Distorted Soul Reviews
In
the opening strains of Jonah Nadir Omowale's composition, "Sanctified,"
a sultry female voice croons, "So good it's sanctified, so good it's sanctified."
Well, she got that right. Nadir effortlessly blends
hip-hop, jazz, and R&B in such a delectable manner that his musical renditions
are certain to satisfy any musical palate.
Like
many, I was encouraged by the birth of hip-hop. Watching the break dancers spinning,
writhing, performing gravity-defying movements to the sounds of brothers articulating
rhymes which simultaneously rendered stultifying social commentary on the status
of the "Nation," all this to the strains of underlying R&B classics,
thrilled me and filled me with black aesthetic hope.
There
was nothing disparate about hearing gangsta rap over an Isley Brothers track.
In fact, it seemed right. Like modernity and legacy each embracing the other
and rather than negating the other's influence, they instead melded and created
something new and yet so familiar.
Nadir continues that tradition. I can hear music enthusiasts now, rushing to
compare this brother's voice to some already established vocal stylist. And
yes, I had visions of Jareau, but Jareau never said things like:
"Tongues cannot express the feeling when I'm inside of you."
Naw.
Un-unh. Al wouldn't dare be that raw. And that is why this brother should not
be compared to him. Sure, he has that soulful, jazzy voice and impeccable phrasing,
but he didn't stop there. He used that voice not just as a tool to marvel at
in and of itself. He went beyond that and dared to use that instrument to say
things that at first thought seem incompatible with the implied genre. It's
jazz meets the streets, and I must confess, I am too thrilled that the two have
finally met.
Because it is that magical thing that happens when entities which are not supposed
to meet actually do so that made hip-hop, "hip hop" -- the fusing
of the antithetical and what was thought to be mutually exclusive. And that's
what makes Nadir special and his comparison to all artists heretofore a caustic
inaccuracy at best.
At
the same time that I was enraptured by the utter beauty of his voice, the timelessness
of his phrasing, and the mellow mood it induced me into, I had to acknowledge
the rawness of his message. It was like sardines and pork 'n' beans. And until
you have had such a concoction, you don't really know what I mean. It's sweet
and funk come together to create something deliciously forbidden. It's
blackness. It's black creativity inhibited by what arguably has compromised
the legitimacy of hip-hop--white racism and the impact it has had on black creativity
and the entertainment industry.
It appears to me that white racism, incendiary in its very manifestation, at
a deeper epistemological level actually CONTROLS black creativity in that the
black creative artist must always be conscious of how his art will be commercially
consumed. That is no small statement. Because if you think about it, that means
that the very essence of black creative energy is compromised at inception because
the need to satisfy and work within the confines of white culture (i.e. budgetary
constraints, audience appeal, "cross-over" potential, etc.) would
impact at the deepest epistemological levels how we in essence, "create."
This is deep. Like in nature and adaptation, species evolve in relation to their
environmental freedoms and constraints. Thus in similar fashion, black creativity
is shaped by the social and cultural context in which it must function. This
can only cause one to stop and ponder what our creativity would look like minus
such constraints. Well, probably something like what Nadir creates in his music.
Take for instance, the song "Conspiracy" in which Omowale fuses jazz,
social commentary, and rap to create a kind of musical masala and shows that
the sum of all these things is far greater than their parts.
Jonah Nadir Omowale's music is revolutionary.
He is a musician, a lyricist, a song stylist. He is all that and more. Call
him what you wish. But don't call him conventional.
Sanctified? Naw, nigga--I was MESMERIZED!
Dr.
Omowale Akintunde
November 7, 2002
Dr. Omowale Akintunde is an educator and writer. He received his doctorate from
the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo.