Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

  In a scene from the 1975 cinema classic Cooley High,  basketball prodigy Cochise (played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and his crew bum-rush a quarter party nestled deep in a rough-and-tumble section of Chicago's Near North Side. Peeling off his varsity jacket, 'Chise makes a beeline for the record player as teen-aged girls squeal with joy and jockey for his attention.  Lumdi, lumdi la........lumdi, lumdi la....  Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' "Mickey's Monkey" moves the crowd like pieces on a chessboard. In a split second----Cochise ends their joyful romp.  Wallflowers and dancers groan with frustration. Their groove has just been disturbed.  Strains of Smokey's "Ooh Baby, Baby" now fill the room. Cochise barks out an order: just turn off the lights!  From dimly lit basements, cellars, and rec-rooms, sexy slow drags sweet harmonies, and love affirmations of R&B vocal groups transported couples to a romantic oasis that was a world away from...

  Dig deep in rap’s archival history and you'll unearth many watershed moments. One of them is undoubtedly the release of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s 1982 single  The Message   forty years ago this month. Painting panoramic scenes of urban blight and decay,  The Message pushed  rap beyond typical party-hearty themes that  resonated  with listeners.  I was 13 years old when the record dropped. In my mind's eye, I can still see Furious Five lead emcee Melle Mell on Soul Train  menacingly wielding a baseball bat. His depiction of dopefiends with larceny in their cold hearts was chilling:  Junkies in the alley with the baseball bat...... Reveling in its vividness I committed the song to memory. It was next-level freshness. Young rap fans like me loved it.  Older listeners weaned on Gil Scott-Heron or The Last Poets' would connect the dots and lavish praise.  Rap records were arriving at a dizzying pace. While the E...