Water
2005
Things Gonna Get Greater - The Watts Prophets 1969-1971
About This Album
Water Records -- the incomparable, mysterious reissue label -- has outdone themselves this time by reissuing the first two albums by the Watts Prophets, a spoken-word poetry group that grew out of the Watts Writers' Workshop. The Prophets -- Anthony "Amde" Hamilton, Richard Dedeaux, Otis O'Solomon and later Dee Dee McNeil -- were not as well-known nationally as their East Coast contemporaries the Last Poets, but they have influenced and have been sampled by countless hip-hop artists. The two recordings featured here, 1969's Black Voices: On the Streets in Watts and 1971's Rappin' Black in a White World, are seminal documents of the Black Power struggle that was wiped out by the FBI's Cointelpro operation, incarceration, death, poverty and other persecutions from the power culture. The albums are presented here in reverse order --as Water is wont to do -- and, aesthetically, it makes sense. Rappin' Black in a White World features McNeil's bluesed-out piano, her deeply influential proto-feminist poem "There's a Difference Between a Black Man and a N**ger," and the wonderfully haunting yet poignant "Sell Your Soul." Her voice and piano textures the suit on the first side of the disc.
Track List (try tracks 4,8,31,35 and 38)

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