Although the song has a lead vocal by Brown (who also wrote the tune and the lyrics), the recording is credited to "Fred Wesley & The J.B.'s". It was the first J.B.'s recording to feature saxophonist Maceo Parker, who had returned to work with Brown again after attempting a career as a bandleader. "Doing It to Death" contains an uncommon key change in which Brown tells the band to modulate downward from F to D ("In order for me to get down, I have to get down in D"). Composers who place key changes in tunes typically have them modulate upwards. Unusually for a James Brown song, the actual words "doing it to death" appear nowhere in the song's lyrics, which feature the hook "we're gonna have a funky good time." The title came from a figure of speech Brown heard Wesley use.

Fela Kuti was often described as "the James Brown of Africa," but one could also argue that he was Africa's equivalent of Miles Davis or John Coltrane. Truth be told, either description is valid. Kuti was highly eclectic, and his innovative, visionary music contained elements of funk/soul, jazz, and blues, as well as African music. That eclectic spirit proves to be a major asset on Shakara, which consists of two 13-minute performances by Kuti's Africa 70 band: "Lady" and "Shakara (Oloie)." Performed in English, "Lady" finds Kuti criticizing modern African women in a humorous way for becoming what he sees as overly westernized and embracing a western view of feminism.

Spotted by legendary producer, Odion Iruoje, and nurtured by his protege, Alex Tony Okoroji, Joe Moks pioneered a wonky, hi-tech style of funk that would become the sound of 80s Nigeria. Her album Boys And Girls is brash, bouncy and fun, decorated by scatty synth lines and propelled by the ‘magic hand claps’ of Nigerian rhythm legends Steve Black, Goddy Igidigi and Ifi Okwechime. The title track and ‘You Look Without Seeing’ are spaced-out party starters. ‘ Joe Moks only made one album. She made a few appearances on Victor Uwaifo’s TV show before becoming a professor of Music and Theatre Arts at the University of Benin. But forty years on, Boys And Girls remains a lesson in fun and intelligent Nigerian boogie. - Peter Moore

Gal Costa is the first solo album by the Brazilian singer Gal Costa, released in 1969. Considered one of the most representative records of the countercultural Tropicália movement, the album features songwriting by various artist associated with the movement, with whom Costa had previously worked with in the 1968 collaboration album Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis. These include Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Torquato Neto.

Three days after the release of Innervisions in the summer of 1973, Stevie Wonder’s life and career would be altered by a serious car accident in North Carolina. He was a sleeping passenger in a rented Mercury Cruiser — driven by his cousin John Wesley Harris — on his way to Durham, where he was planning to headline a concert to benefit WAFR-FM, a local Black radio station. The car was behind a truck carrying logs; the driver of the truck hit the brakes, causing both vehicles to collide. The accident resulted in Stevie, who was 23 at the time, being in a coma for four days and temporarily losing his sense of taste and smell. (He also left the accident with a large scar on his head.) He was able to endure a few weeks of rehabilitation and regain and his senses, and a few months later, he emerged with a renewed sense of purpose. Despite being setback by his accident, Stevie starting recording. And by early 1974 he was performing again, playing gigs in Europe. While he was crafting his next album, he split time between the Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles and Electric Lady Studios in New York City. And again he was working alongside producers and engineers Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil. The three revolutionized the sound of popular music through their usage of The Original New Timbral Orchestra (TONTO), the largest multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world, built by Cecil. The TONTO was the backbone of Music of My Mind and Talking Book in 1972 and Innervisions in 1973. Through utilizing the insightful, cutting-edge recording techniques of Cecil and Margouleff, Wonder’s otherworldly talents were given the opportunity to shine on wax once again. Because of his prolific output, Wonder toyed with the idea of releasing his latest piece of work as a double album. His idea was met with resistance by the Motown Records’ brass. He relented to the label’s wishes and selected 10 songs for the album. The subject matter of the songs showcased his poignant lyricism on topics ranging from deep int

Apocalypse 91 was recorded at The Mix Palace in Long Island, New York and produced by The Bomb Squad and The Imperial Grand Ministers of Funk, which consisted of producers Stuart Robertz (fictional), Cerwin "C-Dawg" Depper (fictional), Gary "G-Wiz" Rinaldo, and The JBL.[5] The album title is an allusion to the titles of the films Apocalypse Now and The Empire Strikes Back. The group would take a new direction with their sound, partly out of necessity. According to Hank Shocklee, around this time, the disks for every track they had been working on for the past four to five years had been stolen. As a result, they had to rush to re-create their music and to put out their album in a timely manner. Shocklee admitted that it was impossible to completely recover what they had lost, saying "once you lose all your data, it's very difficult to get that data back...you may get some of it back, but you'll never get the complete set. You won't even know what the complete set is, because there's data in there you didn't really know you had." In retrospect, he believed the loss "stunted [Public Enemy's] growth. We never really recovered after that. We was on a roll—I was on a roll, and to lose that material set me back so hard." As a result, the sound was a little leaner than the dense production of their previous albums, and live musicians became a prominent element as well.

