#bohemerockstar

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Trail-blazing blues, gospel, and rock n roll recording artist Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone, are among the 2018 inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The news came early this morning that these two pioneering Black women would be honored with one of the music industry’s most prestigious designations, albeit posthumously.

Joining Nina and Sister Rosetta in the 2018 class are rock groups Bon Jovi, The Moody Blues, The Cars, and Dire Straits. The nominees, announced in October, also included hip-hop heavyweight LL Cool J, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, The Meters, and Rage Against the Machine among others. And while music fans are invited to vote on their picks for each year’s class, the final list of inductees is ultimately decided by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s voting body. Artists are eligible for nomination for induction as long as their first commercial release debuted at least 25 years before their induction year (1992 for this year’s class). 

The 33rd Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony happens on April 14, 2018 in Cleveland, OH, and will be aired on HBO on a date to be announced.

Congratulations to the 2018 inductees!

Just in time for #Christmas (or, #Princemas, if you are so inclined, as I am sometimes), comes a new compilation paying tribute to the Purple One. I Wish U Heaven, inspired by the song from 1988′s Lovesexy, features an eclectic mix of covers of some of Prince’s best-known songs, as well as a few deep fan faves, by the likes of former collaborators such as vocalist Elisa Fiorillo (”Sometimes It Snows in April”) and singer/keyboardist Cassandra O’Neal, who delivers a lesson in soul with 1999′s “Something in the Water (Does Not Compute;” a fun take on “Starfish & Coffee” by Nyle Quit the Band, and a lovely re-imagining of the title track courtesy of Savage Garden alum Darren Hayes. 

The collection, which is available for streaming-only on YouTube and SoundClound, is said to be a “labor of love” and not currently intended for sale. Several of the musicians who’ve contributed to the project were featured recently on Dr. Funkenberry’s podcast and The Prince Podcast. 

Learn more about the project on Facebook, and spend #AnotherLonelyChristmas day immersed in something in the water that most definitely computes. 

Damaris Lewis

Model, dancer, and activist Damaris Lewis wants women to celebrate their majesty, mystery, and menstrual cycles, and to help other women do the same. She launched Flo. on December 12, featuring a 100% phthalate-free soy wax candle at the heart of a movement meant to support Period, a non-profit organization that provides menstrual products to women and girls in need. Proceeds from the sale of each Flo candle benefit Period, and the candles are hand-poured by women partnered with Prosperity Candle, which helps support and create opportunities for women artisans. 

A post shared by Damaris Lewis (@damarislewis) on Dec 10, 2017 at 8:51am PST

Instagram: @damarislewis 

The candles boast the scent of geranium, clary sage, rose, frankincense, and lavender, an intoxicating mélange of aromas meant to soothe and aid in relaxation. 

Treat yourself and your #localgirlgang to one of these sumptuous candles, and help provide essential monthly supplies to women and girls without access to clean, safe menstrual products at the same time.

Spike Lee’s cinematic debut, She’s Gotta Have It, premiered in theatres in 1986. Shot in grainy black and white and centering Lee’s beloved Brooklyn as as much a focal point as the film’s characters, She’s Gotta Have It is the story of a 20-something year-old Black woman, Nola Darling (DeWanda Wise), and her trio of lovers: Jamie Overstreet (Lyriq Bent), Greer Childs (Cleo Anthony), and Mars Blackmon (Anthony Ramos). The original feature-length treatment of the characters and the topics of polyamory, sexual freedom, and a woman’s agency over her own body and desires was not without what would soon become Lee’s familiar heavy-handed, message-laden approach to storytelling; his oeuvre teems with films and documentaries where subtlety is seldom found, and elements that would be considered subliminal in other filmmakers’ hands smack you across the face with neither apologies offered nor fucks to give. This is what makes Spike Lee a brilliant and equally bewildering auteur; this is what keeps those of us who love his work coming back for more—even enduring mishaps such as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. We know Spike is gonna Spike, that he’s going to incorporate a level of boisterousness where a lighter touch would’ve been just fine. But this is why we can’t quit Spike, and without a doubt we’d be bored as hell with his work if it didn’t simultaneously irk and inspire.

