"Just shut up already! We want to hear the music"
That's the full title of this show and we are just joking around. This is a show filled with examples of artists talking or reciting monologues and poetry over music in various styles and genres of disco and r&b. There are also recording with sampled speeches or sermons. Some people have likely felt like yelling at a speaker to the artist saying "Just shut up already! We want to hear the music" Other have searched for some of these records just because of the spoken word. What's your opinion? Does it depend upon what is being said? Some of these examples are funny, others are highly controversial.
We are avoiding rapping deliberately. The whole group of genres involved with rap numbers in the dozens now representing millions of recordings in 67 different languages. We only have two hours!!
| example 1 - LAURA LEE
------------------------------- The DETROIT Soul music legend recorded this combination of spoken word with singing: |
| GUESS WHO I SAW TODAY LAURA LEE - SLIPPING AROUND (LP) - HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND/DEMON |
| example 2 - BARRY WHITE
---------------------------------------- One of the most influential of the Sophisticated Soul producers and singers, BARRY WHITE was loved all over the planet for his deep voice and sentimental music. This is just one example of many songs where he speaks over the music: |
| GIRL IT'S TRUE, YES I'LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU BARRY WHITE - STONE GON' (LP) - 20TH CENTURY |
| example 3 - GLORIA GAYNOR
--------------------------------------- Lovingly celebrated as the first QUEEN OF THE DISCOS, GLORIA GAYNOR offered a spoken word portion in her 1975 song "Casanova Brown". |
| CASANOVA BROWN GLORIA GAYNOR - EXPERIENCE GLORIA GAYNOR (LP) - MGM - |
| example 4 - ALEC R. COSTANDINOS
------------------------------------------------------ The great master and innovator of Eurodisco, ALEC R. COSTANDINOS used spoken word passages in many of his masterpieces. "Dom Claude's Confession" from his HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME album is one of the most spectacular examples: |
| DOM CLAUDE'S CONFESSION ALEC R. COSTANDINOS AND THE SYNCOPHONIC ORCHESTRA - HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (LP) - CASABLANCA |
| example 5 - SHARON REDD
------------------------------------------- New York Disco singer SHARON REDD used spoken word in her popular song "Can You Handle It" in 1980: |
| CAN YOU HANDLE IT SHARON REDD - PRELUDE MASTER MIXES (2LP) - PRELUDE |
| example 6 - RHODA with THE SPECIAL A.K.A
-------------------------------------------------------------- The amazing RHODA DAKAR took the art of combining spoken word with disco to an entirely new level. THE SPECIAL A.K.A. offer menacing urban Ska for this riveting portrayal of self degradation and rape. We offer the lyrics: "I went out walking last Saturday I was getting some gear And this guy offered to pay "Who's the hun?" I think to myself For so many years I've been left on the shelf An old boiler And then we went walking Back down the high street And I felt really proud 'cause he looked so neat He was a real hard man, Tough as they come He said I was cool but, I still felt like An old boiler He bid me come out How could I say no? He said "Meet me at eight, 'round at my place, you know?" With my new gear on and a blow dried hairdo But in my mind I knew I was still An old boiler We danced all night long To a nice steady beat But my hair went to frizz in the terrible heat My mascara ran and so did my tights Confirming in my sight I must be An old boiler So we came out this club Hot and sweaty 'cause we'd been dancing all night And he says to me "Well babe, what you doing then?" "Well, I think I might get a cab" I said casuallly "Oh no, no, come back to my place, I only live just 'round the corner, you can go home in the mornin' y'hear?" "Well, I don't think so. I mean, I've only known you a day, it's a bit soon, isn't it? Gimme a ring sometime, yeah?" But then he start to get mad "Listen 'ere, Girl. I bouoght that gear you got on, I paid you in here tonight bought you all them drinks and now you wanna go home I should've been feedin' you cocoa" And then he stormed off Well I felt alll right like, Well you would, wouldn't you? So I ran after him Caught him up There we are walking down the street 'bout Hundred mile per hour Arm in arm No talking Atmosphere you coulda' cut with a knife There was no