Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

  Michael Jackson has long dominated GOAT talk. Current opinions suggest otherwise, citing Beyoncé and Chris Brown's career durability as justification to supplant the King of Pop's long-standing reign.  It's a conversational coup that deserves to be toppled.  In a rare moment of self-celebration, Jackson encapsulated his career in a 2001Vibe Magazine piece: "Its a rarity. I had number one records in 1969 and '70. I entered the charts at number one in 2001. I don't think any other artist has had that kind of range." Seven years later, Jackson was dead at 50: eighteen  days shy of an ambitious 50-date farewell UK tour before walking off into the sunset (with his lucrative publishing catalog), having secured the bag, solidifying his triumphant destiny.  Jackson's legacy is unprecedented. His gravitational reach far.  Tap dance icons Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly---members of the Lost Generation and the Greatest Generation demographic born before the advent...

                                                                "But if you can still hold onto what is yourself, that part of me that makes me Roberta and does not make me Chaka or Anita ... I'm going to hold on to that no matter what, and I'm going to nourish and cherish and nurture that and strengthen that."   Roberta Flack’s confident occupation of her creative space, captured in a 1989 Washington Post (“Roberta Flack; Charting Her Own Course") interview among the pantheon of Black female vocalists, evokes the title of one of her classic albums: quiet fire. There’s no one like her: traces of Minnie Riperton’s ethereal poetry live on in Jill Scott’s airy word-speak. Aretha’s litanies of longing are precursors of sorts to Mary J. Blige’s own heartache homilies. A young Evelyn King’s pairing with producers T. Life and...

                       Best known to the world as a member of the prolific Bad Boy Hitman production team that crafted hits dominating 90s radio,  Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence enjoyed an earlier life as one-half of rap duo Two Kings In A Cipher (TKO).  Creating the beats and sharing microphone duties with partner Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, TKO's debut album From Pyramids to Projects introduced metaphysical and Egyptology/Kemetic concepts to rap music.  Lost in the shuffle of like-minded releases for Brand Nubian, X-Clan, Public Enemy and KRS-One, Pyramids received a brief write-up in an October 1991 issue of  The Source but came and went without fanfare.   As Souls of Black Notes explores the era of conscious rhyme, Lawrence goes back in time. Quick to give credit to those who came before--he also makes a clear distinction between what separates TKO from the rest of the rap Black pack . ...