Eulogy for Black Caesar: James Brown, 1933–2006Here's a great obit of James Brown in this week's Village Voice by Greg Tate.
This man could sum up the modern Black condition and modern Black gender relations in two or three declarative sentences: "I don't care about your past/I just want our love to last. . . . I don't care about your wants/I just want to tell you about the dos and don'ts. . . . When you kiss me and ya miss me/You hold me tight/Make everything alright/I break out—in a cold sweat." You could fish a whole August Wilson play out of those lines, with their naked, scary promise of unconditional love and inflexible control, their spooked response to a sexual charge, their punch-drunk fervor thrown down before his intended like damnation and salvation will be delivered by the same hand. Girl, you heard the man: Get up off that thang, dance to the music, and put your foot on the rock.
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