The more important similarity is the democracy of voices that both Sly and AD frontman, Speech, manage to balance. Rhythm sections, horns, bass and vocals share the spotlight and borrow language from one another. Arrested Development introduce a conversational style that blends gospel, blues, hip-hop and reggae. The instantly recognizable scat opening on "People Everyday" greets Caribbean-toms and builds over the course of the album to a call and response between, horns, backup vocalists and "the ghost of childhood." Singing along as a 12-year old in suburban Connecticut, this album was my introduction to the idea that there were a lot of American stories I hadn't heard.
A few of you have probably seen the dude who stands outside First Ave in the winter asking for exiting concert goers to sign his coat and spare a dollar or two. The other night he was outside Tracy's on Franklin asking for signatures and a favorite song on his t-shirt. (And a dollar or two.) And I thought, hey, I know this guy! I've got a dollar! I said hello and signed his shirt. We did not exchange knowledge for shoes, but we did smile about Sam Cooke. ("You have put a maestro on my shirt!") I walked away thinking "to give him money isn't charity." Critics dismiss this as naive, self-satisfied personal politics, and they have a point. Nothing here is as biting as Sly's "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey." Mr. Wendal is a friend with new shoes! We are not exactly fucking the police. I memorized the song from KISS 95-POINT-7's nightly Top 7 at 7.
A few of you have probably seen the dude who stands outside First Ave in the winter asking for exiting concert goers to sign his coat and spare a dollar or two. The other night he was outside Tracy's on Franklin asking for signatures and a favorite song on his t-shirt. (And a dollar or two.) And I thought, hey, I know this guy! I've got a dollar! I said hello and signed his shirt. We did not exchange knowledge for shoes, but we did smile about Sam Cooke. ("You have put a maestro on my shirt!") I walked away thinking "to give him money isn't charity." Critics dismiss this as naive, self-satisfied personal politics, and they have a point. Nothing here is as biting as Sly's "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey." Mr. Wendal is a friend with new shoes! We are not exactly fucking the police. I memorized the song from KISS 95-POINT-7's nightly Top 7 at 7.
For all of the white teenagers who probably did the same thing, politically we were not exactly the intended audience. Speech's lyrics sound a clear call for African unity, and the music itself sounds an even more specific call for black communities to resolve a tension that emerged from the successes of the civil rights movement. The experience of discrimination in America's northern states challenged the notion that a slave could find liberation in the West. Craig Werner explains, "the symbolic West - the place of exile - and the symbolic South - the place of slavery - are the same place. What's different is the self-understanding of the black people living there. Are you an exile or are you a slave?"
This was Jamaican Reggae's specific response to the gospel ascensions of Curtis Mayfield's and Marvin Gaye's American Soul. Per Werner, "the centrality of Africa in reggae was the primary difference between the soul music of the sixties and seventies and the reggae of the same period. As long as black Americans and black Jamaicans focused on the hardships of daily life, the visions ran close together." But politically and spiritually their paths to redemption pointed in different directions. American Soul sang the slave's journey north to freedom. Jamaican Reggae sang the exile's journey home.
This was Jamaican Reggae's specific response to the gospel ascensions of Curtis Mayfield's and Marvin Gaye's American Soul. Per Werner, "the centrality of Africa in reggae was the primary difference between the soul music of the sixties and seventies and the reggae of the same period. As long as black Americans and black Jamaicans focused on the hardships of daily life, the visions ran close together." But politically and spiritually their paths to redemption pointed in different directions. American Soul sang the slave's journey north to freedom. Jamaican Reggae sang the exile's journey home.
These are the spiritual politics of AD's "People Everyday", a reggae-rap rewrite of one of the most famous and most idealistic songs in American Soul. Speech explicitly brings the divergent voices into conversation. Answering Sly's familiar chorus he lays out the choice facing everyday people everyday:
that's the story y'all, of a black man
This choice, not the choice to spare $2, is the one also at the heart of "Mr. Wendal." Mr. Wendal is only a bum by the terms of a quick-to-diss society. Even in the North he is a no-one, though he remains a "human by flesh." He enjoys a spiritual "freedom that you and I think is dumb" only by enduring the physical conditions of exile. For Speech, to know Mr. Wendal is to know his own history. This is why giving money isn't charity. They belong to a united African diaspora.
On "Tennessee" Speech considers the alternative. He asks the Lord to direct him home but on his ensuing journey south he only breaks "outta the country and into more country." He finds roots only in the trees his forefathers hung from, growing in shallow soil next to watermelons viney with memory. Speech tells the Lord: "I am still thirsty." Dionne Farris closes the song with a haunting gospel moan that adopts the exile's freedom cry, "won't you please take me home?" She cannot mean North and she cannot mean South. "Take me to another place. Take me to another land." Middle schoolers in West Hartford only sang along.
that's the story y'all, of a black man
acting like a nigga and get stomped by an African
This choice, not the choice to spare $2, is the one also at the heart of "Mr. Wendal." Mr. Wendal is only a bum by the terms of a quick-to-diss society. Even in the North he is a no-one, though he remains a "human by flesh." He enjoys a spiritual "freedom that you and I think is dumb" only by enduring the physical conditions of exile. For Speech, to know Mr. Wendal is to know his own history. This is why giving money isn't charity. They belong to a united African diaspora.
On "Tennessee" Speech considers the alternative. He asks the Lord to direct him home but on his ensuing journey south he only breaks "outta the country and into more country." He finds roots only in the trees his forefathers hung from, growing in shallow soil next to watermelons viney with memory. Speech tells the Lord: "I am still thirsty." Dionne Farris closes the song with a haunting gospel moan that adopts the exile's freedom cry, "won't you please take me home?" She cannot mean North and she cannot mean South. "Take me to another place. Take me to another land." Middle schoolers in West Hartford only sang along.
A conversation between soul and reggae in the early-90s may have been naive. In hindsight it seems especially egregious for AD to have been so eagerly dismissive of the harder gangsta-blues that resonated with many black Americans. What is naive, however, was also empowering, especially to white suburban adolescents and other people who haven't been explicitly disempowered. Hearing how simple things - like buying shoes or staying calm or simply listening - can make an important difference in another person's life is a powerful message at twelve, when nothing you do seems to really matter. Plus Speech was a "fashion misfit" -- just like me! His politics begin as the politics of careful listening. His music is a celebration of human complexity. 3 Years... is the after-church sound of backyard introductions, children and conversation. Anyone buying Mr. Wendal a pair of shoes starts by asking for his size.
