WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.899 Imagine you are like standing in the front row 00:00:02.899 --> 00:00:06.419 of a packed concert hall. It's the late 1960s. 00:00:06.419 --> 00:00:08.679 Oh, the energy in those rooms must have been 00:00:08.679 --> 00:00:12.019 just unreal. Totally deafening, right. And up 00:00:12.019 --> 00:00:15.259 on stage. The front man is just this absolute 00:00:15.259 --> 00:00:18.500 blur of motion. I mean, he's dropping into flawless 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:21.000 splits, spinning the microphone stand around, 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:22.980 sliding across the floorboard. With his back 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:25.199 to the audience, usually. Exactly, back to the 00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:27.160 audience. And he throws his hands out to the 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:30.320 side, fingers splaying wide, and they're pulsating 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:32.700 perfectly to the beat. It looks like pure groove. 00:00:32.979 --> 00:00:35.340 Yeah, to you in the audience, it's just pure 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:38.479 unadulterated soul. But behind the scenes, those 00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:42.179 flashing fingers are actually this secret real 00:00:42.179 --> 00:00:44.659 time. This is one of my favorite details. Right. 00:00:44.740 --> 00:00:47.140 He is pointing at the bass player, holding up 00:00:47.140 --> 00:00:51.100 five fingers, and signaling a $50 fine, just 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:53.520 because the guy missed a single note. It completely 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:55.939 reframes how you watch those old performances, 00:00:56.100 --> 00:00:58.259 you know. It really does. Because we think we 00:00:58.259 --> 00:01:01.479 know the performer. That sweat -drenched, cape 00:01:01.479 --> 00:01:04.980 -wearing spectacle is just, well, it's so deeply 00:01:04.980 --> 00:01:07.599 ingrained in our cultural memory. But behind 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:10.700 that incredibly polished surface was a system 00:01:10.700 --> 00:01:14.170 of absolute almost terrifying control. Welcome 00:01:14.170 --> 00:01:17.170 to The Deep Dive. Today we are pulling from a 00:01:17.170 --> 00:01:21.109 massive, comprehensive Wikipedia biography to 00:01:21.109 --> 00:01:24.590 explore the life, the music, the crimes, and 00:01:24.590 --> 00:01:27.969 man, the deep controversies of James Brown. There 00:01:27.969 --> 00:01:30.670 is a lot to cover. Oh yeah. Our mission for you... 00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:33.540 Our listener is to look way beyond that godfather 00:01:33.540 --> 00:01:36.280 of soul caricature. We want to uncover how a 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:38.319 kid born in the most desperate circumstances 00:01:38.319 --> 00:01:41.159 imaginable managed to build the literal architecture 00:01:41.159 --> 00:01:43.359 of modern music. While simultaneously ruling 00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:45.739 his world like a relentless dictator. OK, let's 00:01:45.739 --> 00:01:47.879 unpack this, because you really cannot understand 00:01:47.879 --> 00:01:50.260 the intensity of the man without looking at the 00:01:50.260 --> 00:01:52.260 absolute desperation that forged him. You hit 00:01:52.260 --> 00:01:53.760 the nail on the head with the word desperation. 