Comments on: Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops Passes Away At Age 72

By: Dredded One

Dredded One — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:29:00 +0000

I agree with BME and Mizzo. The 2 Live Stews have a phrase called “The Sissification of America”; basically saying that we get softer after each generation. that’s probably why “Fight Club” is one of my favorite movies.

By: thebrotherreport

thebrotherreport — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:36:29 +0000

Love the Blue Notes man, my dad went to school w/Teddy P. I think if I could be any of those cats back then it would be Teddy P.

In “Come Go With Me”, he literally talked that woman out of the bar.

Now that was mackin’!

By: Temple3

Temple3 — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:29:25 +0000

That was my group.

By: thebrotherreport

thebrotherreport — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:45:36 +0000

I miss songs like “I miss you” by Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes. It seemed like every song he sand was from something he went through. When he talked about hittin the lottery, in most cases, cats ain’t tryin to look back. Dude was talkin about goin back an makin things right. That’s some real stuff

By: David Stuart

David Stuart — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:31:07 +0000

The Four Tops and the masterful Levi Stubbs. You have planted wonderful,beautiful songs in my mind. I will never forget the good old days.

By: Eric Daniels

Eric Daniels — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 22:58:00 +0000

Sanfoka, I remember that tension between Ralph and Bobby who were frankly much more alike than different. Ralph was more Russell Tompkins (Stylistics) while Bobby wanted to be Marvin Gaye (who was metrosexual) but had a Joe Tex – David Ruffin type stage thing going on. But emaculating Black Singers was nothing new, for every great Jackie Wilson track you had him singing “Danny Boy” (ugh). Unfortuantely Jackson’s “Off the Wall” created a monster that couldn’t be contained. Black Male singers had to feminme and not get White Females hot and bothered, so it was a buisness decision to create ‘crossover artists’.

By: 19082008

19082008 — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:21:55 +0000

One reason why I come here is knowledge and opinions, and the emasculation of male R&B singers is fascinating stuff. Thanks for sharing.
And in memory of Mr. Stubbs, I downloaded Still Waters Run Deep (1970 or so) on my iPod this weekend.

By: sankofa

sankofa — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:49:51 +0000

“I love you” by Lenny Williams, considered by cats I know as the greatest love song ever. Even when the singers weren’t “manly”, just a for real brother, they still get shafted.

Take the case of the Bobby Brown and Ralph Tresvant(sp) tug-a-war for lead of new edition. Bobby Brown’s masculinity even at a young age was too scary for some. He was too much his own man (yeah, over look the Whitney crack drama for a bit) but I feel this is one minor evidence of the emasculating of real male singers.

By: Eric Daniels

Eric Daniels — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 01:52:01 +0000

I remember when that Lenny Williams song “I love You” came out in 1978 (I was 12 lolol) and when he sang you just had to listen because he was expressing some deep feelings for whomever he was in love with. There are no “Real Black (R&B ) music genres anymore, I also think Disco had a lot to do with the death of the strong black male singer because of the auidence who purchased the music in the late 70′s elevated pop-soul singers like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor and Patti La Belle to a majority white male and female and particularly white gay audiences thereby killing the Black Band and Gospel- based Black blues male and female shouters that occupied my childhood especially if you went to the Barber Shop.

It’s my opinion that’s where the virulent anti- gay and female rhetoric of Hip- Hop came from when Brothas looking for a real male prescence in Black Music latched on to the archtypes of the Mandingo and Thug personas when the male singer’s voice became crossover metrosexuals like Micheal Jackson and to this day that is the archtype from Ne-Yo, Usher, Chris Brown and others. When Justin Timberlake butchers “Got to Give It Up” on VH-1 and they consider that shit “THROWING DOWN” I want to throw up because I remember when Giants truly walked the earth and played Black Music with SOUL !!!

By: sankofa

sankofa — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:04:04 +0000

Mizzo, Will downing is required listening for cats like us, Temple and those with over standing. But really, can he stand the test of time against some of the cats “they” push as ideal?

Mmmm! Temple, Teacher…what really the fuck is Metrosexual? Is that another fancy appellation to further confuse the confused that never got any two parent love?

By: Mizzo

Mizzo — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:08:16 +0000

I agree with you wholeheartedly BME

Sexual Kneeling LOL

I dug the Force MD’s.

Surface too.

To pull a woman like Michelle dudes gotta have a back sometime. Figadeal me?

By: KevDog

KevDog — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:49:50 +0000

BeinMiceElf

-Not to criticize, just noticing that your name-sake’s inspiration-Sly- kinda fell on the metrosexual side himself.

-That being said, yeah, I agree with your first paragraph for the most part. We’ve become bitches who are afraid to point out the differential nature of men and owmen vis-a-vis sexuality.

-There is NOTHING worse musically than Kenny G. Period.

About a decade ago, I was involved with Farah Fakir, Duke Fakir’s daughter and then a student at Howard Law. Spent thanksgiving at Duke’s house that year. He is one of the coolest men I’ve ever met. Just a nice guy who treated me very well.

By: BeinMiceElf

BeinMiceElf — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:22:40 +0000

There are no real men singing because America doesn’t prize men the way it once did. We’re an anti-competition, anti-testosterone, nanny state that prizes weepy compassion over aggression, even harmless, sensual, lyrical aggression in songs like “Come On Go With Me” and “Turn Off the Lights.” Just look at one of the songs of the 1980s, ‘Sexual Healing.’ Healing? We need to make sex a curative rather than a recreative act? Why? So women will think we’re sensitive and we care? Please…. Imagine the reaction to that song if it had been re-written as ‘Sexual Kneeling,’ which is what we end up asking women to do, anyway (and which is what all guys were imagining as they heard the song play….. admit it.)

Now…. in reference to our next president, Mr. Obama, can you imagine him listening to Pendergrass? I can’t. I bet he has Kenny G — or worse, the Force MDs — in his CD player. He’s about to keep ushering the country down the road to gender confusion. I’d be shocked if he broke out anything manly on a Friday night after the girls went to sleep.

I think Hip Hop swung too far one way when it advocated slapping ‘bitches’ and all that….. but who can blame men for singing that stuff when simple, manly songs of the ’60s and ’70s were undone by singers like Carl Carlton?

By: Mizzo

Mizzo — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:34:55 +0000

I would say Will Downing.

By: sankofa

sankofa — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:06:43 +0000

I hear dat bro. Not bashing on Prince or El’s talent, just viewing the image they present, making African men “safe’ for European women to listen to without their men getting their guns.

Those images of the eunochs along with the thug animal all contribute to and used to control us and our musical legacies, as the STEAL Funk, blues and Soul and water it down and re make it as ….Urban contemptious music.

I mean bloody Justin Timberlake, R&B Award winner over who?
Even in my native Jamaica, you got some fucked up looking guys on stage, either feminin looking or just plain crazy looking as musical icons?

Another reason why we need to control our images as much as controling our other resources!

Big props to D’Arby for tackling that, as I unfairly judged him as Mini Vanili solo. thanks for that nuugget, brotherman