Series star DeWanda Wise as Nola Darling in the Netflix re-boot of Spike Lee’s ‘She’s Gotta Have It’

In the Netflix iteration of Lee’s inaugural film, which emerged on the streaming platform on Thanksgiving Day (and this, I am sure, was no accident), Lee has managed to contemporize the original premise of the mid-‘80s film in a number of ways: The Netflix series is in color, infuses current issues and events (#BlackLivesMatter, that clown in the White House, gentrification) into the storyline, and makes interesting use of the technology to which most of us have become addicted. While there has been no shortage of criticism about the reboot—including the common theme that accompanies most of Lee’s output, that he’s too involved in too many aspects of it and really should fall back more than he is prone to do—much of the more casual chatter on Facebook and Twitter threads suggests that the revamped She’s Gotta Have It resonates especially well among the portion of the audience that may have seen the original, either when it was first released in theatres or sometime later on cable. There are obvious (and honestly, inaccurate) comparisons to Issa Rae’s HBO smash, Insecure, with a smattering of Millennials opining that Lee is somehow trying to copy Rae with his series, but the truth is that both Rae’s TV namesake and Lee’s Nola are not one in the same, despite some similarities.

With plenty having already been written about the series’ shortcomings, I wanted to shed light on the aspects of the She’s Gotta Have It re-imagining that work well. Here are the 4 things I’m loving about the series.

The Music

Spike Lee has always used music to extraordinary effect in his work, from his father, Bill Lee’s, gorgeous scores and original compositions to the soundtracks that accompany his films. With ‘She’s Gotta Have It,’ Lee reminds us that he’s not only nice behind the camera, he has an almost otherworldly connection with music that allows him to incorporate it in innovative ways. The Netflix series’ theme song that runs over the opening credits of each episode is the instrumental version of “Happy Birthday Nola,” a song Bill Lee composed for the original film. But the truest jewels are the songs interwoven within scenes—whether it’s an R&B favorite like Maxwell’s cover of Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work” or a popular standard like Frank Sinatra’s “Witchcraft.” The music selection is diverse, intentional, and serves as almost an omnipotent observer of the characters’ interactions and entanglements. Much like radio DJs back in the day would announce the song and artist as one track transitioned into the next, Lee drops album cover art into the scenes to provide visual information about the music. In a particularly brilliant moment, Lee punctuates a pivotal scene in Nola Darling’s late-season evolution with MeShell Ndegeocello’s poignant and haunting “Faithful,” setting his camera on the lead character as she rotates slowly before a deconstructed canvas of one of her paintings. For a full list of the songs featured in the first season, click here.

Bill Lee’s “Happy Birthday Nola” from the original film

The Cameos

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a Spike Lee joint that doesn’t feature some pleasant and surprising cameos from heavyweights across the entertainment and even political landscape. Lee’s sister, Joie Lee, appeared in the original film as Nola Darling’s friend and former roommate, Clorinda. In the Netflix series, Joie Lee portrays Nola Darling’s mother, Septima. Hip-hop icon Fab Five Freddy makes a quick appearance as a fellow artist showing at the Diastopian exhibit curated by 2017’s Clorinda (played by Margot Bingham), and of course, Spike himself shows up as a bartender. One of the most moving cameos, however, is that of Tracy Camilla Johns, who originated the role of Nola Darling in the 1986 film. Johns’ unnamed character approaches 21st century Nola at her art show and praises the younger woman’s work. Nola muses something along the lines of “you look familiar” to her past life counterpart, and while that line probably could’ve been left out of the scene it certainly didn’t ruin the full-circle moment. It’s also interesting to note that Johns makes a short appearance in Lee’s 2012 film, ‘Red Hook Summer,’ as Mother Darling, ostensibly reprising her role as the lover-ly Nola, but with an unexpected twist.

