Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 589

Maxwell on New York and the 20-Year Collaboration That Defines His Sound

'When the R&B icon Maxwell first met producer Hod David, he thought to himself, "I've met the person who's going to change everything."' Maxwell sits down with NPR's Jason King.

History of Black Uprisings from Watts to Ferguson -- Conversation with Donna Murch

'Donna Murch gives  an historical outline of the African American uprisings from Watts in Los Angeles in 1965 to Ferguson, MO in 2014 after the murder of Michael Brown by a police officer.  Murch is associate professor of history at Rutgers University and currently completing a new trade press book entitled Crack in Los Angeles: Policing the Crisis and the War on Drugs, which explores the militarization of law enforcement, the social history of drug consumption and sale, and the political economy of mass incarceration in late twentieth century California. She is also author of the forthcoming Revolution in Our Lifetime from Verso Press (October, 2016), which explores the history and the legacy of the Black Panther Party for its 50th anniversary.' -- Archipelago -- the podcast of The Funambulist Magazine . 

The #SundaySoulBrunch with Nancy Wilson

The #SundaySoulBrunch with Nancy Wilsonby Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
It was a badge of honor for me, at age 20, to claim that I had a collection of Nancy Wilson albums, and yet the term collection doesn’t do justice to a career that has spanned more than 50 years and has included close to 70 album releases; Nancy Wilson is her own archive of what might be called refined High-Negro Style.
Well into her 70s, Ms. Wilson is still everybody’s crush, and it is that sensibility that she took into the studio and shared on stage; I’ve been fortunate to witness her at the legendary Blue Note, as well as in front of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and at Brooklyn Academy of Music, where Jon Lucien opened for her.  
Yet, Ms. Wilson never had hits; her “How Glad I Am” was her only top-20 pop recording and her cover of of the Stylistics “You’re as Right as Rain” was her only R&B hit. Ms. Wilson, in the finest tradition, just knows how to sing a song, and her career is a tribute to the genius of doing just that.  In this edition of The Sunday Brunch at NewBlackMan (in Exile) we spend some time with Nancy Wilson.
***

“Just to Keep You Satisfied” -- Keep You Satisfied (1985)
Ms. Wilson spent the first thirty years of her career recording for Capitol Records -- home to Nat King Cole (and later his daughter Natalie), Classic Sinatra, and  Lou Rawls among others.  Keep You Satisfied was Ms. Wilson’s first album for Columbia and it was anchored by a tribute to Marvin Gaye in an interpretation of one of his most sublime recordings.  Mr. Gaye, who was a fan, would have approved.
“We Can Make It Baby” -- I Know I Live Him (1973)

“Just to Keep You Satisfied” wasn’t the first time Ms. Wilson covered Mr. Gaye, though it was a more obscure source when she sang The Originals’ “We Can Make It Baby,” which was penned by Gaye. Song appears on her stellar I Know I Love Him, which also includes the steamy “Don’t Misunderstand”
“The Greatest Performance of My Life” -- Kaleidoscope (1971)

Kaleidoscope, may well be the finest recording of Ms. Wilson’s career -- and one of the last to finally be available on a digital platform.  Ms. Wilson’s cover of Jerry Butler and Betty Everett’s “Let It Be Me” (no shade to the Everly Brothers) is worth the price of admission in its own right. But the grandiose defiance of “The Greatest Performance of My Life” literally makes it one of her greatest performances.
“When the World was Young (ah, the Apple Tree)” -- Lush Life (1967)
From one of Ms. Wilson most sophisticated albums -- the title track a cover of Billy Strayhorn, who died weeks after she recorded the session -- “When the World was Young (ah, the Apple Tree)” is a lovely representation of her interpretive powers.



