Fight The Power: the 70s conscious soul renaissance

1) Historical background: slavery; segregation; the 60s Civil Rights Movement; Watts riots (1965); Martin Luther King; Detroit riot (1967); Malcolm X; Black Power; Black Panthers; relationship to world politics, Cold War etc.
1960s conscious soul precursors: Odetta, Nina Simone (from 1964).
The Motown and soul production system: factories for pop.
1968 as pivotal year: The Impressions politicised; James Brown’s contradictory politics (‘Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’; supporting Richard Nixon); Sly and the Family Stone’s psychedelic soul; Norman Whitfield’s uneasy radicalisation of pop act, The Temptations

2) The 1970s heyday (sessions 2 and 3). Opposed by executives, we will look at several key albums from four creative visionaries. Socially conscious lyrics, musical sophistication and innovation combined to produce high-points not just in soul but in music.
Curtis Mayfield, Curtis (1970), Superfly (1972) and There’s No Place Like America Today (1975)
Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On (1971)
Sly and the Family Stone, There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971)
Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (1972); Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974) and Songs in the Key of Life (1977)
These albums variously address the Vietnam War, ghetto drug problems, urban poverty, racism, the defeats of the 1960s; Nixon; ecology, while also hymning black culture and achievements.

3) We’ll look at more overlooked 70s acts like Gil Scott Heron, Donnie Hathaway; Allen Toussaint; Parliament-Funkadelic (cartoon humour as satirical social commentary) and The Isley Brothers.

We’ll explore links with film: Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song (1971); then the wave of Blaxploitation movies, including Shaft (1971), Superfly (1972), Coffy (1973) – all featuring ‘militant’ black imagery, urban situations and funky soundtracks. Were these films exploitative or progressive or both? How did their visual imagery (raised fists; Afros; sharp suits) relate to conscious soul?