The original cast

The Character Development

With the original film, we only got to know the core characters in relation to one another. Although we first met Nola Darling as she establishes to the audience that she’s not a freak or anyone’s property, and we experience her lovers primarily through their interactions with and reactions to her, there isn’t much in the way of backstory, family, or history. Blame it on the confines of storytelling on the big screen, where there often isn’t much time for expository information or fleshing out of every detail. With the Netflix series, we get to know the characters with a bit more depth. Nola has parents—actress Septima (Joie Lee) and musician Stokes (Thomas Jefferson Byrd); girlfriends Clorinda, Shemekka (Chyna Lane), Rachel (Elise Hudson); an unexpected mentor in the form of the fabulous, third-person referring Raqueletta Moss (De’Adre Aziza);  and an old friend from high school, Papo Da Mayor (Elvis Nolasco), a fellow artist who returned from serving in Afghanistan to discover his beloved Brooklyn no longer belonged to him. While Nola’s lone woman romantic interest, Opal, served more as a foil to her harem of men and wasn’t given nearly the breadth her character deserved in the 1986 film, the 2017 re-working allows her to take up significant space in Nola’s life. Portrayed by Ilfenesh Hadera, this Opal is a single mother and successful business owner, and the only one of Nola’s lovers to actual set boundaries with her. The men also get more flesh, so to speak. We find out Jamie is married and has a son; Mars lives with his sister, a Yoruba priestess; and Greer is a photographer with an African American father and French mother and who has a penchant for painting his thumbs with silver gel nail polish.

The Prince Tribute

Anyone who knows Spike Lee and his work knows he loves Prince. Why else would he have tapped the artist to submit an entire soundtrack for Lee’s 1996 release, Girl 6? But beyond incorporating Prince’s music into his works, Spike Lee and Prince enjoyed a particularly symbiotic relationship: Prince was one of the celebrities who helped Lee fund Malcolm X when the studio wouldn’t provide any more financial support; Lee directed the video for Prince’s “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night” from the Diamonds and Pearls album. Their unique brotherhood afforded both with a much-needed entertainment biz ally and friendship, so it’s only right that Spike would choose to pay tribute to the Purple Yoda in the series. The first episode kicks off with the iconic countdown from “Raspberry Beret,” and in a memorable scene from one of the season’s later episodes (penned by Radha Blank) Nola name checks Prince as one of the numerous beams of light extinguished by the ultimate fuckboi, the year that was 2016. In the series’ final episode, which takes place on Thanksgiving, Nola places a pin fashioned like Prince’s legendary love symbol guitar at each of the four place settings on her dinner table.  Mars, the first of Nola’s boo thangs to arrive for dinner, presents her with a vinyl copy of the Around the World in a Day album, her “favorite.” At dinner, Nola and her men affix the pins just above their hearts, and in an uncharacteristically nod to the aforementioned always absent subtlety, Lee dresses all of the characters in various shades of purple. Even the drape covering the painting Nola will reveal to the men after dinner is purple, in stark contrast from the beige and soft greens throughout the rest of her apartment. To bring the episode and season to a perfectly purple close, the cast dances around Nola’s home to “Raspberry Beret” before collapsing onto Nola’s bed, with each man disappearing and finally leaving Ms. Darling along while Prince’s rhythm guitar—punctuated by finger cymbals—strums as the scene fades.

So, what’d you think about Netflix’s She’s Gotta Have It series? Are you hoping for a second season? 

March 31, 1987: Prince released his ninth studio album, Sign O’ the Times. A double-album/two-disc Paisley Park Records collection that arrived on the heels of 1986′s Parade (which was also a March 31st release) and in between that year’s two Madhouse joints--8 (January) and 16 (November), SOTT shuttered the dramatic whimsy of its predecessor in favor of solid, rock steady funk, soul, and social commentary. The album was met with immediate critical acclaim, delivered four chart-topping singles (the title track, “U Got the Look” featuring Scottish pop star Sheena Easton, “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” and “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man”), enjoyed an impressive run on the Billboard 200 chart, and was certified platinum by the RIAA. SOTT received multiple Grammy nominations in 1988, including Album of the Year and Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance by a Group or Duo for “U Got the Look.” An accompanying full-length concert film hit theaters in November, giving stateside fans an opportunity to experience the album live since the Sign O’ the Times tour was a strictly European affair.

Frequently cited as the last official Revolution album and a stark transition between the outgoing and incoming musical personnel (Wendy, Lisa, and Bobby Z. were on their way out [Dr. Fink and Brown Mark remained], while Miko Weaver, Sheila E., Levy Seacer, Jr., Eric Leeds, Atlanta Bliss, dancer Cat Glover, vocalist/keyboard player Boni Boyer, and Wally Safford and Greg Brooks would make up the band featured in the movie; longtime collaborators Susannah Melvoin and Jill Jones were also featured on the album but not in the film), SOTT marks both the end of an era and the inaugural outing of the new sounds and visuals Prince would cultivate throughout the latter part of the 1980s. Having dominated the first part of the decade and, depending on whom you ask, peaked with 1984′s Purple Rain, SOTT moved in an unapologetically different direction than even his immediate post-Purple Rain album, Around the World in a Day. Conceptually, thematically, aesthetically, SOTT was a swift departure from much of what even diehard fans had come to know of Prince’s music of the time, beginning with the album’s first single and album opener, the title track.

Disc One

Consider for a moment the times during which SOTT was released: still in the midst of the Reagan era, the AIDS crisis, inner-city (and, as more than one cultural historian has suggested, government-sanctioned) crack cocaine epidemic, the song “Sign O’ the Times” paints a grim picture of the present moment, referencing hardcore drug addiction, space shuttle disasters, the ongoing threat of nuclear war, and the pitfalls of the “me” decade. Carried by one of Prince’s slickest bass lines to date and his signature guitar riffs, the song’s narrative does more to serve as a cautionary tale than to offer even the smallest glimmer of hope. Even the seemingly nonsensical closing lyric, “Let’s fall in love, get married, have a baby/we’ll call him Nate if it’s a boy,” feels like surrender. And yet, within just a few measures, Prince encourages us to “Play in the Sunshine.”

With its obvious nod to high-energy gospel (in a similar vein as “Let’s Go Crazy” and “Delirious”), “Play in the Sunshine” is trippy, happy, joyous. Inviting us into a world where we “love all our enemies til the gorilla falls off the wall” and where “we’re not afraid to make love in the sunshine,” the album’s second track, which Prince and crew performed live on the 1987 MTV VMAs, is the perfect segue into the super-funky dance floor favorite, “Housequake.” Featuring Prince’s alter-ego, Camille, on lead vocals, “Housequake” is James Brown funk at its finest. It’s a party banger that still gets in one’s ass good and plenty, all these years later. 

The poetic stream of consciousness that is “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” follows, weaving a tale of a bewildered lover who, after “talkin’ stuff in a violent room/fighting with lovers past,” seeks the wisdom and comfort of “someone with a quicker wit.” He stumbles upon a waitress, Dorothy, who invites him to take a bubble bath while they listen to Joni Mitchell after serving him fruit cocktail. He obliges, but refuses to remove his trousers because, well, he’s “kinda goin’ with someone.” Dorothy is unfazed, and the song is a brilliant mix of melancholy and muted keys, intricate drum loops, and slippery-sounding bass.

Because no Prince album is an official Prince album without sex--and lots of it, “It” storms in to shake us from our relatively subdued vibe. Damn near screeching in a most plaintive way, Prince unabashedly lays out his love for “doin’ it,” “in the bed, on the stairs, anywhere.” Alright.

Possibly one his sweetest songs ever, “Starfish and Coffee” is the true story of a real little girl, Cynthia Rose, as told to Prince by the song’s co-writer, Susannah Melvoin. A simple ode to childhood innocence, wonder, and imagination, the song is an instant mood lifter sure to bring a smile to your face. 

The horn-heavy, sexy “Slow Love” is a smoldering slow jam espousing the virtues of slipping gently into a romantic movement. With strings arranged by the great Claire Fischer, this tune evokes the seductive build-up of dancing close, temperatures rising, and sweet, sweaty release.

