Mike Ladd - Negrophilia: The Album

This characteristically conceptual and adventurous album from Mike Ladd isn't exactly Negrophilia -- Petrine Archer-Straw's book that deals with Parisiens' fascination with black culture during the 1920s -- brought off the page and placed onto wax. The book is more of a jump-off point than anything else. Its ideas are referenced, examined, messed with, expanded upon, and dusted off to make natural modern-day parallels. Ladd's lyrics are only sprinkled throughout, often conjuring striking images that tie the themes of Archer-Straw's writings to the present: "Brancusi sculpting Beyoncé in gold lamé/Blonde negress"; "Boxing in Montmartre/Disco with a Hottentot"; "Every day the land we lay looks more and more like L.A./From Dakar to Harare/Bangkok to Taipei." Ladd takes greater liberties with the instrumentation, provided by key collaborator Vijay Iyer (keys), Guillermo E. Brown..... Read More