Combining political and musical history, Vincent (U. of California at Berkeley) recounts the story of the Black Panther Party’s funk/soul band, the Lumpen, which was active between 1969 and
1971. The story of the band’s music and live performances, for the purposes of contextualization as well as at the insistence of the musicians themselves (all of whom were rank and file members
of the Party) is told in relation to the most transformative phase of the party as the 1960s came to an end, as well as the broader picture of soul and funk music’s development at a time when
even Motown acts, once limited to relatively innocuous sentiments of teen romance, were becoming more explicitly political and radical. Those wondering about any possible connection between the
eponymous title of fourth album of the radical hip-hop group The Coup and the title of this book will be interested to learn that it was The Coup’s Boots Riley who first told Vincent about the
existence of the Lumpen and urged him to research the band (and Riley also provides the foreword). Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
