin's family said he walked to a nearby convenience store to get some candy for his younger brother. On his way back home, according to reports, he caught the attention of George Zimmerman, a 26-year-old college student and self-appointed captain of The Retreat at Twin Lakes neighborhood watch.
Zimmerman, armed with a 9mm handgun, trailed the boy in his car. At some point, Zimmerman called 911, telling the operator there was a "suspicious person in the area," according to a police report acquired by HuffPost.

The Sanford Police arrived and found Martin lying face down on a patch of grass about 70 feet from his family's home, a pack of candy in one pocket and an iced tea in the other.
"What happened between him being confronted, up to the point where he got shot, nobody knows but him and that guy," Tracy Martin, the boy's father, told HuffPost. "I'm looking for justice for my family. I want answers but I don't have any to give — not for his mother, his brothers or sisters. We don't have nothing, but we want answers."
According to reports, Zimmerman's gun was legal and he has claimed to authorities that he shot Martin in self-defense. Crump, the family's attorney, described Zimmerman as a "loose cannon" and questioned why any neighborhood watchman would be carrying a loaded gun. He has asked law enforcement authorities to turn over recordings of the call to 911 that Zimmerman made the night of the shooting, in the hopes that it might shed some light on the incident. Crump said if the recordings are not given to the family, he will file a public records lawsuit on their behalf.
Crump said the family is demanding that the Sanford Police arrest Zimmerman, and that the Seminole County State Attorney's Office review the case and press charges.
"They say they are still investigating," Crump said. "I'm not sure what there is to investigate. What's suspicious about this kid? That's what the family is crying out, that our kid is like any other kid."
A call and an email to Chief Bill Lee of the Sanford Police Department were not immediately returned on Thursday. A phone number listed for Zimmerman has been disconnected, and his current whereabouts are not known.
Lynn Bumpus-Hooper, a spokeswoman for the Seminole County State Attorney's Office, said that the office has not received the case from the police, and until an arrest is made, it will not be involved.
"We have not received a case [from the Sanford PD] yet, but we will give it our full consideration when we do," Bumpus-Hooper said. She said it is not rare for several weeks to pass before the State Attorney's Office receives a homicide or murder case from the police.
Meanwhile, a heartbroken father struggles to deal with the weight of his son's death. He tells the story of his son's heroics at age 9, when he pulled his father from a burning kitchen, and of his love of sports and horseback riding and his dreams of attending college and becoming an aviation mechanic.
"Right now we're all on pins and needles," Tracy Martin said. "When I asked the police why there's been no arrest, they told me they respected [Zimmerman's] background, that he studied criminal justice for four years and that he was squeaky clean."
He continued: "My question to them was, did they run my child's background check? They said yes. I asked them what they came up with, and they said nothing. So I asked if Zimmerman having a clean record, did that give him the right to shoot and kill an unarmed kid?"
In the "Committee News" section of last month's issue of the gated community's newsletter, "Retreat Reflections," the neighborhood watch committee asked for additional volunteers and warned: "Please keep your eyes open" and "If you see something suspicious or out of place, report it!"
For more information, it said, call George Zimmerman.
UPDATE:
Chief Bill Lee of the Sanford Police Department on Thursday evening said the account given by Martin's family and attorney is correct, that Zimmerman saw the young man walking home from the store. He said that Zimmerman did indeed call 911 and report a suspicious person, and that he was told not to follow him.
"For some reason he felt that Trayvon, the way that he was walking or appeared seemed suspicious to him," Lee said. "He called this in and at one part of this initial call [the dispatcher] recommends him not to follow Trayvon. A police officer is on the way at that point."
Lee said that Zimmerman instead followed Martin.
"I believe that Mr. Zimmerman was trying to, by his account, find an address to give the officers and also trying to keep Trayvon in eyesight."
Zimmerman told the police that Martin noticed that he was being followed and asked, "what's your problem?"
That's when a physical confrontation ensued, Lee said. And moments later, Martin was shot.
Lee said that Zimmerman has a legal permit to carry the weapon used in the shooting, and that he told police that he shot Martin in self-defense.
"He felt the need to defend himself," Lee said. " I don't think it was his intent to go and shoot somebody" that night.
The chief said the police have met with Zimmerman on two to three separate occasions, and that their investigation should be wrapped up this week. He said all of the evidence in the case will be delivered to the Seminole County State Attorney's Office soon after.
"We're going to present all the information and if they feel that based on all of the evidence that we're able to produce that Mr. Zimmerman has satisfied the requirement that he shot in self defense, they may, but if not, he would be charged with some type of homicide or manslaughter," Lee said.
"It is certainly and absolutely a tragedy, especially for the Martin Family," Lee said. "No one expects their teenage son to go the store and never come back."

The Afro Digital Migration: House Music in Post Apartheid South Africa | A Mix by Lynnee Denise

The Afro Digital Migration:  House Music in Post Apartheid South Africa a mix by dj lynnee denise
The moment I finished this mix, I put my headphones on and danced...to the entire thing. 
South Africa moves me.
There cannot be a separation between the music, the history and the people. 
Layers. 

 With the support of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grant, I paid a visit to South Africa, determined to understand The Afro Digital Migration: House Music in Post Apartheid South Africa. I wanted to explore how house music took root in South Africa and shaped its national identity. The impetus for this research was my belief that electronic music in the African Diaspora is an under-explored cultural product. As a DJ, I was driven by the clean production and seamless mixes I heard; as a dancer, I wanted to witness the intricate body movement inspired by house; and as a scholar, I wanted to figure out how, in the face of state-sanctioned surveillance and harassment, the music flourished. 
Special thanks and love to Clive Bean (Soul Candi) and Thokazani Mhlambi (Umtshakadulo) for answering my questions and arranging gigs for me to have a platform to express my Black American house experience and pay respect to the South African sound on the decks. 
Love to Paris Hatcher for hitting the streets of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Newcastle, East London and Coffee Bay with me. Transformative and Inspiring.
This mix is dedicated to Winnie Mandela, Busi Mhlongo and Miriam Makeba, three women who looked white supremacy and patriarchy in the eye and danced. Power is always subjective, never absolute. All Freedom Fighters come through the bodies of women. 
Every single song selected was created by a South African producer/DJ. I've also featured the remixes of some of my favorite producers from the US (Spinna, Abicah Soul and Rocco).
1. Eish Anganzi-- Master Lucra (Johannesburg)
2. Soul on Fire --Devoted Featuring Kholi (Johannesburg/Cape Town)
3. We Going High-- Untitled (South Africa)
4. Do U Want it? --Cuebar (Johannesburg)
5. Behind My Headphones-- DJ Micks feat-Sphelele (Eltonnick Remix) (Pretoria)
6. We Were Meant to Be ---"DJ Kent featuring Lolo (Abicah Soul Remix) Johannesburg
7. 1000 Zulu Warriors --Culoe de Song (Johannesburg)
8. XILOLOWE (bhana shilolo)-- Black Motion featuring Zulu (Soshanguve/Pretoria)
9. Wasting My Time-- Zakes Bantwini (Durban)
10. Falling Dj Kent --(Black Motion remix) Johannesburg
11. So Far Away --Cuebar and Nathan X (Johannesburg)
12. Never Saw You Coming-- Black Coffee (Dj Spinna remix) (Durban)
13. Drifting Away-- Bantu Soul (South Africa)
14. Sunshine-- Infinite Boys feat Lil Soul (Abicah Remix) (Daveyton)
WildSeed Cultural Group provides "Entertainment with a Thesis"