one about Nothin to take your mind off it you know? No cars, not even the occasional stray animal It was cold and The winds whistling through the trees Blowin newspapers against me legs so I tripped as I tried to keep up with him There was all of these alleyways and railway bridges Stink of piss Then all of a sudden He grabbed hold of my arm And he start dragging me up one of these alleyways And he starts hittin me reallly hard against the face you know? He was hittin' me And grabbin' at me And it was awful 'cause he was so big Hittin' me he was And tearin' at my clothes And there was nothing I could do I was helpless And then HE TRIED TO RAPE ME And there was nothing I could do So all I could do was scream NOOOOOOOO! NOO! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!! NOOOOO!! NOOOOOO!!!! NOOOO!!! PLEASE STOP!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" |
| THE BOILER RHODA with THE SPECIAL A.K.A. - 7" - 2 TONE |
| example 7 - ANNE CLARK
------------------------------------- This English poet became wildly popular in the 1980's when she combined her material with Electronic Disco. We offer the lyrics for "Our Darkness": "Through these city nightmares you'd walk with me And we'd talk of it with idealistic assurance That it wouldn't tear us apart We'd keep our heads above the blackened water But there's no room for ideals in this mechanical place And you're gone now Through a grimy window that I can't keep clean Through billowing smoke that's swallowed the sun You're nowhere to be seen Do you think our desires still burn I guess it was desires that tore us apart There has to be passion A passion for living, surviving And that means detachment Every-body has a weapon to fight you with To beat you with when you are down There were too many defence between us Doubting all the time Fearinf all the time Doubting all the time Fearinf all the time That like these urban nightmares We'd blacken each other skies When we passed the subway we tried to ignore our fate there Of written threats on endless walls Unjustified crimes carried on stifled calls Would you walk with me now through this pouring rain It used to mingle with our tears then dry with the hopes That we left behind It rains even harder now ." |
| OUR DARKNESS ANNE CLARK - youtube |
| example 8 - MUTABARUKA
-------------------------------------- Jamaican Dub Poet MUTABARUKA has contributed a tremendous wealth of material over the years. We could do several shows of just his material! We have at least included his collaboration with BOBBY KONDERS from 1990: |
| THE POEM MASSIVE SOUNDS featuring MUTABURAKA - BOBBY KONDERS FEAT. MASSIVE SOUNDS – A LOST ERA IN NYC 1987-1992 (3LP) - INTERNATIONAL DEEJAY GIGOLO |
| example 9 - GREATER THAN ONE
--------------------------------------------- British Electronic Disco group GREATER THAN ONE took samples of MARTIN LUTHER KING JR's famous speech with the wildly popular "Now Is The Time". This is just one of dozens of examples where political speeches of religious sermons have been sampled and added into music: |
| NOW IS THE TIME (12" MIX) GREATER THAN ONE - LONDON (2LP) - WAX TRAX |
| example 10 - DANCER
---------------------------------- Chicago House Music singer and producer DANCER offered more sampling of that previously mentioned MARTIN LUTHER KING JR speech: |
| THE 7 SIGNS DANCER - 12" - HOUSETIME |
| example 11 - OMAR SANTANA
------------------------------------------ American Breakbeat producer and dj OMAR SANTANA rose to become of the most popular and widely acclaimed artists in the Rotterdam Hard Core and Gabber scene in Europe. He has often used samples of spoken word in his recordings. "Raver's Damnation" is just one example: |
| RAVER'S DAMNATION OMAR SANTANA - 12" - MOONSHINE |
| example 12 - THE SHAMEN
------------------------------------- One of the supergroups of Techno in the early 1990's, the British group THE SHAMEN offered their "Re: Evolution" to mixed reviews. Some say "Re: Evolution" is revealing, inspiring and brilliant. Others panned it. We have included the lyrics so that you can read along: "If the truth can be told so as to be understood it will be believed" Human history represents such a radical break with the natural systems of biological organisation that preceded it that it must be the response to a kind of attractor or dwell point that lies ahead in the temporal dimension. Persistently western religions have integrated into their theologies the notion of a kind of end of the