“You Can Have Him” -- The Nancy Wilson Show (1965)
When Ms. Wilson recorded the live session The Nancy Wilson Show, it allowed some audiences the ability to hear how brilliantly she interacted with audiences -- the banter before, after, and during songs -- is part of the woman’s genius.  Though most knew the punchline of a song like “Guess Who I Saw Today?” -- dude getting caught out there decades before handheld technology -- she really does transform “You Can Have Him” -- a retort of sorts to the other woman -- into something barely suggested on the studio recording. That line -- “and if you knew him half as well as I do, you know that he loves ‘apple butter on toast’ -- the simplest reminder that dude always comes home again...to her. “If I Could” -- Nancy Now (1988) 
Ms. Wilson had a resurgence in the late 1980s, in no small part to a generation of songstress like Miki Howard, Regina Belle and Anita Baker claiming her as musical god-mother and her regular appearances on The Cosby Show as Denise Huxtable's mother-in-law..  Fittingly one of Ms. Wilson’s most timeless recording from that era was the lullaby “If I Could” from Nancy Now. In this clip, Ms. Wilson performs the song on The Arsernio Hall Show.
“When October Goes” -- With My Lover Beside Me (1991)
As the story goes Ginger Mehan Mercer, widow of the legendary lyricist Johnny Mercer, gave Barry Manilow (at her husband’s request) an archive of unfinished lyrics.  When Manilow decided to present the lyrics on a full length album, it was Nancy Wilson that was chosen as the song stylist.  In many ways “When October Goes” was the capstone of a well earned career, and Ms. Wilson sings  this song as if she was at peace with that.

Seeing Red While Singing The Blues: René Marie's Tiny Desk Concert

'Joined by her Experiment In Truth band, the expressive, charismatic jazz singer  René Marie performs songs from her new album, Sound Of Red.' 

Praise + Question + Critique -- Novelist Jacqueline Woodson on 3 Stages of Constructive Criticism

'National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson talks us through her writing and editing process, and gives useful steps for how to handle criticism. Woodson's latest book is Another Brooklyn.' -- Big Think    

Theaster Gates on the Politics of What We Preserve

'We preserve the legacy of some people and cultures, while allowing others to fade into obscurity —  but make no mistake, says innovative artist  Theaster Gates , that process isn't neutral. His new exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario,  How To Build a House Museum , takes a closer look at what we deem worthy of memorializing, what we bother to preserve, and why it matters.' -- q on CBC
 

Historian Donna Murch on How the Clintons Built Political Power Over the Top of Black Lives

'Historian Donna Murch recalls how the Clintons built their political power over the top of Black lives during the 1990s - from landmark legislation gutting welfare and expanding incarceration, to their conscious courting of White voters through dog-whistle politics - and analyzes the factors behind Hillary Clinton's political support from Black America in 2016. Murch contributed to the Verso Books collection False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton .' -- This Is Hell! Radio    

Who Really Died on August 9, 2014? Sasha Panaram on 'Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil'

