In the past week, I spent several hours in the car with Herschel (f/k/a I.G.), driving to record stores, urban centers, barbecue joints, state capitols, university campuses, and, sadly, airports to send him back to the Glorious Pacific Northwest (on the Dubious Frontier Airlines). While he was here, he commented almost every day on how wonderful it was to see the sun shining in the clear blue skies. As we drove around, we listened to music from a rap CD education wallet I assembled to introduce him to everything he has overlooked in rap music since Mobb Deep's The Infamous (Loud) came out in 1995. One of the discs in the wallet was the Juggaknots Re:Release (dubious colon is theirs, not mine), but with straight classics like T-Love's Return of the B-Girl (Pickininny 1999), Jay-Z's Black Album (Roc-a-Fella 2003), and Cyne's Time Being (P-Vine Japan/Botanica del Jibaro 2003) to listen to (along with music representative of the other genres of music that we love – soul (Syl Johnson Is it because I'm black (Twinight 1970)), funk (Dante Carfagna's Chains and Black Exhaust compilation (Memphix/Jones 2002)), and rock n roll (The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant 2006))), we never got around to it.
With a two hour drive ahead, I was geared up to give the Juggaknots a second chance. As anyone knows, the best place to give a CD a second chance is in the car, alone, driving on the interstate. Focusing on the music takes your mind off the three worst things about interstate driving: how straight the damn interstate is around here, how many Wal-Marts you pass, and how far you still are from your destination.
For those who have never heard of this group, here's a little history before we get to the point. The Juggaknots released a vinyl-only EP called "Clear Blue Skies" on Bobbito Garcia's Fondle 'Em label out of New York City in 1996. This nine-song record was the start up indie label's second release. It was greeted with critical praise, but once its initial, very limited pressing was gone, it was GWTW. For years, the record was nigh impossible to come by, leading to some significant bootlegging. At the time of its initial release, I was busy mining for indie rock blood diamonds (Elliott Smith and Pete Krebs' split seven inch anyone?), putting me badly out of touch with the goings on in the rap scene.
In 2003, Third Earth music put an end to the whispers, bootlegs, and rumors, and reissued the EP. The Re:Release includes several new tracks and remixes of some of the original tracks, expanding the nine song EP into a full 20 track CD/LP. I got it when it came out, but despite the hype (or maybe because of it – expectations unmet can be a drag) I didn't much care for it on a casual listen. The production and the lyrics are smart, but kind of haphazard. Despite some nice moments ("Loosifa" and "Trouble Man" are both pretty good), it was just kind of forgettable. It gathered dust for at least 18 months before I put it into Herschel's rap education wallet.
As I was driving along, the record was reminding me why I didn't like it. Loose raps over layered beats and loops, some nice moments, but overall, no classic. Fortunately, the moon was coming up large and orange at about 10:00 on the horizon. This gave me something else to focus on, since the music was not really doing it.
And then I got to track 20, the final song on the record, the original version of "Clear Blue Skies" from the EP. I was transfixed.
The first thing that grabs me about the song is the loop. It's a nice slow soul groove that has been unofficially credited to The Meters, but on the first beat- or really just slightly off the first beat- there is this "ha ha". This combination renders the loop soothing and attention grabbing – a rare feat in a four beat loop.
When the lyrics kick in, the "ha ha" drops out and a conversation unfolds over the loop between a father and son, both white, about the son's black girlfriend and his mixed race daughter. In the first verse, the father demands to know whether his son is dating the black woman he was seen "hand-to-hand walking" with on the block. When the son admits it, the father flips out, spits some racist bile, and tells his son that the girlfriend has "got to be a goner." We get the "ha ha" back for the chorus, and then the fight continues in the second verse. With his son scratching under the surface of his bigotry, the father just unleashes it all – from how his property values are ruined when the neighborhood goes past the tipping point into a shocking litany of racist stereotypes about African-Americans… ALL IN PERFECT TIME AND RHYME. The son rejects the father's "vision of perfection/that's your clear blue skies through those clear blue eyes."
Our friends at Groundlift Magazine interviewed the Juggaknots on the occasion of their second album's release earlier this year. Breeze Brewin, the MC who voices both the father and the son (in an inspired moment of analog production genius, he recorded the father's voice to tape running at a higher speed and then slowed it down to regular speed to make it sound lower than the son's voice, but because its him doing both, the two voices sound similar in a very real father-son way), had this to say about the song:
What inspired "Clear Blue Skies"? Was it challenging to write from the perspective of a white father and his son?
Breeze Brewin:It ain't nothing that literary license shouldn't lend itself to. I think it get's the kind of response that it gets because of the timing. It recognized the shift in the fan base, but deeper. It went beyond music. You had two white cultures: One that was trying to preserve the "glory days" and another that was becoming part of a more diversified community. It was never obviously stated that the son was a hip-hop head, but it's implied. I think that it works because it respects both perspectives. Initially, the thought was not that organized, if anything it was more organic. All we knew was there were real, existing people on both sides of the argument. Why not combine and force that conflict?
Forcing that conflict is what we're all about here at The Glorious and The Dubious.
After listening to "Clear Blue Skies" at least five times in a row, I listened to the whole album again, filled with new hope about the hidden genius that I surely must have missed in the other 19 tracks. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the album was still not that great, but my god, "Clear Blue Skies" is Glorious.
Here it is: ClearBlueSkies (7.4MB)
Now I understand that there is some legal DRAMA about the song and the sample that it uses, which is why it appears as a "hidden" track on the album. From a legal perspective, it shouldn't much matter if a track is "hidden" or not - if the sample is uncleared, its uncleared, and folks are taking a risk. I suppose its less of a risk when the track is "hidden", but in the digital age, where iTunes teams up with Gracenote's CDDB to show you even the squirrely track list of the rare psych/funk songs on Chains and Black Exhaust, a track doesn't stay hidden for long. When asked about this legal drama, they took a page out of Dave Chapelle's congressional testimony:
According to allmusic.com, the remix of the song is unlisted on the album for legal reasons? Can you elaborate on that? I understand if that's a touchy subject…
Breeze Brewin: Uhhhm
B-Slim: I plead the 5th
The Fifth Amendment's Right to Remain Silent is Glorious.
Close your eyes and listen to the clear blue skies.
-Alexander (f/k/a J.R.)
P.S. GLORIOUS: Chuck E's in Love. DUBIOUS: The rest of Rickie Lee Jones - Rickie Lee Jones (Warner Bros 1979).
And rap producer, sample-based musician, and vinyl legend DJ Shadow. 
Being a fan of soul music and DJ Shadow, this record hit my radar screen like a rocket. Great funky soul music that I would have next to no chance of hearing absent this reissue. I was just listening to the record again the other night, and like a lazy so-and-so, I left it sitting on the turntable instead of returning it to its home between The Daktaris - Soul Explosion (Desco 1999) and Debarges - Debarges (Gordy 1980) on the soul shelf. 
What? "Yeah, it's blatantly sampled on 'Damn Girl.'" I whisked myself off to wikipedia, 
