This entertaining and touching out-take from Jon Alpert's doc on the music industry have James Brown and a young Al Sharpton dishing on the music industry and its treatment of a talented and intelligent black man.
Freeze frame:
JON ALPERT: Tell us the story. What happened? And this is something that everybody might be interested in knowing about. You tried to become independent, what happened?
JAMES BROWN: The system crushed me.
JON ALPERT: Give me some examples.
JAMES BROWN: Well, no one, I couldn't get into television, I couldn’t get into movies. The record company was cutting my records up, and wouldn't promote ‘em, and wouldn’t even send ‘em out. Why did all the black-owned record companies fold? Why? Because they were forced out by the big ones. Every one. And not just the black owned ones, all the small--I think you got two independents right now. A good friend of mine, Henry Stone, in Miami, Tone Records, he's being forced out. He's a good friend of mine, you know, forced him out. And he's not black, he's jewish, but he's being forced out. Name an independent record company? You name one.
JON ALPERT: Is there one?
JAMES BROWN: That's what you’re saying, is there one? But when you were a little kid running around, James Brown. There was 300,000. There's not any now.
JON ALPERT: So if you're independent, you can't get records out?
JAMES BROWN: Not a one.
JON ALPERT: And how about if you’re independent, can you get on the radio?
JAMES BROWN: Independent, nada.
JON ALPERT: Let’s say you walked in with a tape?
JAMES BROWN: No. Never get it on...
Full transcript HERE.
Tagged as: james brown, music, racism, al sharpton
Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.
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