Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

  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...

                                 "Earth rotates/time won't stop/lyrics on vicious beats/ I drop"  ---Ecstasy "Day to Day" (1991) As 2020 fades into the abyss, it refuses to go peacefully. Intent on snatching as many souls as possible, this year's treacherous reach has no limitations. Hemingway's somber ode to fatality comes to mind: "any mans death diminishes me , because I am involved in Mankinde ; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee ." Paired with ominous keys (replayed on Whodini's 1986 How Dare You) from Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor (skip to 16:42 ), Hemingway and Chopin's unlikely union make for a chilling soundtrack. This time the bell tolls for John "Ecstacy" Fletcher, one third of hip hop supergroup Whodini.  Before Jay-Z, Kane, and Biggie, it was Whodini were Brooklyn's original Kings of New York. Thriving in the mid-...

                                                                                             " All I hear is platinum that, platinum this/platinum whips, nobody got no platinum hits"                                                                                        ---Mase                                                                         ...