world. And I think that a lot of psychedelic experimentation sort of confirms this intuition. I mean it isn't going to happen according to any of the scenarios of orthodox religion, but the basic intuition that the universe seeks closure in a kind of Omega point of transcendence is confirmed. It's almost as though this object in hyperspace, glittering in hyperspace, throws off reflections of itself, which actually ricochet into the past, illuminating this mystic, inspiring that saint or visionary, and that out of these fragmentary glimpses of Eternity we can build a kind of a map of not only the past universe and the evolutionary ingression into novelty, but a kind of map of the future. This is what Shamanism has always been about. A Shaman is someone who has been to the end. It is someone who knows how the world really works, and knowing how the world really works, means to have risen outside, above, beyond the dimensions of ordinary spacetime and cozooistry and actually seen the wiring under the board: stepped outside the confines of learned culture and learned and embedded language into the domain of Wittgenstein called the unspeakable, the Transcendental presence of the Other, which can be sectioned in various ways to yield Systems of Knowledge which can be brought back into ordinary social space for the good of the Community. So in the context of 90% of human culture, the Shaman has been the Agent of Evolution, because the Shaman learns techniques to go between ordinary reality and the domain of the ideas: this higher dimensional continuum that is somehow parallel to us, available to us and yet ordinarily occluded to us by cultural convention out of the fear of the Mystery, I believe, and what the Shamans are, are people who have been able to de-condition themselves from the community's instinctual distrust of the Mystery, and go into this bewildering Higher Dimension, and gain Knowledge, recover the jewel lost at the Beginning of Time, save souls, cure, commune with the Ancestors and so forth and so on. Shamanism is not a religion - it's a set of techniques, and the Principle Technique is the use of psychedelic plants. What psychedelics do is they dissolve boundaries; and in the presence of dissolved boundaries One cannot continue to close One's eyes to the ruination of the Earth, the poisoning of the Seas and the consequences of two thousand years of unchallenged Dominator culture, based on Monotheism, hatred of Nature, suppression of the Female and so forth and so on. So, what Shamans have to do is act as exemplars by making this cosmic journey to the domain of the Gaian Ideas, and then bringing them back in the form of Art, to the struggle to Save the World. The Planet has a kind of intelligence, that it can actually Open a Channel of communication with an individual human being. The message that Nature sends is transform your language through a synergy between Electronic culture and the Psychedelic Imagination; a synergy between Dance and Idea; a synergy between Understanding and Intuition, and dissolve the boundaries which your culture has sanctioned between you. Become part of this Gaian Supermind. I mean I think it's fairly profound, it's fairly Apocalyptic. History is ending, I mean we are to be the generation that witnesses the Revelation of the purpose of the Cosmos. History is the shock wave of the Eschaton. History is the shock wave of Eschatology. And what this means for those of us who will live through this transition into Hyperspace is that we will be privileged to see the greatest release of Concressed Change probably since the birth of the Universe. The twentieth Century is the shudder that announces the approaching Cataracts of Time over which our Species and the destiny of this Planet is about to be swept. "If the truth can be told so as to be understood it will be believed" The emphasis in House music and rave culture on physiologically compatible rhythms, and this sort of thing, is really the re-discovery of the art of Natural Magic with sound. That sound, properly understood, especially percussive sound, can actually change neurological states, and large groups of people getting together in the presence of this kind of music are creating a telepathic community, a bonding, that hopefully will be strong enough to carry the Vision out into the main stream of Society. I think the Youth culture that is emerging in the nineties is an End of the Millennium culture that is actually summing up Western Civilisation, and pointing us in an entirely different direction; that we are going to arrive in the Third Millennium in the middle of an Archaic revival which will mean a revival of these physiologically empowering rhythm signatures, a new Art, a new Social Vision, a new relationship to Nature, to Feminism, to Ego - all of these things are taking hold, and not a Moment too Soon. |
