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CRITICAL NOIR
Motown's Forgotten Revolution
by Mark Anthony Neal
***
The 12-inch recording of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," from the soundtrack of Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing was released on the Motown label in the summer of 1989. Arguably the track was the most incendiary political recording in the Motown catalogue at the time of its release. Motown's release of "Fight the Power" occurred a year after Gordy has sold the label and Motown was very much in the business of establishing its legacy as a quintessential American brand. Nevertheless the label was still committed to releasing music that was relevant to young Black Americans. It was in this context that the label signed a then little known production collective from New Jersey known as Blaze. In the fall of 1990, Blaze released their only Motown recording, 25 Years Later.
In a period that was marked by renewed expressions of black pride and Afrocentric thought, 25 Years Later essentially recalibrated Motown's relationship to the legacy of black struggle, by wedding the classic Motown sound with post-Civil Rights era black nationalism. 25 Years Later was released at a time when mainstream black popular culture was dominated by so-called conscious rap acts like the aforementioned Public Enemy, KRS-One (whose brilliant Edutainment was released the same year as 25 Years Later), the Five-Percent nations musings of Rakim (with Eric B), Brand Nubian, and Poor Righteous Teachers and the decidedly Womanist politics of Queen Latifah as well as the DIY cultural nationalism of black filmmakers like Spike Lee, Matty Rich, Julie Dash, Robert Townsend and Haile Gerima. As such 25 Years Later was an earnest attempt to capture the full complexities of the moment by mixing snippets of melodramatic exchanges with inspirational music that covered the full gamut of black popular music. In many ways 25 Years Later was a precursor to a Web 2.0 phenomenon like R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet. Particularly remarkable about 25 Years Later, as political scientist Richard Iton notes in his recent book In Search of The Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era , is that it recorded at time when R&B as genre had retreated from political themes, allowing hip-hop to carry the water for a popular black political perspective.
Read Full Essay HERE
CRITICAL NOIR
Motown's Forgotten Revolution
by Mark Anthony Neal
***
The 12-inch recording of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," from the soundtrack of Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing was released on the Motown label in the summer of 1989. Arguably the track was the most incendiary political recording in the Motown catalogue at the time of its release. Motown's release of "Fight the Power" occurred a year after Gordy has sold the label and Motown was very much in the business of establishing its legacy as a quintessential American brand. Nevertheless the label was still committed to releasing music that was relevant to young Black Americans. It was in this context that the label signed a then little known production collective from New Jersey known as Blaze. In the fall of 1990, Blaze released their only Motown recording, 25 Years Later.
In a period that was marked by renewed expressions of black pride and Afrocentric thought, 25 Years Later essentially recalibrated Motown's relationship to the legacy of black struggle, by wedding the classic Motown sound with post-Civil Rights era black nationalism. 25 Years Later was released at a time when mainstream black popular culture was dominated by so-called conscious rap acts like the aforementioned Public Enemy, KRS-One (whose brilliant Edutainment was released the same year as 25 Years Later), the Five-Percent nations musings of Rakim (with Eric B), Brand Nubian, and Poor Righteous Teachers and the decidedly Womanist politics of Queen Latifah as well as the DIY cultural nationalism of black filmmakers like Spike Lee, Matty Rich, Julie Dash, Robert Townsend and Haile Gerima. As such 25 Years Later was an earnest attempt to capture the full complexities of the moment by mixing snippets of melodramatic exchanges with inspirational music that covered the full gamut of black popular music. In many ways 25 Years Later was a precursor to a Web 2.0 phenomenon like R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet. Particularly remarkable about 25 Years Later, as political scientist Richard Iton notes in his recent book In Search of The Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era , is that it recorded at time when R&B as genre had retreated from political themes, allowing hip-hop to carry the water for a popular black political perspective.
Read Full Essay HERE
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