Kill 'Em and Leave Quotes

“James Brown hid everything, and in the game of instant information he lost big-time, because the information machine turns a truth into a lie and a lie into the truth, transforms superstitions and stereotypes into fact with such ease and fluidity that after a while you get to believing as I do, that the media is not a reflection of the American culture but rather is teaching it. As long as James Brown was selling records he let that craziness run. He didn't care. The media worked in his favor and helped fuel his success. But it killed his public reputation and once the success was gone once the head disappeared, the body followed.”
― James McBride, Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul

“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.”
― James McBride, Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul

“He buried money in distant hotel rooms, carried tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, around in a suitcase; he kept wads of cashier’s checks in his wallet. He always had a back door, a quick exit, a way of getting out, because behind the boarded-up windows of his life, the Godfather’s fear of having nothing was overwhelming in its ability to swallow him whole and send him into a series of wild behaviors.”
― James McBride, Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul

“His band was revolutionary—it was made up of outstanding players and vocalists, among the best in popular music this nation has ever produced.”
― James McBride, Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul

“They went up to the front door and knocked. A white maid answered. She said, “What do you want?” “Can we speak to Mr. Brown?” Dotty asked. “Wait a minute,” the maid said. She disappeared. A few moments later, James Brown himself appeared at the door, with two white women, one on each arm, both dressed in sixties wear, complete with beehive hairdos. Dotty and Shelly nearly fainted. The Godfather of Soul seemed tickled. He greeted them warmly. He asked Dotty, “What’s your name?” “Dotty…” “Stay in school, Dotty. Don’t be no fool!” He shook her hand and shook Shelly’s hand and the two girls fled.”
― James McBride, Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul

“If you wait till the white man leaves and ask about that space, the space between white and black folks in South Carolina, the black folks say, “Oh, it ain’t nothing. Such-and-so is my friend. I’ve known him forty years. We all get along here.” Only at night, when they get home, when the lights are down and all the churchin’ is done and the singing is over and the TV is off and the wine is flowing and tongues are working freely, only within the safety of home and family does the talk change, and then the buzz is no longer a buzz. It’s a roaring cyclone of fury laced with distaste and four hundred years of pent-up bitterness. There is not a single marker for James Brown in this place, they say. No spot to commemorate his birth, no building named after him, no school, no library, no statue, no nothing. And even when they do name something after him, or celebrate him in the state legislature or some such thing, it doesn’t matter. They smile about it during the day, but at night they cuss that thing so hard it’ll curl up on its own and crawl away like a snake. There’s not even a marker at the spot where the greatest soul singer this country ever knew came from. Why would they put one there? They hate him.”
― James McBride, Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul