Give The People What They Want
A political analysis of soul music of the late 1960's and early 70's. (What? You didn't want that?)
There is nothing that captures all the negative connotations of “whiteness” quite so perfectly as does Christmas music. Like Christmas itself, it is culturally Northern, and stands out like a sore thumb in many colonized lands in which people have never even seen snow — let alone coniferous trees, reindeer, sleigh-bells, and so on. Its contempt for rhythm and overpowering embrace of melody; its reserved, respectful religiosity; its cheerful ignorance of the horrors of capitalism, and celebration of the status quo; its insidiousness even despite these shortcomings — the argument could fill a book if it weren’t so immediately and obviously true that no one would bother to read past the first page. It is hardly a coincidence that, in the James Brown biopic Get On Up (2014), a pivotal moment depicts our protagonist performing on a Christmas-themed set when he suddenly realizes, with horror, that he is at a “honky hoedown”.
Indeed, the shortcomings of Christmas music are thrown into sharpest relief by juxtaposing it with the soul music (including funk) that James Brown personified — like placing a Black gospel church right next door to a White protestant one. Here, rhythm preaches and melody sits in the pews; pretentious refinement gives way to something organic and true; inhibitions melt into an earnest joyfulness of the sort that can only exist in view of the horrors of the world (in defiance of them). Something thoroughly White transitions into something incorruptibly and implacably Black: a fusion of gospel, R&B, blues, and jazz, imbued with the political consciousness of the civil rights and Black power movements. Sure you can bleach it, but then you get disco.
Soul was the first mainstream popular music genre in America to proudly celebrate a distinct Black identity, in fact — the creative foundations upon which Black popular culture has since built itself — and the emancipatory politics that had opened the door for it was always part and parcel of the music, from the ground-breaking allusions of the Impressions (Keep On Pushing, 1964; People Get Ready, 1965; We’re A Winner, 1967) to the naked Back Power of James Brown (Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud, 1968), Nina Simone (To Be Young, Gifted And Black, 1970), and Billy Paul (Am I Black Enough For You?, 1972).
Because of these attributes, I have long especially enjoyed listening to soul during the holidays: as welcome contrast to the annual plague of ubiquitous Christmas music. I even went so far as to start celebrating “James Brownmas” instead of Christmas after the Godfather of Soul died on December 25th, 2006; cheekily appropriating his excellent, civil rights-inspired funk classic I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up The Door, I’ll Get It Myself) (1969) as the occasion’s main theme song. There can hardly be a more festive way of passing the holidays alone.
But in recent years I have progressed from exasperating iconoclast to exasperating revolutionary; and, as such, the politics of James Brownmas require a deeper analysis. And this is especially so considering that, despite his enthusiasm for racial equality — and despite the clear connection between this goal and the broader goal of economic equality1 — in fact, James Brown was a shameless capitalist.2
The point hardly needs belaboring.
Indeed, the obvious contradiction between his advocacy for equality on one hand and inequality on the other does not appear to have occurred to the Soul Brother Number One. To his mind, capitalism actually seemed to offer his fellow Black Americans a potential “way out” (as opposed to a “hand out”) — it had, after all, worked out for him. Fortified by his experience as a jailbird-turned-millionaire, he seems to have been genuinely convinced that all Black people needed to do was work hard like he had. Stay in school, pull yourself up by your bootstraps — that kind of thing. This incomprehensible and conveniently self-serving philosophy is alluded to most agreeably in I’m A Greedy Man (James Brown, 1971): political ignorance at its absolute funkiest.
In defense of James Brownmas, however, it was never just about James Brown. Rather, it was always meant as a celebration of the wider soul scene of which James Brown was a part. And, despite his massive influence, this scene was by no means constrained by Brown’s bootstrap capitalism. For example the anti-establishment tropes of Sly and the Family Stone (Plastic Jim, 1968; Everybody Is A Star, 1969), or the collectivist optimism of Lee Dorsey (Yes We Can, Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further, 1970) are at least as intrinsic.
So too are the great ghetto laments of Curtis Mayfield ([Don't Worry] If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go, 1970; Freddie’s Dead, 1972), Marvin Gaye (Inner City Blues [Make Me Wanna Holler], 1971), Bobby Womack (Across 110th Street, 1972) and William DeVaughn (Be Thankful For What You Got, 1972), which emerged as the promise of civil rights era became visible in the rear view mirror, and as the Great Black Migration from the Jim Crow South into Northern cities tailed off. In these accounts, strength and hard work (and perhaps crime) are necessary for survival, but the system is rigged: there is no “way out”. Crime leads nowhere. School is nonexistent.