Who Really Died on August 9, 2014? by Sasha Panaram | @SashaPanaram | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
You already know the story. Neither its contents nor its implications strike you as surprising. During the two-year anniversary of his death – you likely encountered the details again as they circulated by way of images, testimonies, and memorials. Despite its familiarity or perhaps because of it, you need to revisit Michael Brown’s death. We all do.
Such a return is not only integral to recapturing the sense of nostalgia and grief that accompanied his life and his untimely death. Nor is this return wholly indicative of a search for closure or better yet, peace. We need to hear Michael Brown’s story because if we are really honest – and I mean really honest – we full well know that we did not hear his passing the first time. Amid the chatter and the chaos that accompanied his murder, we barely let Michael or Mike Mike, as his mother affectionately referred to him, die honorably. We failed him. And in the process, we failed ourselves, too.
I finished reading Lezley McSpadden’s Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil: The Life, Legacy, and Love of My Son Michael Brown (2016) for the second time on August 9. While it is hardly uncommon for me to reread a book two, three, or even four times, McSpadden’s text possessed a strange hold on me. Upon completing it, I both desired to know more and yet could not bring myself to pick up the book again. I was caught somewhere between not knowing enough and knowing too much.
On Monday, as if returning to the book again hoping this read would generate new pages for consumption, I was startled by what I understood as its central paradox. Every single day, especially these past few days, we are told that we know the true circumstances surrounding Michael Brown’s death. We know the name of his killer. We know the number of bullets that ripped through his body. We know how many hours his dead body lay in the Ferguson street. We know the verdict.
And yet, despite all of this, his very own mother could barely gather the information necessary to account for her lost son – to make his loss count – at the hour of his death. So starved for information was McSpadden and her family that they could not set a date for Michael’s funeral, because they did not know when his body would be returned from the medical examiners conducting his autopsy.
We know too much.
We know nothing at all.
Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil is bildungsroman-like in its composition telling at once how a mother and her son grew into themselves and each other in a world that could seldom imagine their success let alone allow for it. But to be clear this is not a novel. Nothing about this text is fictional. At times it is too real as it carries us through the process of living and grieving and living again more forcefully after loss.  
In three parts, McSpadden recounts raising Michael Orlandus Darrion Brown as a single black mother in Missouri. Named Michael after his father and nicknamed Mike Mike by his mother, Michael was McSpadden’s first-born child. Naming him was as momentous as giving birth because “[h]e had his own name and his own identity” (75).
In Part One of Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil, we meet the family and friends who raise McSpadden and her son including Granny, the bedrock of the family, the Browns with whom McSpadden and Michael lived, and Brittanie, McSpadden’s tried and trusted sister, among others.
Before we can understand the world into which Michael was born, we first must understand his mother’s world. Part One sketches that world in broad and beautiful strokes reminding us that contrary to what the news suggests, McSpadden always belonged to a community that cared for her deeply.
Part One also teaches us what it means to work. Holding well over seven jobs, McSpadden labored to provide for her family. She worked to remain faithful to her homebred values. She sought employment to survive.  
Whether behind a deli stand or sporting scrubs in a hospital, with a broom in hand or two pieces of bread, McSpadden refused to fail to provide for her children. Humbling herself to any and all opportunities that came her way, she always put her family first. Even when she could not complete her high school degree, she made sure her children, especially Michael, became credentialed.
If Part One is a history of the family, then Part Two is a history of the boy she brought into this world. Up until Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil most of what we know about Michael Brown surfaced from journalistic reporting, video surveillance, and personal testimonies.
Part Two troubles those perceptions and the people who make them by showcasing his unfailing kindness and his unparalleled love. We encounter Michael as an older brother and his capacity to care for his siblings especially his sister, Déjà. We laugh with him as he playfully performs for his mother just to see her smile. We even cry with him as he struggles to defend himself throwing a punch when it is not of his nature.
In roughly sixty pages, we watch a child become a man and a man become a corpse. In its sheer simplicity and brutal honesty, McSpadden both mourns and memorializes her son inviting us to do the same. For the very first time, we meet Michael.  
Then he is taken from us.
Whereas Parts One and Two are full of life, Part Three stands in contrast illustrating what happens when life is so abruptly taken away. Written as journal entries, Part Three marks times slow passing by in minutes, days, months, and years. Reliving his murder, McSpadden charts where and when death moves. Michael, too, speaks as we encounter his final social media posts in the days preceding his death.
From both the message is clear: No one nowhere is safe. Not now. Not ever.
Reading this book two years after Michael’s death is equal parts sad and encouraging, equal parts memory and prophecy. On the one hand Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil is a declaration of grief – the grief endured by a vilomah. But it is also an instruction manual for hope; a guidepost for faith.
Its hauntological implications – the way it speaks to and bespeaks the future – is most poignantly captured in the chapter titles where McSpadden names her truth and points us towards our own. For instance, “God Bless the Child” recalls Toni Morrison’s latest novel, God Help the Child. A “Rainbow of Mothers” is the “Mothers of the Movement” at the Democratic National Convention. “It Takes a Village” anticipates Karla Holloway’s question, “Whose Village Is This?”
Each chapter beckons the future. Each word moves us forward.
By the end of the epilogue the question still remains: who really died on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri? While the record reports one, the memoir suggests otherwise. Michael was not the only one taken that hot summer day but so, too, was everyone who ever knew him; everyone who ever wanted to know him.
In his own words: “Yall seeking for the truth help me bring it out” (175).
And that he did and continues to do again and again and again.
+++
Sasha Panaram is Ph.D. student in English at Duke University. A Georgetown University alumna, her scholarly interests are in black diasporic literature, black feminisms, and visual cultures.
Other essays from Sasha Panaram:
Beyond Real(ism)--Review of Abstractionist Aesthetics: Artistic Form & Social Critique in African American Culture
The Watcher, The Watched, and The Witness – On (T)ERROR

Right to Resist: Message from Philadelphia’s Black Resistance March by Lamont Lilly

Right to Resist: A Message Philadelphia’s Black Resistance Marchby Lamont Lilly | @LamontLilly | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Workers World Party vice presidential candidate, Lamont Lilly gave the following speech at the Black Resistance March on the Democratic National Convention on July 26 in Philadelphia. This march was organized by the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice.When we talk about the police and police terror, what we are really talking about is “the state.”  The State is the FBI, the CIA.  It is the courts, the prosecutors, the judges, the parole officers — every institution that makes money off of keeping Black and Brown bodies incarcerated.  It is the private prison system, which is no different than the convict lease system 100 years ago.  The police today are no different than the slave patrols when we were back on the plantation.  That’s where the police in this country come from.  Their function then was to keep the slaves in their place, to keep Harriet Tubman from helping us to gaining liberation.The role of the police today is to keep the oppressed and marginalized in that same place – to keep the disenfranchised from fighting back, from resisting and gaining liberation.  Their role is to keep the poor and working class from uniting.  Look around you.  Look at the faces beside you to your left and right.  This is what a democracy really looks like.  When you have white, Brown, Black, Latino, queer, trans, straight, Muslim, Christian, young and the old – all standing together for justice, for Black lives, in a stand against the two-party system which doesn’t really serve any of us.  This is what a democracy looks like.And you know what, sisters and brothers, this kind of solidarity absolutely petrifies this country.  They don’t want to see the oppressed come together.  They don’t want to see the working class and poor people uniting.  So they distract us.  They distract us like [Fox News reporter] Geraldo Rivera tried by walking into this march.  They distract us with “Black on Black” crime, but the real conversation is white supremacy, racism, genocide, chattel slavery.  That’s what the United States was founded on – genocide and exploitation.These issues are why myself and Monica Moorehead are running for U.S. President and Vice President with Workers World Party.  We want an end to racism and capitalism.  We want an end to the deportations, the ICE raids and the war on Black America.  We want an end to the continued assault on the Indigenous and Native Americans.  We must unite on this front. We know that you cannot reform sexism, capitalism, imperialism, nor colonialism. When we talk about colonialism – that is what the ghettos in this country are.  They are colonized territories where Black and Brown people are still basically in bondage, exploited, occupied, terrorized.Sisters and brothers, I have to do this — I have to talk to my people for a split second. Black people, African descendants, please listen loud and clear.  We are members of an anti-Black society, of an anti-Black country; in every fucking way, shape and form, we live in a system saturated with white supremacy.  The school system, the political system, the court system, the economic [system], even in the arts.  This country is completely anti-Black.And it is because of such anti-Blackness that we cannot depend this country to value Black lives.  We cannot depend the U.S. government to value our lives – it never has, ever since we stopped working for free.  We have to fight for ourselves.  We have to love ourselves, first. Love your hair, love your lips and noses.  Love that melanin in your skin, which what makes us so powerful.  Teach our history to your children.  Do not wait until they’re 37 years old. Teach them about Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells and Malcolm X, so they can grow up strong and as freedom fighters. Love each other. Keep each other inspired. Uplift each other, sisters and brothers. This movement cannot be built by hate; it must be built out of love. Love of the people! Love of ourselves! Love of the community! Love, for the revolution!As brother Fred Hampton said, you don’t fight racism with racism, you fight racism with solidarity. You do not fight capitalism with Black capitalism, you fight capitalism with revolutionary socialism.And remember, love each other, sisters and brothers! Uplift each other! Black is beautiful! All power to the people! ■NC-based activist, @LamontLilly is the 2016 Workers World Party, U.S. Vice-Presidential Candidate. He has recently served as field staff in Baltimore, Ferguson, Oakland, Boston and Philadelphia.  In 2015, he was a U.S. delegate at the International Forum for Justice in Palestine in Beirut, Lebanon. Contact the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice via Twitter @REALjusticePHL or by email at phillyforrealjustice@gmail.com.