00:01:53.859 --> 00:01:56.400 I mean, when we look at his birth in 1933 in 00:01:56.400 --> 00:01:58.219 rural South Carolina, we aren't just talking 00:01:58.219 --> 00:02:01.129 about a family having a tough time. a precarious 00:02:01.129 --> 00:02:04.170 survival by any means kind of existence. He was 00:02:04.170 --> 00:02:07.609 born in this tiny wooden shack. Wow. Yeah. And 00:02:07.609 --> 00:02:10.610 his mother fled an abusive marriage when he was 00:02:10.610 --> 00:02:12.889 just a little boy. So he was eventually sent 00:02:12.889 --> 00:02:15.229 off to live in Augusta, Georgia. But not to a 00:02:15.229 --> 00:02:17.569 normal home. No, not at all. He was taken in 00:02:17.569 --> 00:02:20.150 by his aunt, who actually ran a brothel. I mean, 00:02:20.229 --> 00:02:23.069 just think about that. A wooden shack in the 00:02:23.069 --> 00:02:26.759 Jim Crow South to a brothel. That is his starting 00:02:26.759 --> 00:02:28.759 line. It's heavy. I was reading through this 00:02:28.759 --> 00:02:31.439 early history, and it's just jarring to realize 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:34.080 he never really got to be a child, like he's 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:36.379 a little kid out on the streets trying to hustle 00:02:36.379 --> 00:02:38.520 just to get a meal. Yeah, he was always working. 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:40.840 There's this one detail about him performing 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:44.439 buck dances for loose change, just to entertain 00:02:44.439 --> 00:02:46.599 World War II troops passing through Camp Corden. 00:02:46.759 --> 00:02:49.710 Yeah. What exactly is a buck dance? So buck dancing 00:02:49.710 --> 00:02:53.009 is an old traditional African -American vernacular 00:02:53.009 --> 00:02:55.610 dance. OK. It's essentially an early informal 00:02:55.610 --> 00:02:58.889 style of tap dancing done flat footed and usually 00:02:58.889 --> 00:03:01.050 without actual tap shoes. Oh, so just regular 00:03:01.050 --> 00:03:05.020 shoes. Right, it's highly percussive, very rhythmic. 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:08.280 So picture this young boy dancing on the dirt 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:11.840 or on wooden planks, using his feet as a drum 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:15.280 to literally earn his dinner from passing soldiers. 00:03:15.580 --> 00:03:18.000 That is wow. Performance from the very beginning 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:20.460 wasn't about artistic expression for him. It 00:03:20.460 --> 00:03:23.259 was a strict transaction for survival. And when 00:03:23.259 --> 00:03:25.639 dancing didn't pay enough. He turned to anything 00:03:25.639 --> 00:03:27.939 else he could, right? Like he learned piano and 00:03:27.939 --> 00:03:30.360 guitar, he tried boxing. He's a pretty decent 00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:32.840 boxer for a minute. Yeah, but eventually he resorted 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:35.759 to crime. By age 16, he's convicted of robbery 00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:38.020 and locked up in a juvenile detention center. 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:40.479 Which is where his musical ability actually provides 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:44.159 a lifeline. In Juvie, he earns the nickname Music 00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:47.460 Box. Music Box, I love that. And this leads to 00:03:47.460 --> 00:03:50.139 this highly cinematic turning point. He's playing 00:03:50.139 --> 00:03:52.560 in a prison baseball game, of all things. Naturally. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:55.439 And a visiting gospel singer named Bobby Bird 00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:58.819 happens to be there. Bird hears about this music 00:03:58.819 --> 00:04:01.740 box kid, listens to him sing, and is just so 00:04:01.740 --> 00:04:03.960 blown away that he actually helps secure Brown's 00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:06.460 early parole. That is wild. Just right place, 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:09.419 right time. Exactly. But the condition of the 00:04:09.419 --> 00:04:11.479 release was that Brown had to get a job and, 00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:14.569 quote, sing for the Lord. I always wonder what 00:04:14.569 --> 00:04:17.709 happens to a person's psychology when their only 00:04:17.709 --> 00:04:20.189 ticket out of a literal prison is their ability 00:04:20.189 --> 00:04:23.129 to entertain. It changes you, for sure. It makes 00:04:23.129 --> 00:04:25.490 complete sense that he treated show business 00:04:25.490 --> 00:04:28.050 like a life or death scenario. He later gets 00:04:28.050 --> 00:04:30.350 dubbed the hardest working man in show business. 00:04:30.910 --> 00:04:32.790 But reading this background, I don't think it 00:04:32.790 --> 00:04:34.930 was just about ambition. No, not at all. It's 00:04:34.930 --> 00:04:37.639 like a pressure cooker, right? All this trauma 00:04:37.639 --> 00:04:40.199 and desperation condensing into this explosive 00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:42.620 energy, it feels like he was just constantly 00:04:42.620 --> 00:04:45.240 trying to outrun the abyss. That's a crucial 00:04:45.240 --> 00:04:48.240 distinction. When the alternative you've experienced 00:04:48.240 --> 00:04:51.079 is the absolute bottom of society, you don't 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:52.939 play music just for the love of it. You play 00:04:52.939 --> 00:04:55.120 it as if your life depends on it. Because it 00:04:55.120 --> 00:04:58.300 did. Exactly. He built this impenetrable armor 00:04:58.300 --> 00:05:01.959 of self -reliance, and that relentless driving 00:05:01.959 --> 00:05:05.220 energy fundamentally changed how music was constructed. 00:05:05.529 --> 00:05:07.850 Here's where it gets really interesting because 00:05:07.850 --> 00:05:10.470 the James Brown who gets out of juvenile detention, 00:05:11.329 --> 00:05:13.750 he starts off singing pretty standard gospel 00:05:13.750 --> 00:05:16.170 and rhythm and blues. Very traditional stuff. 00:05:16.389 --> 00:05:18.870 But somehow he ends up inventing an entirely 00:05:18.870 --> 00:05:23.089 new genre. How does a guide transition from standard 00:05:23.089 --> 00:05:27.589 1950s R &B to creating funk? He did it by completely 00:05:27.589 --> 00:05:30.449 deconstructing Western music. If you listen to 00:05:30.449 --> 00:05:33.649 his first big hit with the famous flames in 1956, 00:05:34.290 --> 00:05:36.709 please, please, please. Wait, didn't Little Richard 00:05:36.709 --> 00:05:39.709 help with that? Yes. Remarkably, it was inspired 00:05:39.709 --> 00:05:41.930 by Little Richard writing those words on a napkin 00:05:41.930 --> 00:05:43.930 for him. That is such a cool piece of history. 00:05:44.110 --> 00:05:46.850 Right. But musically, it's still a traditional 00:05:46.850 --> 00:05:49.470 rhythm and blues ballad. It has a standard melody, 00:05:49.910 --> 00:05:52.970 standard chord changes. OK, so normal song structure. 00:05:53.029 --> 00:05:57.129 Right. But fast forward a decade to 1967 to a 00:05:57.129 --> 00:06:00.329 track called Cold Sweat. Music historians generally 00:06:00.329 --> 00:06:02.689 agree this is the first true funk song. What 00:06:02.689 --> 00:06:04.949 makes it the first? The reason is that Brown 00:06:04.949 --> 00:06:07.149 stripped the harmony away almost entirely. The 00:06:07.149 --> 00:06:09.189 entire song is built around a single chord. Wait. 00:06:09.370 --> 00:06:11.829 Just one chord for the whole song. Just one. 00:06:11.970 --> 00:06:14.129 It's like a mechanic taking a luxury car, ripping 00:06:14.129 --> 00:06:16.490 out the leather seats, throwing away the shiny 00:06:16.490 --> 00:06:18.769 exterior, and stripping it down to nothing but 00:06:18.769 --> 00:06:21.009 the engine block and the wheels. That is a perfect 00:06:21.009 --> 00:06:23.990 analogy. He's tossing out the pretty melodies 00:06:23.990 --> 00:06:26.410 and the complex progressions and saying, no, 00:06:26.410 --> 00:06:29.810 we only care about the pistons firing. Yes. And 00:06:29.810 --> 00:06:32.689 to make that single chord engine run, he changed 00:06:32.689 --> 00:06:34.649 the function of every instrument in the band. 00:06:34.889 --> 00:06:37.569 The guitar is no longer there to play a melody. 00:06:37.750 --> 00:06:40.629 What was it doing then? He instructed his guitarists 00:06:40.629 --> 00:06:43.089 to treat their instruments like African drums. 