There are many creative souls out there who’ve done genius work during their lifetime but somehow never got the right people to surround them, or make them famous, or protect them to make the right money. One example is a soul funk group from the 70’s called ’24 Carat Black’. Their story finally gets told all these years later by a curious journalist named Zach Schonfeld in his new book GHETTO: MISFORTUNES WEALTH.
Schonfelds book is part of Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series. It’s the fascinating story of this mysterious 1970s funk group and how they became one of the most widely sampled bands throughout hip-hop. Sampling I’ve now learned is when a musician/producer takes a fragment of a pre-existing song, and then uses it to create a new song. For example, Vanilla Ice famously sampled Queen’s song “Under Pressure” to create his own song “Ice Ice Baby.” Sampling is very common in hip-hop, as the beats are often sampled from older recordings.
Schonfelds book highlights the 1973 soul funk concept album by ’24 Carat Black’ which is about poverty and inner city struggle. Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth, flopped upon its release and sank into cultural obscurity. Strangely many iconic rappers who’ve made a lot of money have ‘sampled’ 24 Carat Blacks music over and over and over and over on albums by the likes of Nas, Kendrick Lamar, JAY-Z, Eric B. & Rakim, Digable Planets, and others.
The surviving members of 24-Carat Black have never gotten paid for the countless ‘samples’ (use) of their music throughout the past 30 years of rap. How unfortunate is that? And can they get paid retroactive? Will find out!
Zach joins me for a feature interview on The Debbie Nigro Show today.
Zach Schonfeld is a writer, journalist, and music critic based in New York. He contributes regularly to Pitchfork, Vulture, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Previously, he was a senior writer for Newsweek, where he covered culture and entertainment for the print magazine, and an associate editor for PopMatters. This is his first book.
Photo Courtesy of Lead Singer Princess Hearn.
