“That fear—the knowledge that a single false step while wandering inside the maze of the white man’s reality could blast you back home with the speed of a circus artist being shot out of a cannon—is the kryptonite that has lain under the bed of every great black artist from 1920s radio star Bert Williams to Miles Davis to Jay Z. If you can’t find a little lead-lined room where you can flee that panic and avoid its poisonous rays, it will control your life. That’s why Miles Davis and James Brown, who had similar reputations for being cantankerous and outrageous, seem so much alike. Each admired the other from a distance.”