Chapter 6 of the book describes the history of a single song — a protest at the government’s handling of Hurricane Katrina called George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People. It traces the origins of that song back through the 20th century. A number of people have asked me to point them towards online versions of the music discussed in the chapter.
The song was written by the Legendary K.O., a hip hop duo who were volunteering in the Houston Astrodome. Here’s the video that ‘the Black Lantern’ made to go with their song.
But where did the song come from? The first source, of course, was Kanye West’s Gold Digger
Kanye West was sampling from Ray Charles’ song I’ve Got a Woman
As I show in the chapter, Charles was borrowing extensively from a song called “I’ve Got a Savior” probably written by Clara Ward and performed by the Bailey Gospel Singers. That, of course, I can’t share with you — there is no commercial version available and the only way you can find it is to go to the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and ask them to let you listen to it. But if you want to hear a short combined excerpt, alternating between the original song and Charles’ transformation of it, because of the law of fair use, you can listen to it here. igotawomansavior
Clara Ward, the probable composer, was herself an amazing talent. We know that Charles borrowed from one of her other compositions This Little Light of Mine
You can hear the original here Meetin’ Tonight!
(The sheer virtuosity of the sustained notes in the latter half of this song is beyond human capacity. I’d say it was breathtaking — except no breathing appears to interrupt the singing!)
Nowadays, as the Chapter explains, almost all of the borrowing described here would be illegal. Now it is possible that if we treat musical notes like stock certificates and require clearance and payment for each act of cultural bricolage, then we will still get a remixing genius like Charles
Yeah, right.