| RE: EVOLUTION THE SHAMEN with TERENCE MCKENNA - 12" - ONE LITTLE INDIAN |
| example 13 - AIR LIQUIDE
----------------------------------- German Techno pioneers AIR LIQUIDE changed the whole course of Techno music and the Disco industry with their 1993 journey "Liquid Air". This is one of the most controversial records ever released. In the world of rave music, nothing was the same after the introduction of "Liquid Air". We've also included the introduction of their song "If There Was No Gravity". Once again, so that you can follow along if you want, here are the lyrics to "Liquid Air": This is not a mind trip this is a body journey! No memory. You're all but shot through bicolored trichomatic vapours up to the cumulostratus mackerel sky, everchanging funnel of organic matters bullets of light invade you make you meltable fusible untouchable lighter than vanity levitating sprinkled peppered studded pocked opaloids rides of colored kaleidoscoping indigos, gravity's just a word now... V T O L... vertical takeoff or landing. Strobing lights pass you, flowers bursting clouds swirling time warping and chaos rules. Burnout burnout, your walk in space has begun. Don't look back, your mind has a mind of its own, it's falling floating, it feels the current of life energy in a new dimension of cubical and circular motions. It's bigger than life. Darkness speeds to light on prismatic thought waves and you ride them to the shore of a delirious no man's land. Oceans of solitary first steps. This is your reality. There is no other reality but your own. Heh! From monoliths to ice age to stoned age to no age to nobody just your mind expanding racing blues reds yellows white light indigos greens screaming back to reds and white, coming coming faster, peaking you climax. The seconds tick and tick and tick. You miss nothing as you fly up to the islands in the dark seas. Nephology is your new religion and you are the nucleus the center of the vastness they call the universe, they call God. It's all so clear, you made it, all this time you thought it was a lie, and now truth looks at you like a mirror, shatters into a thousand seeds like a trillion drops of mercury falling from your eyes. Like love. Liquid air This is not a mind trip this is a body journey Suddenly you feel again, warmth, degrees of ??? burning your cold hands, hot flames licking you all over. It's reentry time. You want to touch (echo echo...) Suddenly you feel again, warmth, degrees of the ??? burning your cold hands, hot flames licking you all over. It's reentry time. You want to touch, you want to feel like never before, you're ready for fusion of your sexual self, your mind turns to body turns to flesh. Your body has a body of its own, trembling, shaking. Mouth dry, hands sweat, feet cold, legs numb, arms hang, chest burning; where does my body stop and where does yours begin. This not a mind trip this is a body journey that takes us light years away, we don't ever want to go back because we found beauty and we found light, escaping from every pore like liquid air. Velvet satin, splashes of fingers on sequined nerve endings, prolong what we've always wanted, it's too late now to stop. Come come with me climaxing peaking riding physical waves faster and faster and slower, almost stopping. Sharing oxygen. And then it starts all over again. This is our bodies' reality. There's no other reality but our own as we orbit back into bicolored trichomatic vapors to cumulostratus holding on to mackerel skies and we know we've been there before so we wait for the next boat. And this time our minds and our bodies are one and the prismatic wave takes us higher than the last back to solitary oceans, and racing shattered blues and reds and yellows and we found the corners of our minds, we found the depths of our bodies, we found the prismal scream (echo echo...) |
| LIQUID AIR AIR LIQUIDE - LIQUID AIR E.P. - BLUE |
| IF THERE WAS NO GRAVITY AIR LIQUIDE - youtube |
| example 14 - SAGAT
----------------------------- Although SAGAT is usually referred to as a Rapper, his 1994 hit "Why Is It? (Funk Dat)" really is spoken word. It was the inspiration of this show! |