“Hot Thing” brings back the drums, the horns, the funk, and the sweat as the second to last track on SOTT’s first disc. As the B-side for the “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” single, “Hot Thing” got an especially hot work out in the concert film, with Prince and Cat entangled in a particularly erotic dance sequence. The song also received a couple remixes by producer Shepp Pettibone, and was one of the songs featured on the soundtrack for Spike Lee’s film, Girl 6, a decade later. 

Closing out the first disc is the divine “Forever in My Life.” One of many tunes from that era said to have been inspired by his one-time fiancée, Susannah Melvoin, “Forever in My Life” opens with an insanely catchy hook before launching full-on into one of Prince’s most heartfelt declarations of love. Pouring his heart out of a driving drum beat and pulsating bass line, Prince makes it known that “there comes a time in everyone’s life when he gets tired of fooling around.” Whether a sincere marriage proposal or a unique way to say “I’m ready to get serious,” the song absolutely goes down as one of his dopest. Don’t believe me? Peep the video below. Them harmonies, chile!

(Meet me back here tomorrow for part 2!)

Prince’s critically-acclaimed Sign O’ the Times first graced our eardrums on March 31, 1987, and has been rocking us thusly ever since. The album’s first disc (or, if you’re truly ol’ skool, sides one and two of the first record) starts off with one of Prince’s most politically jarring tunes of the decade (possibly beating out Dirty Mind’s anti-war anthem “Party Up” and Controversy’s Cold War post-punk gem, “Ronnie Talk 2 Russia”) and closes with perhaps one of his most openly vulnerable love songs to date. It’s only right--and Princely--for the second disc to kick into high gear with an ode to the beautiful ones, “U Got the Look.”

Disc Two

With a vocal assist from ‘80s pop phenom Sheena Easton (who had earned herself quite a following earlier in the decade with gorgeous tunes like “Morning Train,” “For Your Eyes Only,” and “Almost Over You;” and whose good girl image got a purple makeover when Prince [as Alexander Nevermind] penned the salaciously marvelous and controversial “Sugar Walls” for her 1984 release, A Private Heaven), Camille makes another appearance sharing leads on this Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper. Taking us through the splendid story of boy meeting girl in “the World Series of love,” “U Got the Look” finds our darling Prince/Camille being awakened by a pretty thing as she walks in, and the chase ensues. (Was he asleep in the club though?) Crucial.

As the ugly lights click on and Prince and his object of affection fade into the next track, Camille sticks around for the album’s second single, “If I Was Your Girlfriend.” As Camille pleads to be loved with the kind of intimacy women often reserve for and share with their closest girlfriends, the song’s slinky, hypnotic groove more than hints at its lyrical preoccupation with gender fluidity and traditional, heteronormative roles. R&B trio TLC released a well-received version of the song on their multi-platinum album, 1994′s Crazy Sexy Cool, but for many a die hard Prince fan the song didn’t quite work precisely because the whole point of it was how the male/masculine narrative questioned long-held notions and concepts of gender and identity. 

Track three on disc two, “Strange Relationship,” was originally recorded in the early ‘80s and initially intended for the ambitious but ultimately shelved Dream Factory album. A Wendy and Lisa-produced Middle Eastern-inspired iteration of the song, complete with sitar and finger cymbals, made it onto Dream Factory and can certainly be found in die hard fans’ collections, but the final version for SOTT falls comfortably into the funk/soul vibe of the album. “Strange Relationship” is the aural poster child for dysfunctional partnerships everywhere: “Baby, I just can’t stand 2 see u happy/more than that, I hate 2 see u sad/honey if u left me I just might do something rash...” Had it been released for the first time in 2017, the song surely would’ve triggered a rash of think pieces. #HurtBae

“I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” is a slice of delicious pop rock, also originally recorded in the early ‘80s and re-worked for SOTT. In the song, Prince spins a yarn about a lovelorn woman whose raggedy ass man “left her with a baby and another one on the way,” and who is looking for a new man and wonders if he may be up to the task. Prince assures her that, while he “may be qualified for a one-night stand,” he could really never fill the space left by the one who got away. Prince admits he feels for the woman, but guarantees she wouldn’t be satisfied with the kind of hit and run situation that would probably come of their coupling.