Burned Hot Before the Inferno: Remembering Jimmy Ellis

BurnedHot Before the Inferno: Remembering Jimmy Ellis byMark Anthony Neal | NewBlackman
Itis perhaps some concession, that the only reason the death of Jimmy Ellis, thelead singer of The Trammps, was so widely covered, was the appearance of thetrack "Disco Inferno," on the soundtrack of the 1977 film Saturday Night Live. Though the Trammps are often referred to as "one-hit wonders," thewildly popular "Disco Inferno" came at the end of what had already been adistinct career in Dance music for the group.  That the group is largely known only for that song—far fromtheir best—speak volumes about the way Black musical genius was so oftenincubated, and thrived, beyond the gaze of mainstream culture.
ThoughEllis was born in Rock Hill, SC, growing up singing Gospel as so many of hispeers did, it was in Philadelphia that he connected with Earl Young, RonaldBaker,  and Norman Harris, who alsoworked as studio musicians at Sigma Sound and performed as members of thePhiladelphia International Records (PIR) house band MFSB.
Inits earliest incarnation, the Trammps were known as the Volcanoes, and withtheir hit "Storm Warning" (1965) helped establish the "Philly Soul" sound, thatwas as indebted to street corner Doo-Wop singing as it was to the popular groupThe Coasters.  By the time Ellisbecame lead singer of the group in the early 1970s, the trio of Young, Baker,and Harris—PIR's Holland-Dozier-Holland—were looking for side projects tocounter the exploitation they felt they were experiencing at PIR. 
Young,Baker and Harris recorded several tracks with The Trammps in 1972, with Ellisas lead including, "Zing! Went the String of My Heart,"—a  remake of the Judy Garland classic thathad also been covered by The Coasters—"Pray  All You Sinners," and "Hold Back the Night." The productiontrio also worked with First Choice, recording pop-Dance classics like "Armedand Extremely Dangerous" and "Smarty Pants." The tracks represent theprototypical sounds of what would become known as Disco music in themid-1970s—in his book Turn the BeatAround: the Secret History of Disco, Peter Shapiro suggest that drummerEarl Young "pretty much invented the Disco beat."  Though Trammps' tracks were hot in the clubs, the group'slabel Buddah declined to release an album of their material, sensing that thegroup was limited commercially.
Inorder to quell the coming rebellion of PIR musicians like Young, Baker andHarris, PIR allowed them to record as MFSB and also offered the Trammps aproduction deal and their own imprint "Golden Fleece."  Their first album for PIR in 1975,produced the hits "Love Epidemic" and "Where Do We Go From Here." With theirnew found popularity, assisted by the strength of PIR's promotion, Buddahreleased the early Trammps music on the LegendaryZing Album.  With the releaseof those two albums, The Trammps' role as architects of the Disco movement wasalready secure, a position that was only enhanced with the release of theirAtlantic Records debut and the lead single "Where the Happy People Go," whichquickly became an anthem for the era and the group's highest charting popsingle at the time.
"DiscoInferno" was initially released as the title track of the group's second albumfor Atlantic in late 1976; it barely registered to pop audiences, not evenbreaking into the Pop-Top 40, though it was a top-Ten R&B hit. By the timeThe Trammps released Trammps III inNovember of 1977, "Disco Inferno" was in their rearview, and the group wastrying to recapture the magic of their early records with a track like "TheNight the Lights Went Out," inspired by the New York City Blackout of thesummer of 1977, which Jeff Chang has suggested, might be the night that Hip-Hopfinally went all-City.
Asa single, "The Night the Lights Went Out," was dead in the water; The Trammps'fortunes would change when the soundtrack for a little movie, starring awell-known Sweathog, was released in December of 1977.  The soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever, sold over 15 million copies and topped the Billboard charts for six-months, makingthe Bee-Gees households names, and giving the Trammps their last breathe ofmainstream recognition; "Disco Inferno" peaked at #11 on the pop charts in1978.
Formany Jimmy Ellis, is just an afterthought from a period that has beenoft-derided and continuously commodified in movies and television shows; aperiod that is divorced from the Black, Latino, and Gay roots that madeso-called Disco music such a powerful social and cultural force in the early1970s. As Shapiro writes, The Trammps, "replaced the tension at the heart ofGamble and Huff's signature sound with a whole-hearted embrace of theDisco."  Jimmy Ellis was the voiceof that movement.
***
MarkAnthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming"Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities" (New YorkUniversity Press) and Professor of African & African-American Studies atDuke University. He is founder and managing editor of NewBlackMan and host ofthe weekly webcast Left of Black.Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.http://www.salon.com/writer/mark_anthony_neal/

Murray Forman & Mark Anthony Neal Discuss Making of 'That's the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader'

Co-editors Murray Forman (Northeastern University) and Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University) Discuss their edited volume That's The Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (2nd Edition, Routledge) at the Hip-hop Archives at the WEB DuBois Institue at Harvard University (November 2011).[image error]