Right to Resist: A Message Philadelphia’s Black Resistance March by Lamont Lilly

Right to Resist: A Message Philadelphia’s Black Resistance Marchby Lamont Lilly | @LamontLilly | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Workers World Party vice presidential candidate, Lamont Lilly gave the following speech at the Black Resistance March on the Democratic National Convention on July 26 in Philadelphia. This march was organized by the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice.When we talk about the police and police terror, what we are really talking about is “the state.”  The State is the FBI, the CIA.  It is the courts, the prosecutors, the judges, the parole officers — every institution that makes money off of keeping Black and Brown bodies incarcerated.  It is the private prison system, which is no different than the convict lease system 100 years ago.  The police today are no different than the slave patrols when we were back on the plantation.  That’s where the police in this country come from.  Their function then was to keep the slaves in their place, to keep Harriet Tubman from helping us to gaining liberation.The role of the police today is to keep the oppressed and marginalized in that same place – to keep the disenfranchised from fighting back, from resisting and gaining liberation.  Their role is to keep the poor and working class from uniting.  Look around you.  Look at the faces beside you to your left and right.  This is what a democracy really looks like.  When you have white, Brown, Black, Latino, queer, trans, straight, Muslim, Christian, young and the old – all standing together for justice, for Black lives, in a stand against the two-party system which doesn’t really serve any of us.  This is what a democracy looks like.And you know what, sisters and brothers, this kind of solidarity absolutely petrifies this country.  They don’t want to see the oppressed come together.  They don’t want to see the working class and poor people uniting.  So they distract us.  They distract us like [Fox News reporter] Geraldo Rivera tried by walking into this march.  They distract us with “Black on Black” crime, but the real conversation is white supremacy, racism, genocide, chattel slavery.  That’s what the United States was founded on – genocide and exploitation.These issues are why myself and Monica Moorehead are running for U.S. President and Vice President with Workers World Party.  We want an end to racism and capitalism.  We want an end to the deportations, the ICE raids and the war on Black America.  We want an end to the continued assault on the Indigenous and Native Americans.  We must unite on this front. We know that you cannot reform sexism, capitalism, imperialism, nor colonialism. When we talk about colonialism – that is what the ghettos in this country are.  They are colonized territories where Black and Brown people are still basically in bondage, exploited, occupied, terrorized.Sisters and brothers, I have to do this — I have to talk to my people for a split second. Black people, African descendants, please listen loud and clear.  We are members of an anti-Black society, of an anti-Black country; in every fucking way, shape and form, we live in a system saturated with white supremacy.  The school system, the political system, the court system, the economic [system], even in the arts.  This country is completely anti-Black.And it is because of such anti-Blackness that we cannot depend this country to value Black lives.  We cannot depend the U.S. government to value our lives – it never has, ever since we stopped working for free.  We have to fight for ourselves.  We have to love ourselves, first. Love your hair, love your lips and noses.  Love that melanin in your skin, which what makes us so powerful.  Teach our history to your children.  Do not wait until they’re 37 years old. Teach them about Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells and Malcolm X, so they can grow up strong and as freedom fighters. Love each other. Keep each other inspired. Uplift each other, sisters and brothers. This movement cannot be built by hate; it must be built out of love. Love of the people! Love of ourselves! Love of the community! Love, for the revolution!As brother Fred Hampton said, you don’t fight racism with racism, you fight racism with solidarity. You do not fight capitalism with Black capitalism, you fight capitalism with revolutionary socialism.And remember, love each other, sisters and brothers! Uplift each other! Black is beautiful! All power to the people! ■NC-based activist, @LamontLilly is the 2016 Workers World Party, U.S. Vice-Presidential Candidate. He has recently served as field staff in Baltimore, Ferguson, Oakland, Boston and Philadelphia.  In 2015, he was a U.S. delegate at the International Forum for Justice in Palestine in Beirut, Lebanon. Contact the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice via Twitter @REALjusticePHL or by email at phillyforrealjustice@gmail.com.