i always thought minnie riperton's voice was extremely sexy. my first memory of her is from a burger king commercial for the croissanwich with bacon, egg, and cheese, that aired when i was in the 10th grade. i remember feeling all hot and flustered while minnie's voice crooned the lyrics to "lovin' you" in the background of the provocative camera angles of the steamy breakfast sandwich. especially the part where she goes, "and everytime that we...mmmm," i recall feeling very tingly, and every hungry.

a couple of months ago i resolved to finally pick up a minnie riperton record so i could see what all the hype was about. i ended up choosing a CD called Minnie Riperton: Her Chess Years. Included in this is a sample of her earlier pre-fame work, most of which is with Rotary Connection, the band she sang in before pursuing a solo career.

rotary connection has taken the cake as my favorite 60's/70's band, and possibly my favorite band of all time. the sound in songs like "magical world" and "let them talk" demonstrate how ahead of their time they were--and how they were absolute geniuses in the harmony of voice and instrument.

even though minnie is now cited as one of soul music's greatest legends, her band rotary connection never got "big" outside of their midwest region. aggressively experimental, thus inherently uncommercial, commercial success just wasn't something that resulted from their wonderful musical formula. even still, rotary connection has been sampled by a slew of the greats, including eric b and rakim, jay-z, souls of mischief, and nuyorican soul. that string sample on tribe's "bonita applebaum" and fugees' "killing me softly?" that's from rotary connection's "memory band."

i've been craving fame so much lately, but when it comes down to it, it's really that i long to be legendary. to sit on the shelves of nostalgia, have anthologies and black & white photo journals. for my work to blare from the speakers of cars parked starry nights forty years from now, and still exist to wake up some sleeping giant inside the listener. i think i'm really starting to realize that. in this age of numbers. and counting. of myspace friends, and website hits, and song downloads, and record sales. but all that is fame. legends don't need to exist within the confines of fame. it's not how many people know the legend, it's how long into the ages the legend stays alive.




last night at my parents' house while rummaging through my old magazines i found a 1998 issue of the source featuring outkast. almost 10 years ago, when aquemini was released. so correction about rotary connection--outkast is my favorite band of all time, if i can call them a band. and in the 9th grade when i picked up aquemini, i only listened to the singles. i skipped past "liberation" and "spottieottiedopaliscious," two songs that have at some point completely altered my life. but not in the 9th grade, when i was just beginning to pry myself from my puff daddy craze, grabbing at outkast because i dug the harmonica solo in "rosa parks" and raekwon was on one of the tracks and back then being interested in anything having anything to do with wu-tang was considered way way cool. i wonder if i would've been into outkast earlier, if i had listened to ATLiens (which i did buy, but didn't get to listen to because my dad threw it away when he saw a drawing of a nude woman showering in slime on the cd printing). but once again, it doesn't really matter when i discovered them, because the music itself is timeless. to think that album is almost a decade old, or that i've been following a group of artists for that long, blows my mind.

the article in the source focuses much on what people still focus on with outkast--rumors of them breaking up, questions of how they maintain while being so different from each other. andre says that people should just listen to the music. and if they like it, they like it. word.


so what does it take to be a legend? how deeply do you have to burrow into the consciousness of someone? how addicted to they have to be to your music, or voice, or movements, or philosophy? perhaps fame vs. legend is the ultimate quantity vs. quality cliche. or maybe it's not. maybe the dream is to have your cake and eat it too. to not only be brilliant, but to be recognized for it. like hendrix, and the beatles, and outkast. or maybe it can be just as magical as rotary connection, a mere footnote in today's standards yet such a definitive entity in my recent experience on this earth. because when i hear their songs, it doesn't matter how famous they were back then, or how large their concert crowds were, or how many records they sold in their first weeks. it's simply the fact that they've given me songs that i want to hear every single day, sometimes on repeat, and burning deep in me is a thirst to one day make something sound so magnificent.

i begin this new year wanting to keep less tabs. to stop quantifying my concepts of success, fulfillment, and legend. to simply do what feels magical, and have faith it will find its way into those who will take it. like me and dahlak and rotary connection, and how after learning of their humble regional fanbase, dahlak smiled and said, "and now look! it's in our lives."

i'm thankful for being in yours.

love, driz