ISAAC HAYES
Say what you will about Uncle Ike, with his Scientology and penchant for gold chains and dodgy bodyguards, but Black Moses never ever compromised his ‘thing’.
This track, from the original Shaft soundtrack, is a great spacey, no-surrender, no-shit-taken specimen of this ethos.
“I want to create a twenty minute funk jam that transverses time, space and touches the face of God. I want horns – lots of them – I want drums that leave no silences untouched, I want a bass player who think he’s playing a completely different song altogether and finally, I want it all lathered over with the most obnoxious, most spaced-out, most proto-art-p(f)unk guitar solo ever created by man (the Bar-Kays’ Michael Toles – Please find for yourself the 6minute9second mark and ask yourself ‘what the fuck is that unearthly noise and why does it make me want to believe in music again?’)
…And then I am going to put it on an album and sell it to Hollywood and they’re going to give me an Oscar because they’re dancing so much they don’t realise I’m the goddamn freaking Beethoven of funk…”
(*not actual Isaac Hayes quote)
Like a burning bush, Do Your Thing makes me want to be a better person, makes me want to cry, laugh, throw up and throw middle fingers and sarcastic thumbs up to a cruel, cold, dumb, unappreciative world and say no fuckin’ compromise, you sons of bitches, no surrender, no frikkin’ deal, world.
Do Your Thing makes me want to do my thing…
…but listen to the ‘song’, maybe you might understand much better than I can describe here.
the bizarrojerri corporation 