Curtis Mayfield - Bad Motherfucker

[Yerdaddy]

I got ahold of a couple of his songs a while back and then lost them to the music industry fascism of copyright protection. I finally got a whole album from a little digital music store here called The Boom Boom Room. For 75 cents an album I bought:

Metallica - Master of Puppets
Beck - Midnite Vultures
4 Bill Hicks albums
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
NWA - Greatest Hits
Marvin Gaye - Greatest Hits
Otis Redding - The Difinitive Collection
Robert Johnson - The Complete Recordings (not-so-complete though - they only had one disc)
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
2 Stevie Ray Vaughan
Temple of the Dog
The Clash - The Singles

and maybe a couple more. But the only thing I keep playing over and over is Curtis Mayfield. His music is so cool and funky I can't believe it's taken me 38 years to discover this cat. Pusherman, Freddie's Dead and Superfly are as honest portraits of the 70s ghetto scene as Marvin Gaye put out but Mayfield seems to be portraying the characters of the street rather than trying to inspire people to change. Maybe Mayfield's music feels more honest because his songs are so cool you feel like a pimp listening to them. And what more can you ask from music than to feel like a 1970s pimp?

This is the music that did what rappers have always claimed to be doing as a defense of their glorification of "gangsta lifestyles" - telling it like it is. Mayfield and Gaye didn't glorify the ills of the ghetto like rappers have done, (and they never cashed in on it anywhere near the way rappers have done). And the music is better.

So big big ups to The Superfly. Better late than never.


i'm your mamma, i'm your daddy
i'm that nigga in the alley
i'm your doctor, when in need
want some coke, have some weed
you know me, i'm your friend
your main boy, thick and thin
i'm your pusherman
i'm your pusherman

haha

ain't i clean, bad machine
super cool, super mean
feelin' good, for the man
Superfly, here i stand
secret stash, heavy bread
baddest bitches, in the bed

i'm your pusherman
i'm your pusherman
i'm your pusherman

solid life, of crime
a man of odd circumstance
a victim of ghetto demands
feed me money for [style]
and i'll let you trip for a while
insecure from the past
how long can a good thing last?
woo-hoo, no
got to be mellow, y'all
gotta get mellow now
pusherman gettin' mellow y'all

heavy mind, have you signed?
makin' money all the time
my [LD] entrusts me
for all junkies to see
ghetto prince is my thing
makin' love's how i swing
i'm your pusherman
i'm your pusherman
huh

too bad, [Splee]
for a generous fee
make your world what you want it to be
got a woman i love desperately
wanna give her something better than me
been told i can't be nothin' else
just a hustler in spite of myself
i know i can rake it
this life just don't make it
lord, lord
got to get mellow now
gotta be mellow, y'all
got to get mellow now

i'm your mamma, i'm your daddy
i'm that nigga in the alley
i'm your doctor, when in need
want some coke, have some weed
you know me, i'm your friend
your man boy, thick and thin
i'm your pusherman
i'm your pusherman

[A.J.]

"People Get Ready" may be one of the greatest songs ever written.

Sad how his last years ended. He was paralyzed in a freak accident while performing onstage and then lost a leg to diabetes.

[ChimneyFish]

Pusherman is one of the smoothest songs there is.

I bought Superfly on VHS years back.
Haven't watched it in awhile, though. Thanks for the reminder.

[TheMojoPin]

"SISTERS!!!"

"NIGGERS!"

"WHITEYS!"

"JEWS!"

"CRACKERS!"

"Don't worry...if there's a Hell below...we're ALL gonna go!"

Mayfield was the man.

[RoyMunson]

Move On Up is a great song

[TheMojoPin]

Bran Van 300 was a bunch of worthless Canadian hippies with a pile of samples who pretended to be a "band" for a few years and failed on about every possible level, but they did pull a gem out of their asses when they worked with Curtis Mayfield on his last song ever before he died, "Astounded." (http://youtube.com/watch?v=pmPViX7Hu58http://)

[Yerdaddy]

"People Get Ready" may be one of the greatest songs ever written.

My disc doesn't have that one - can someone send it to me?

[bobrobot]

My disc doesn't have that one - can someone send it to me?

"People Get Ready" was a 1965 single by The Impressions (that may be the prob, even tho Curtis wrote the song & was the star of the group).

"Curtis/Live!" is one of the purest & most beautiful live albums I've ever experienced!!!

http://www.soundscapehifi.com/images/curtis-live_LRG.jpg

He's a wah wah pedal maestro!!!