Overview

The surprising rediscovery of the Black Panthers’ own music group

Examining the culture and politics of the Black Power era of the late 1960s, this book explores the relationship of soul music to the Black Power movement from the vantage point of the musicians and black revolutionaries themselves. The 1960s were a turbulent time for race relations in the United States, but no other area in the country epitomized the radical social change that was taking place more than the San Francisco Bay Area—the epicenter of the Black Panthers movement. This social history introduces fans of soul music and 20th-century U.S. history enthusiasts to the Black Panthers' own band, the Lumpen, a group comprised of rank-and-file members of the Oakland, California–based Party. During their year-long tenure, the Lumpen produced hard-driving rhythm-and-blues that asserted the revolutionary ideology of the Black Panthers. Through his rediscovery of the Lumpen, and based on new interviews with Party and band members, author Rickey Vincent provides an insider’s account of Black Power politics and soul music aesthetics in an original narrative that reveals more detail about the Black Revolution than ever before.

Reviews

"Comprehensive, complex, and revealing, Vincent’s nostalgic journey provides an insider’s look at a remarkable band and a piercing snapshot of black history." —Publishers Weekly

"Apart from introducing a new name to many black music scholars, fresh interviews with the band and Party members feed an eye-of-the-hurricane account of this often-misrepresented time. Combined with Vincent’s beautifully readable style, the results are a definitive work on the late 60s black revolution and its previously neglected soundtrack." —Record Collector

"A fascinating history of the Black Panthers, their house band and the music that inspired them. Rickey Vincent is well qualified to tell the story of the Black Panthers; his mother was a party member, his father a black politics historian and it's that combination of first-person insight and thorough research that makes this book so riveting. Like the Panthers, Vincent thinks outside the box, telling their story through the lens of The Lumpen, the Panthers' house band. ... Vincent takes each song played at a 1970 Oakland show as the springboard for discussion. For example: Their radical reworking of Sly And The Family Stones' 'Dance To The Music' leads to a brief history of Sly; the intelligent debate on the Bay Area counter culture revolution, the 10 point programme and so on." —MOJO, Four Stars

Author Biography

Rickey Vincent is the author of Funk and has written for American Legacy, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Washington Post. He teaches at the University of California–Berkeley. He lives in San Francisco. Boots Riley is a rapper, producer, activist, and the lead vocalist of The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club.