Writing for The Quietus, Angus Batey summed up the album's broad appeal: The Low End Theory took Tribe to that fabled "next level" hip hop acts always bang on about by performing the trick every authenticity-obsessed artist most dearly wants to execute. They crossed over without selling out – in fact, they crossed over while retrenching. Contrary to what [Barry] Weiss and colleagues thought at the time, ...Low End... is harder-edged, darker, and, in terms of its adherence to established hip hop codes, actually a little bit conservative ... The record became beloved of fundamentalist b-boys because it rooted itself firmly in the music's core sonic, conceptual, lyrical and artistic values, yet managed to increase the band's appeal to listeners who generally shunned rap for sonic or ideological reasons. Here was a group from a still outsider genre, uniting hardcore fans and curious outsiders by making music that worried more about integrity, commitment, creativity and resolve than it did appealing to the mainstream.

The Feminization of Society by Yoko Ono 1972 Female liberation has now become the talk of the world. Talk is welcome as long as it does not lead to dead‐end cynicism. Public fuss over the issue is all right as long as it does not divert one's attention from the real effort to gain freedom. The feminist movement feces this danger now. The majority of men greeted the movement with a condescending and receiving smile, while the newspapers picked up the issue as an ideal space filler. Unless women become More strongly aware of what is really happening and start to transform the issue into a serious revolution, the movement will fade away as another happening of the decade. We must not let it die. We have to keep on going until the whole of the female race is freed. The major change in the contemporary woman's revolution is the issue of lesbianism. Lesbianism, initially, had a positive influence on female liberation. It helped women realize that they didn't necessarily have to rely on men for relationships. They had an alternative to spending 90 per cent of their lives waiting for, finding and living for men. But the alternative of building her life around another female or females wasn't very liberating. Some sisters learned to love women more deeply through lesbianism, but others simply went after their sisters in the same manner that Inge chauvinists did. The ultimate goal of feniale liberation is not just an escape from male oppression. How about liberating ourselves from our various mind trips such as ignorance, greed, masochism, fear of God and social conventions? Lesbianism, to many, was a means to express rebellion toward the existing society through sexual freedom. In that sense, it worked. But we find our minds unfocused from lesbianism when we face the problem of procreation and child care. It's hard to dismiss. the importance of paternal influence

The album was discovered as a single cassette tape in Prince's vault at Paisley Park. The music was recorded in one take in 1983 at Prince's Kiowa Trail home studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota. The session is nearly 35 minutes of Prince's vocals while he played piano and segued between songs.[10][11] The session includes alternative versions of previously released and yet-to-be released songs, cover versions, and sketches of songs.

Lonnie Holley was born on February 10, 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama. From the age of five, Holley worked various jobs: picking up trash at a drive-in movie theatre, washing dishes, and cooking. He lived in a whiskey house, on the state fairgrounds, and in several foster homes. His early life was chaotic and Holley was never afforded the pleasure of a real childhood. Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events. Holley did not start making and performing music in a studio nor does his creative process mirror that of the typical musician. His music and lyrics are improvised on the spot and morph and evolve with every event, concert, and recording. In Holley’s original art environment, he would construct and deconstruct his visual works, repurposing their elements for new pieces. This often led to the transfer of individual narratives into the new work creating a cumulative composite image that has depth and purpose beyond its original singular meaning. The layers of sound in Holley’s music, likewise, are the result of decades of evolving experimentation. “Just Before Music” features Holley’s first studio recordings made in 2010 and 2011.

From the 1970 documentary film by Black Journal, Love Supreme. This 16mm film is a documentary segment focusing on the life of Alice Coltrane and her children in the wake of the death of her husband, famed jazz magician John Coltrane. The 16mm color film print is a short documentary made for a segment of National Education Television's Black Journal television program. The segment focuses on the life of Alice Coltrane and her children in the wake of the death of her husband, famed jazz musician John Coltrane. This film was shot sometime during 1970; three years after the death of John Coltrane. This film opens with a collage of photos of jazz musician John Coltrane with a voice-over of a male narrator communicating the musical genius and personal demeanor of the renowned music artist. The voice-over ends with an open-ended statement on John Coltrane's family, leading into an interview with his wife, Alice Coltrane. Alice Coltrane discusses the influence her late husband has had on her life, both musically and spiritually. She speaks of him being a spiritual person, although not tied to one organized religion, his vegetarian diet, and how he carved time out of his days to meditate. There is footage of their children playing in the yard and walking with their mother. Alice plays the harp and talks about how her music is a manifestation of her spirituality. She discusses her musical career and how she balances that with being a mother and paying tribute to her late husband, but also not wanting to be defined as an extension of John Coltrane's music. Instead, when she finds herself playing some of the music he wrote, she sees herself as sharing in what he produced throughout his career. Footage of her playing the piano at a small jazz concert with a few other musicians plays for two minutes. In the final minutes of the segment, Alice Coltrane explains her relationship with a higher power and the personal enlightenment she has felt and gained through meditation. The film ends with a dolly-out/zoom-out long shot d