Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

                                                                                                            "We eat fish, tossed salad/and make rap ballads"                                                                       --- Fish (1996)  Every time I hear a Ghostface Killah song I long for the days of sample-based hip hop.  Nearly 30 years ago, Bad Boy Records took hits from the eighties and made them sound crazy. On the flipside of the label's celebratory champagne-soaked anthems was Wu-Tang Clan's epic street sagas set to vintage Sixties and Seventies soul samples.  Below the surface of the Wu's catalog, you'll find more than songs in the key of trife. Beneath the grit and grime of their rhymes you'll 360 degrees of the human condition. While each Clan member displayed moments of wearing their heart on their Avirex sleeves, it's Dennis Coles aka Ghostface Killah who's most masterful and prolific.  Known for delivering storytell

  Am I eternal or eternalist? Rakim's rhetorical reflection from 1988's Follow The Leader finds the God MC pondering his place in hip-hop history. While Ra's legacy is solidified, rap's historical highlight reel moves at the speed of light, omitting major players of the game. Jalil Hutchins is one of those major players. Many don't know the name but they know at least one of the classics that sprang from  his mighty pen and fertile mind that are part of the Great American Rap and Black Music Songbook.  To put things in perspective; to all the outsiders reading this essay---think Gershwin and Berlin. For those in the know--- think Sly Stone. Smokey Robinson. Gamble and Huff.  Many emcees had hot lines. Jalil had hot songs: " Friends". "One Love". "Freaks Come Out At Night". "Five Minutes of Funk". These songs inspired two decades of R&B and hip-hop samples,  remakes, and interpolations.  Go to whosampled.com  and sip from J