"When life means much to you, why live for dying? If you are doing right, why are you crying"
Black Panthers, drug addiction, racism, copious amounts of money and loose women. Those were the times in the 70's. That's what was going on around Sly and The Family Stone, all of it. The band was on the verge of breaking up and had added and dropped members several times. They had only released two previously recorded songs in a two year period. They were missing concerts. The label was trying to figure out how to cut it's losses because they didn't expect another album. Out of all of this, There's A Riot Goin' On was born.
First off, the album has horrible quality. I mean that in a sense of the recordings are horrible. In some places you can't even understand what Sly is saying. This was because nobody recorded in the same session. Instead they used over dubbing. Sly would do the vocals and they would record guitars over that. Followed by drum machines over that, but the drum machines didn't sound real so they were stripped and replaced with live drums. This continued until the original vocals degraded to the point of no return. This makes it a very dark and gritty album. Sure the instrumentals help with that gritty sound, even featuring a few purely instrumental tracks on the album.
The album received a lot of accolades like being one of the greatest soul albums of all time. I find that funny because it's not even a soul album. There's no sense of the previous soul songs that Sly and The Family had been previously known for. There were no more happy lyrics. Happy lyrics about love were replaced with songs about fighting the devil and succumbing to drug addiction. There's not an ounce of soul on this album. Instead it leans heavily on rock and funk genres. I'd go far enough to state it's one of the earliest examples of funk if not the earliest.
There's not a happy moment on the album. The track "Smilin" is about getting high and not wanting to come down. It's not about the importance of staying away from hard drugs it's about why people do them. It's why they enjoy them. It makes sense considering how high Sly most likely was when he wrote this. The crack epidemic was in full swing at this point. Sly who had previously aligned himself with Black Panthers had hired security to keep them away from him, because they wanted him to stop the drug use and sing more about the black community. It's not a song about the black community being ravaged by drugs, it's about people get high.
Even the single "Family Affair," is incredibly depressing. It's about two kids who grow up as brothers. One goes on to live a nice life on the legal side. One goes through the illegal side. The mother loves them both but they don't love each other. Instead one is looking down on the other and the other is looking at him like a sell out. The family affair isn't a happy cookout it's a prizefight match up.
"Thank You For Talking To Me Africa," samples the original track "Thank You." People always thinks he's says "Thank you for letting me be myself," but he really says "mice elf." I still haven't figured out what a mouse elf is, but I do know what's in the track. It's a track filled with commentary on urban decay, Sly's feelings of paranoia, the prevalence of racism and anything else facing the black community at the time. It's almost ten minutes long and calls out fans, labels, politicians and everyone else.
Earlier I talked about the importance of Nas' song "Life's A Bitch." This entire album proves that's true. Nas raps "life's a bitch and then you die," that's what this album is. There's no sense of positivity in it. It's a portrait of why life sucks and why it's going to keep sucking. There's no hope of fame saving anyone from all their problems. Sure you've got money and fame, but you're still black and disrespected, except now you've got a drug problem. Yes, music got you out of a terrible predicament but now record labels and Black Panthers want to tell you what to make.
It's not an important album because it gives some kind of message about staying positive as a black person. It's a vivid depiction of what black people felt like at the time. The black community was ripped in half. Then crack was sprinkled on the wound. The Black Panthers tried to pull it back together and got hit with a mountain of coke. It looked that was it, it looked like the black community was done. This was just the audible version of that feeling.
Feel free to follow along with our Black Music Month Series
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
Follow @OriginalKingD
First off, the album has horrible quality. I mean that in a sense of the recordings are horrible. In some places you can't even understand what Sly is saying. This was because nobody recorded in the same session. Instead they used over dubbing. Sly would do the vocals and they would record guitars over that. Followed by drum machines over that, but the drum machines didn't sound real so they were stripped and replaced with live drums. This continued until the original vocals degraded to the point of no return. This makes it a very dark and gritty album. Sure the instrumentals help with that gritty sound, even featuring a few purely instrumental tracks on the album.
The album received a lot of accolades like being one of the greatest soul albums of all time. I find that funny because it's not even a soul album. There's no sense of the previous soul songs that Sly and The Family had been previously known for. There were no more happy lyrics. Happy lyrics about love were replaced with songs about fighting the devil and succumbing to drug addiction. There's not an ounce of soul on this album. Instead it leans heavily on rock and funk genres. I'd go far enough to state it's one of the earliest examples of funk if not the earliest.
There's not a happy moment on the album. The track "Smilin" is about getting high and not wanting to come down. It's not about the importance of staying away from hard drugs it's about why people do them. It's why they enjoy them. It makes sense considering how high Sly most likely was when he wrote this. The crack epidemic was in full swing at this point. Sly who had previously aligned himself with Black Panthers had hired security to keep them away from him, because they wanted him to stop the drug use and sing more about the black community. It's not a song about the black community being ravaged by drugs, it's about people get high.Even the single "Family Affair," is incredibly depressing. It's about two kids who grow up as brothers. One goes on to live a nice life on the legal side. One goes through the illegal side. The mother loves them both but they don't love each other. Instead one is looking down on the other and the other is looking at him like a sell out. The family affair isn't a happy cookout it's a prizefight match up.
"Thank You For Talking To Me Africa," samples the original track "Thank You." People always thinks he's says "Thank you for letting me be myself," but he really says "mice elf." I still haven't figured out what a mouse elf is, but I do know what's in the track. It's a track filled with commentary on urban decay, Sly's feelings of paranoia, the prevalence of racism and anything else facing the black community at the time. It's almost ten minutes long and calls out fans, labels, politicians and everyone else.
Earlier I talked about the importance of Nas' song "Life's A Bitch." This entire album proves that's true. Nas raps "life's a bitch and then you die," that's what this album is. There's no sense of positivity in it. It's a portrait of why life sucks and why it's going to keep sucking. There's no hope of fame saving anyone from all their problems. Sure you've got money and fame, but you're still black and disrespected, except now you've got a drug problem. Yes, music got you out of a terrible predicament but now record labels and Black Panthers want to tell you what to make.
It's not an important album because it gives some kind of message about staying positive as a black person. It's a vivid depiction of what black people felt like at the time. The black community was ripped in half. Then crack was sprinkled on the wound. The Black Panthers tried to pull it back together and got hit with a mountain of coke. It looked that was it, it looked like the black community was done. This was just the audible version of that feeling.
Feel free to follow along with our Black Music Month Series
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
Follow @OriginalKingD