As with any Prince album, where there is sex, there is God. For SOTT, the spiritual pivot happens towards the end of the second set, with “The Cross.” A simple melody that finds Prince crooning, “don’t die without knowing the cross,” the song’s somber acoustic instrumentation carries throughout as he tells of “ghettos 2 the left of us, flowers 2 the right” and a “sweet song of salvation a pregnant mother sings,” and promises “there’ll be bread for all of us if we can just bear the cross.” The tune climaxes as crescendoes with a gritty electric guitar pick up, classic rock drums, and a chorus of Prince’s stacked vocals before it falls softly once again at its end. In later years, once he got free and changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, he’d substitute “The Christ” for the original lyric when performing the song live, serving notice to the audience that he no longer had to hide his faith behind clever word play. 

By far the most kinetic song on the album, “It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night” was recorded live at Le Zénith in Paris with the original and expanded Revolution during the Parade tour, and overdubbed later for an even fuller sound. As Prince leads “6,000 wonderful Parisians” in the familiar “ow wee oh/ohhhh” chant while Eric Leeds and Atlanta Bliss kick off the song with the now-iconic opening horn riff (which Leeds, who composed and arranged the horn line, brilliantly transferred to a t-shirt not long after Prince’s death last year), you feel the excitement rushing through the crowd all those years ago. Sheila E.’s infamous “trans-Mississippi rap” and one of the greatest band brags of all time, Prince singing “can’t nobody fuck with us,” round out the nearly 10-minute work out.

Closing out disc 2 and the Sign O’ the Times experience is “Adore,” a sensual ballad that anyone coming of age and/or grown in the late 1980s most definitely included on their slow jams mixtape (which, of course, was an actual cassette tape). Although never released as an official single from the album, the song made its way to urban A/C Quiet Storm radio programs across the country and stands as one of Prince’s finest love songs. A perfect complement to disc one’s “Forever in My Life,” “Adore” seals the deal, promising that “until the end of time, I’ll be there 4 u.” Assuring his beloved that the angels “know u r my fix” and that he “ain’t fuckin’ just for kicks,” the song finds Prince putting in some serious work on the organ. Buoyed by stunning vocal arrangements, Eric Leeds’ sublime sax, and lyrics that simply melt one’s heart, “Adore” may reign as the star of the entire show. And in the wake of Prince’s untimely passing, the words “4 all time I am with u, u r with me” seem to take on new meaning.

Dream Factory, Camille, Crystal Ball

One of the more curious pieces of trivia surrounding the album that would become Sign O’ the Times are the albums that never came to be, but whose songs make up a significant portion of SOTT’s track listing. “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker,” “Strange Relationship,” “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man,” “Starfish and Coffee,” “Slow Love,” “Sign o’ the Times,” and “The Cross” were all originally intended for Dream Factory; the album would have been the first time Prince involved all of The Revolution members in the writing and composing process. 

The Camille album, which was to be released under the pseudonym, is said to have been pieced together not long after Prince disbanded The Revolution. Still, the album would have potentially included songs from Dream Factory that eventually wound up on SOTT. 

Crystal Ball was the original name for SOTT, and began as a three-album release that was eventually slimmed down to the two-album/two-disc set that became Sign O’ the Times. That, of course, was not the end of Crystal Ball, however. In 1998, just a little over a year after the 3-disc Emancipation release, The Artist gifted fans with a 5-disk compilation set entitled Crystal Ball whose first 3 discs contained the title track (initially meant for Dream Factory), “Dream Factory,” and a slew of previously unreleased tracks from Dream Factory (”Movie Star,” “Last Heart”) and Camille (”Good Love”); remixes and alternate versions of songs from Come (”So Dark”), tracks that didn’t make the final cut of The Gold Experience (”Rippopgodazippa,” “Acknowledge Me”), and numerous other non-album singles recorded between the mid-1980s and late ‘90s; and “Crucial,” which was intended for SOTT but swapped for “Adore.” The set’s remaining discs were the all-acoustic The Truth and the NPG Orchestra’s Kamasutra, which was billed as a ballet written for Mayte.