| WHY IS IT? (FUNK DAT) SAGAT - 12" - MAXI |
| example 15 - GREEN VELVET
------------------------------------------ Chicago House Music icon GREEN VELVET offered a stunning variety of samples of spoken word passages over his highly influential music. We present his gems "The Preacher Man" and "Answering Machine" along with his spoken word masterpiece "The Stalker (I'm Losing My Mind)": |
| THE PREACHER MAN GREEN VELVET - 12" - RELIEF |
| THE STALKER (I'M LOSING MY MIND) GREEN VELVET - 12" - RELIEF |
| ANSWERING MACHINE GREEN VELVET - youtube |
| example 16 - JENENI
---------------------------- Toronto's widely popular poet, singer and radio announcer can still be heard on G98.7fm in the "G.T.A." regularly. We present two of her collaborations. We also included the lyrics to "Art To Breathe", her collaboration with the group KOJAK: caught between a rock and a hard place split between my rent and this beat tape breathe now so my voice on this beat makes a message live forever this beat gorilla battle cries my soul in morse code the music industry is killing me stop I make art to breathe and stop.. the dancefloor is too crowded.. stop the dj's wants more money stop.. searching for redemption behind the speakers at the party turning down hip-hop heads b'cause on the real i'm just looking for hip hop whole body we kojak tracks and turn them into music manifestos we make music to move you that sneaky underground hit.. the kind that malost your third eye don't tell your mother swe wouldn't understand I bed you wished I say something sexy but sex is for humans and earthlings on planets where bling bling sell alcohol and ring dings to young kids on gin sing charges in drinkin'on knowledge I'm from a planet just past the funkbelt and 4 miles before saturn's ring where artist shut up and take notes on blessid days when microphones choose to sing and our pornshop sells headphones and voice-rings and maybe even if you like that faster paste or if you wanne be alone.. ain't no shame our people turn up the beat,then turn off the lights and find a quit spot to sit alone and mastertape oops there goes my hat all over your bass.. our business is this making art this beat is a balkan soldier that pull it.. for hip hop whole body |
| AMERICA EATS IT'S YOUNG NICK HOLDER featuring JEMENI - 12" - NRK 
|
| ART TO BREATHE (MALIX REMIX) KOJAK featuring JEMENI - youtube
|
| example 17 - DIAMONDANCER
------------------------------------------ American artist CAROLYN FERRARI (or DIAMONDANCER) performs a leading monologue for RALF GUM'S "All This Love For You" that seductively personifies House Music: |
| ALL THIS LOVE FOR YOU (ROCCO SPOKEN DUB MIX) RALF GUM featuring DIAMONDANCER - 12" - GOGO MUSIC |
| example 18 - SOLANGE
--------------------------------- We offer one of the many interludes by SOLANGE KNOWLES. She's a popular American r&b singer and the interlude we feature "Tina Taught Me" is a beautiful segue to Black History Month! |
| INTERLUDE: TINA TAUGHT ME SOLANGE - youtube |
| example 19 - TOUCH AND GO
----------------------------------------- British Jazz Pop group offered a delicious Disco Lounge track in 1999 with effective employment of spoken word: |
| STRAIGHT TO NUMBER ONE TOUCH & GO - youtube |
| example 20 - CHILDISH GAMBINO
---------------------------------------------------- CHILDISH GAMBINO is the stage name for the actor, comedy writer and rapper DONALD GLOVER of American Television fame from shows like "30 Rock" and "Community." Although "Late Night In Kauai" with JADEN SMITH is great, "That Power" is absolutely amazing! |
| LATE NIGHT IN KAUAI CHILDISH GAMBINO featuring JADEN SMITH - youtube |
| THAT POWER CHILDISH GAMBINO - youtube |
| example 21 - BORIS BADENOUGH
--------------------------------------------- BORIS BADENOUGH was actually Chicago House Music artist Dean Anderson. His "Hey Rocky" contained numerous vocal samples from the animated cartoons Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show in the late 1950's. |
| HEY ROCKY BORIS BADINOFF - 7" - TRAX |
| example 22 - STRANGE CARGO
-------------------------------------------- STRANGE CARGO was a Chill/Ambient project of British Techno pioneer WILLIAM ORBIT. "Montok Point" is just one example of dozens of Chill compositions featuring bits of spoken word. |
| MONTOK POINT STRANGE CARGO - HINTERLAND (2LP) - N-GRAM RECORDINGS |
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1:16 PM, January 28th, 2017