When I'm Called Home: Remembering Abbey Lincoln #WHM2012

When I'm Called Home: Remembering AbbeyLincoln by Mark Anthony Neal |theLoop21 (2010)
"I'vealways been concerned with the story I'm telling. This music is social.  Our music is social. Nobody careswhether it sounds pretty or not. Can you tell the people what its like to behere?"—Abbey Lincoln in LaShonda Katrice Barnett's I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters on Their Craft
WhenAbbey Lincoln gave her last breathe on the morning of August 14, 2010, she lefta legacy, that though obscured by time and ignorance, marks her as one of themost singular Black artists of the 20th Century.  Though it is important to rememberLincoln as one of the truly original jazz vocalists ever, there are few artistswho could claim to have been as obsessed with using her art—as singer, songwriter,essayist (she contributed to Tone Cade's groundbreaking anthology The Black Woman), painter and actress—asa vessel to explicate the full humanity of herself and the people, that sheoften claimed, were inside of her.
BornAnna Marie Wooldridge in August of 1930 in Chicago, Lincoln came of age on afarm in Calvin Center, Michigan.  Like many aspiring artists from that era, Lincoln was profoundlyaffected by the music of Billie Holiday. As Lincoln recalled with journalistLisa Jones in a 1991 New York Timesinterview, "My father worked in the houses of wealthy people who gave himrecordings. The first singer I heard on record was Billie Holiday when I was14." Two decades later Lincoln would be favorably compared Holiday, though shewould struggle throughout much of her early career to escape the shadows ofboth Holiday and the formidable mythology that has been erected in her name.
Afterapprenticing in various places including Honolulu and California, where she hadinitially moved after graduating high school, and taking the name Gaby Lee,Lincoln began to be managed by lyricist Bob Russell.  It was Russell who suggested another name change—AbbeyLincoln—and who helped Lincoln sign with the  noted Jazz label Riverside, where she recorded four albumsbeginning with Abbey Lincoln's  Affair: A Story of a Girl in Love(1956) That's Him (1957),  It'sMagic (1958) and Abbey is Blue(1959).  On Lincoln's debut,recorded with the Benny Carter Orchestra, Riverside tried to position Lincolnas the sexy, girl-next-door torch song singer and it was in that vein thatLincoln appeared in the film The Girl Can'tHelp It (1956), wearing the same dress that Marilyn Monroe once wore in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).  When Lincoln appeared on the cover of Ebony Magazine—in Monroe's red dress—herfate as yet another "silent" pretty face seemed assured.  But like her contemporary Eartha Kitt,Lincoln had another vision for herself.
Livingin New York City, Lincoln became professionally acquainted with a group ofprogressive jazz artists, including drummer Max Roach, who would not onlybecome Lincoln's musical mentor but her romantic partner; the two married in1960.  The increased influence onLincoln of musicians like Roach, Sonny Rollins and songwriter Oscar Brown, Jr.can be indexed in the changing style of her albums, culminating with her 1959classic Abbey is Blue, which wasreleased the same year as Holiday's death. Featuring legendary side-musicianslike Philly Jo Jones, Sam Jones, Kenny Dorham and Wynton Kelley, Abbey is Blue finds Lincoln interpretingMongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue," Kurt Weil's "Lonely House" (with lyrics fromLangston Hughes), Oscar Brown Jr.'s "Brother Where Are You?" and the DukeEllington classic "Come Sunday."  Abbey is Blue, not only served as atribute to some of the important Black songwriters of the era, it also signaleda shift in her art, as she more dutifully linked her music to the broaderstruggles of Blacks globally.
Lincoln'stransformation began to take place a few years earlier when she literally threwaway the Marilyn Monroe dress and was fully articulated with two recordings,1960's We Insist—Freedom Now with MaxRoach and her own Straight Ahead(1961), which would be her last recording with Roach and last studio recordingfor more than a decade.  Some ofthe lasting standouts on Straight Aheadinclude "When Malindy Sings," based on the Paul Lawrence Dunbar poem (Lincolnwould later point Maya Angelou to Dunbar's work as inspiration for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), "LeftAlone" a Billie Holiday song that she never recorded, but on which Holiday'saccompanist Mal Waldron appears, and Thelon us Monk's "Blue Monk."   Monk was in the studio whenLincoln recorded "Blue Monk" and famously told her "don't be so perfect" whichLincoln understood as a reminder that "if your voice cracks, it'll give youtexture."
Straight Ahead established Lincoln as a important artist in her ownright—the New York Times offered arare three column review—but also instigated charges by critic Ira Gitler thatLincoln was a "professional Negro"—using the Civil Rights movement to furtherher career.  The reality couldn'tbe further from the truth as Lincoln sacrificed, what was thought to be theprime years of her career, essentially banished from the mainstream because ofher willful linking of her art with her radical political beliefs.  As Lincoln reflected in a remarkable1961 interview with the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper, "I haveviewpoints, outlooks and values…I cut my hair, and then stopped straighteningit, and I love it."  Explaining herpolitical beliefs more forthrightly two decades later, Lincoln told Marie Mooreof the New York Amsterdam News that "I'mvery outspoken because my great-grandmother and grandfather were slaves…I takeit personally that my people were enslaved and used as chattel and still are. Ido not separate myself from my life, What happened to my people happened and happensto me."
Inlater interviews, Lincoln was realistic  about the impact of her radicalism in the 1960s on hercareer, particularly in comparison to male instrumentalists like Roach and JohnColtrane whose radicalism in their music did not affect their careers to theextent that they impacted the careers of Lincoln and Nina Simone. "I took the weight because I was thevoice," Lincoln admitted to Lisa Jones in 1991, "I was the one yelling ineveryone's ear.  It hung with mefor a long time."
Lincolnsurvived the 1960s touring in Europe and eventually catching the eye ofindependent filmmaker Michael Roemer, who cast Lincoln opposite Ivan Dixon inthe now classic Nothing But a Man(1963).  Lincoln later appearedopposite Sidney Poitier in For the Loveof Ivy (1968).  Though Lincolnwas poised to pursue a full-fledged acting career—against Roach's wishes whowanted a domesticated wife—she found the Hollywood scene difficult to negotiate.In a 1968 Washington Post interview,Lincoln expressed concerns about "doing an imitation of a white women either asa woman or really as an actress." Lincoln was more direct five years later in another Pittsburgh Courier interview where she says that "the scripts thatwere sent me were not representative of the people I know and of the women I bring to the stage."  Lincoln goes on to say in the interviewthat "the people who have cared for me have always been the ones who werecalled 'niggers'—the people who are called 'niggers' are well spring where Igo."
WhenLincoln sat down with the PittsburghCourier in 1973, she was in another moment of radical transformation.  Her marriage to Roach ended three yearsearlier and she was living in Los Angeles with her mother.  Lincoln  recalls old friend Redd Foxx—then popularly known astelevision's "Fred Sanford" giving her money from time to time when she neededit.  She also took on twoadditional names; the names Aminata Moseka were given to her by GuineanPresident Sekou Toure and the Minister of Information in Zaire respectively, during a tour of Africa withMiriam Makeba.  While traveling inJapan in 1973, she also made her first studio recording in more than a decade, People in Me, the first in which shewrote the lyrics to all of the songs. Recorded with a few of Miles Davis's sidemen and not released in theUnited States until 1979, the recording laid the foundation for what would be Lincoln'srenaissance in the 1980s.  As FarahJasmine Griffin writes in If You Can't BeFree, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, "People in Me introducesus to the mature, independent artist…Like a phoenix, she is reborn from theashes of her earlier lives."
Bythe early-1980s Lincoln was performing regularly around New York City,primarily with a cadre of younger artists including saxophonist Steve Coleman,James Wideman—both of who, appear on 1984's Talkingto the Sun.  Though she isstill interpreting other lyricists, including Stevie Wonder whose "Golden Lady"and "You and I" she covers during this period, she not only is writing lyricsbut also composing music.  One ofthose songs is "Throw It Away" (GoldenLady,1980), which Lincoln told LaShonda Katrice Barnett in her book I Got Thunder, "helped save my life."  It was fertile period for Lincoln, ashe created the body of work that would sustain her for the rest of her career.
WhenLincoln appears as the mother of "Bleek Gilliam" in the Spike Lee film Mo' Betta Blues (1990) she is on thecusp of what would be her most sustained period of recording.  Signing with Verve in 1989, Lincolnwould record 11 albums over the final twenty years of her life, beginning with The World is Falling Down in 1990.Writing about Lincoln in 1996, New YorkTimes jazz critic Peter Watrous begins his piece with the simpleobservation that "sometime in the last 10 years, Abbey Lincoln came intogreatness as a jazz singer." Twenty years after she walked away from her music, Lincoln was now a "womanat her peak" and willing and able to take the kinds of aesthetic risks thatwould mark her as maverick in her later years.  One such moment is her brilliant collaboration with MavisStaples and the Staple Singers (including Pop Staples) on the track "Story ofMy Father."
WhenNate Chinen profiles Lincoln upon the release of her last recording Abbey Sings Abbey in 2007 much of thestory is about her songwriting and how far Lincoln had to travel to be able towrite the songs that allowed her the opportunity to tell her own stories.  That red Marilyn Monroe dress was longgone— a forgotten trinket of the Black woman that Lincoln was and the worldthat she helped to change, fifty years earlier.  Abbey Sings Abbeyhas the feel on an artist saying good-bye, not unlike listening to BillieHoliday's Lady in Satin (1957), whichpoet Fred Moten describes as the  "recordof a wonderfully articulate body in pain."  But unlike Holiday, one doesn't hear pain or trauma inLincoln's voice, but triumph.  As she told, Chinen, "I had the chance to be myself, and I was."  Farah Jasmine Griffin perhaps says itbest, "perhaps Lincoln's greatest creation is herself."[image error]