And alongside this disillusioned turn also developed the clearest repudiation of James Brown's politics: namely, a distinctly revolutionary flavor of soul. This revolutionary tradition appears to have started suddenly in 1971, with Gil Scott-Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, and the Chi-Lites’ (For God’s Sake) Give More Power To The People, becoming entrenched with the Meters’ People Say (1974) and the O’Jays’ Give The People What They Want (1975).
It is no coincidence that soul arrived at this point, moreover; it was always headed in this direction. Nor is it coincidence that no comparable tradition coalesced around the greed-is-good philosophy of the genre’s most recognizable poster child, Mr. Brown. In these manifestos, in fact, soul music as a whole approached its logical conclusion: that revolution was (and still is) the only real "way out". Revolution had always been lurking in soul’s subtext, in this sense — just waiting to emerge.
This revolutionary subtext was further demonstrated by the amazing Betty Davis, who attempted to launch a one-(Black)woman sexual revolution — a full decade before Madonna’s Like A Virgin scandalized the world (Anti Love Song, Your Man My Man,1973; Nasty Gal, 1975).
And it was demonstrated still further when soul spilled beyond the borders of America and into the peripheries of its empire. Here, soul transmogrified into reggae and afrobeat, which not only inherited its revolutionary tendency but accentuated it — most spectacularly in the form of the pan-Africanists Bob Marley (Get Up, Stand Up; 1973) and Fela Kuti (Africa - Center Of The World, 1980), respectively.
But in approaching its logical conclusion in the American imperial core, soul also approached a red line it could not be allowed to cross. The spiciness of its revolutionary manifestos were never able to progress beyond medium-mild.3 Betty Davis was shouted off the stage and into obscurity and poverty.4 And soul more broadly, having run up against the limits imposed by the country of its origin, ran out of oxygen and degenerated into the superficiality of disco, in turn quickly discredited. The revolutionary tendency of soul, in other words, was both an essential ingredient and — as progress stalled — the seed of its demise.
This observation highlights two of the most profound distinctions between soul on one hand, and hip-hop — which arose like a phoenix from the ashes of soul — on the other: first, hip-hop's stereotypical embrace of the profit motive, in polar distinction to its parthenogenetic progenitor; and second, its relative longevity (five decades and still going strong). With its generally-advised "way out" not revolution but crime, hip-hop was allowed to stay, selected for by the same process of unnatural cultural selection that had acted against soul. Now here is a genre fit for capitalism — fitting in like a puddle fits the ground.
So it is with soul and a transforming social landscape; so it is with soul and revolution. This is so even despite the misguided capitalism of James Brown — and even he clearly understood its potential. It certainly has not been missed by modern soul revivalists, best exemplified by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, who paid due tribute to soul’s revolutionary tradition with What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes? (2002), This Land Is Your Land (2005), and their 2014 album Give The People What They Want.
Purists such as this know there is no more revolutionary genre of popular music than soul. It does not boil down to a suite of musical conventions. It was never just entertainment. It is a mistake to think of it as a kind of funky jazz or secular gospel. In the words of one researcher, soul is “the fullest sonic artistic expression of blackness”; and according to the philosopher Cornel West, it is:
“the populist application of . . . racial self-consciousness among Black people in light of their rich musical heritage”.
It is liberating by its very nature, in other words; and therefore — in the context of capitalism — it is by its very nature revolutionary.
All of this suggests, to me at least, that James Brownmas, or a celebration of soul by any other name, is actually far from problematic from a revolutionary perspective: on the contrary, it is arguably obligatory. Soul Grinches may disagree, of course; but hopefully, in reading what I have to say, their small hearts have grown three sizes this day.
And comrades who prefer to observe the admittedly more straightforward (Karl) Marxmas at this time of year still need something to listen to. I mean, what, Christmas music?
The “hardest working man in show business” himself appears to highlight this connection in Say It Loud (albeit likely unintentionally), proto-rapping that:
“I've worked on jobs with my feet and my hands,
but all the work I did was for the other man.
And now we demands a chance to do things for ourselves,
we tired of beatin' our head against the wall, and workin' for someone else.”
. . . not to mention sexist, as most infamously indicated by It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World [James Brown, 1966]).
Arguable exceptions are those of the anomalous, Malcolm X-inspired Scott-Heron.
But not before delivering her deadly parting shot Dedicated To The Press (1975).
Actually that's exactly what I wanted. Thank you. And merry James Brownmas.