00:06:43.610 --> 00:06:46.350 The focus shifted entirely to the attack points 00:06:46.350 --> 00:06:48.970 like the percussive strike of the pick hitting 00:06:48.970 --> 00:06:51.550 the strings rather than the actual pitch of the 00:06:51.550 --> 00:06:54.529 notes. Oh wow. I notice his vocals completely 00:06:54.529 --> 00:06:56.730 change in this era, too. Like, he stops singing 00:06:56.730 --> 00:06:59.089 those sweeping melodies and starts doing this 00:06:59.089 --> 00:07:01.750 rhythmic, punctuated shouting. It's a technique 00:07:01.750 --> 00:07:04.410 called rhythmic declamation. He wasn't quite 00:07:04.410 --> 00:07:06.410 singing, but he wasn't speaking, either. It was 00:07:06.410 --> 00:07:08.110 early rapping, in a way. Oh yeah, that makes 00:07:08.110 --> 00:07:10.670 sense. He turned his own voice into another percussive 00:07:10.670 --> 00:07:13.170 instrument. He layered all these different instruments, 00:07:13.329 --> 00:07:15.949 playing very sparse, repetitive patterns that 00:07:15.949 --> 00:07:18.629 lock together. It's so hypnotic. And this is 00:07:18.629 --> 00:07:21.209 where we need to talk about syncopation. Syncopation 00:07:21.209 --> 00:07:23.250 is when you place the musical accent on a weak 00:07:23.250 --> 00:07:25.689 beat or a beat where the listener isn't expecting 00:07:25.689 --> 00:07:28.689 it. It creates a feeling of forward momentum, 00:07:28.949 --> 00:07:31.329 a groove that makes you want to move. Right, 00:07:31.329 --> 00:07:34.269 it gives it that bounce. Exactly. But to keep 00:07:34.269 --> 00:07:36.410 all that syncopation from falling apart into 00:07:36.410 --> 00:07:39.589 total chaos, Brown relied on a concept he called 00:07:39.589 --> 00:07:41.990 The One. I've heard musicians talk about The 00:07:41.990 --> 00:07:45.410 One in hushed tones before. What is the actual 00:07:45.410 --> 00:07:49.449 mechanic of it? Standard 4 -4 musical measure, 00:07:49.550 --> 00:07:52.110 meaning you count one, two, three, four most 00:07:52.110 --> 00:07:54.649 traditional R &B and rock music, but the heavy 00:07:54.649 --> 00:07:57.370 emphasis on beats two and four. Like the snare 00:07:57.370 --> 00:07:59.350 drum. Right, that's your back beat. But James 00:07:59.350 --> 00:08:01.709 Brown demanded that every single instrument in 00:08:01.709 --> 00:08:05.009 his band hit beat one, the one, with absolute 00:08:05.009 --> 00:08:08.129 undeniable force. So it's one, two, three, four, 00:08:08.129 --> 00:08:10.370 one, two, three, four. Everything else in the 00:08:10.370 --> 00:08:13.089 measure could be highly complex, crazy syncopated 00:08:13.089 --> 00:08:15.569 rhythms, but they all had to anchor tightly back 00:08:15.569 --> 00:08:18.029 to that explosive. of first downbeat. And that 00:08:18.029 --> 00:08:20.009 framework is exactly why we're talking about 00:08:20.009 --> 00:08:22.589 him today. If you're listening right now, you 00:08:22.589 --> 00:08:25.269 love hip hop, house music, or drum and bass. 00:08:25.889 --> 00:08:30.089 The literal DNA of those genres is James Brown's 00:08:30.089 --> 00:08:33.169 interlocking rhythms. Absolutely anchored to 00:08:33.169 --> 00:08:35.970 the one. It's the reason his late 60s drum breaks 00:08:35.970 --> 00:08:38.389 are the most sampled pieces of audio in human 00:08:38.389 --> 00:08:42.159 history. Exactly. He provided the literal building 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:44.600 blocks for modern dance music. But wait, how 00:08:44.600 --> 00:08:46.440 do you get a dozen different musicians to hit 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:49.440 the one with that kind of flawless, aggressive 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:51.779 precision every single night? You can't just 00:08:51.779 --> 00:08:54.000 jam your way into that. You really can't. And 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.120 that brings us to the dictator of the stage. 00:08:56.559 --> 00:08:59.700 Achieving that sound required uncompromising 00:08:59.700 --> 00:09:01.779 discipline. Like military discipline. Literally. 00:09:02.039 --> 00:09:03.860 Performers in the James Brown review weren't 00:09:03.860 --> 00:09:06.120 just musicians. They were soldiers in his army. 00:09:06.539 --> 00:09:09.779 They had to wear identical tuxedos with cummerbunds. 00:09:09.779 --> 00:09:12.259 Wow. Their patent leather shoes had to be perfectly 00:09:12.259 --> 00:09:15.539 greased and shined or else. And this loops back 00:09:15.539 --> 00:09:17.299 to that incredible image from the beginning of 00:09:17.299 --> 00:09:20.090 the deep dive. The finds. I was amazed reading 00:09:20.090 --> 00:09:22.509 about the hand signals. It's legendary. He's 00:09:22.509 --> 00:09:24.889 up there doing the hardest footwork in show business. 00:09:25.409 --> 00:09:28.409 The crowd is going insane. And simultaneously, 00:09:28.750 --> 00:09:31.830 he's auditing his band. It's a phenomenal display 00:09:31.830 --> 00:09:34.889 of multitasking. If a horn player was a quarter 00:09:34.889 --> 00:09:38.029 beat late, Brown wouldn't stop the show. He would 00:09:38.029 --> 00:09:41.129 just do a spin, point at the guy, and flash a 00:09:41.129 --> 00:09:43.409 number with his fingers. And that was it. That 00:09:43.409 --> 00:09:45.990 was your monetary fine deducted straight from 00:09:45.990 --> 00:09:48.679 your paycheck. It really is like a baseball manager 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:51.519 flashing steel signs from the dugout. Except 00:09:51.519 --> 00:09:54.000 the signs mean you're losing a chunk of your 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:56.639 rent money while 10 ,000 people applaud. It was 00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:59.120 incredibly harsh. Oh, and we can't forget the 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:01.779 famous cape routine. Oh, right. During, please, 00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:04.500 please, please, where he collapses and they throw 00:10:04.500 --> 00:10:06.960 the cape on him. Yes. You know where he got that 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:09.690 from? No, where? Professional wrestling. He was 00:10:09.690 --> 00:10:12.110 inspired by a wrestler named Gorgeous George. 00:10:12.250 --> 00:10:14.330 Wait, a wrestler? That actually makes so much 00:10:14.330 --> 00:10:16.529 sense with his flair for the dramatic. Exactly. 00:10:17.129 --> 00:10:19.509 But his need for dominance didn't stop with his 00:10:19.509 --> 00:10:22.490 own band. If he felt an opening act was getting 00:10:22.490 --> 00:10:25.269 too much crowd reaction, he would sabotage them. 00:10:25.409 --> 00:10:28.389 What? How? He'd order their set cut short without 00:10:28.389 --> 00:10:31.250 warning, or he would literally walk out on stage 00:10:31.250 --> 00:10:32.830 during their performance and start playing the 00:10:32.830 --> 00:10:35.309 drum kit, just to visually remind the audience 00:10:35.309 --> 00:10:37.759 whose house they were in. I mean, that is just 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:40.919 raw, unchecked ego, isn't it? It's easy to dismiss 00:10:40.919 --> 00:10:43.519 it as just ego, but we really have to look at 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:45.860 the broader context. Think about what it meant 00:10:45.860 --> 00:10:49.659 to be a black artist touring America in the 1950s 00:10:49.659 --> 00:10:53.000 and 60s. Ah, right. He was operating in a deeply 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:57.399 segregated, structurally unequal society. Black 00:10:57.399 --> 00:11:00.500 performers were routinely marginalized, underpaid, 00:11:00.659 --> 00:11:03.100 or dismissed as unprofessional by the mainstream 00:11:03.100 --> 00:11:05.320 establishment. So he couldn't afford a single 00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:08.000 mistake. Exactly. For James Brown, maintaining 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:11.259 a flawless, highly disciplined, undeniable presentation 00:11:11.259 --> 00:11:13.639 was a shield. It was a matter of professional 00:11:13.639 --> 00:11:16.240 survival. He had to be so perfect that no one 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:18.399 could ever deny him his money or his respect. 00:11:18.559 --> 00:11:20.679 That makes a lot of sense. The perfection was 00:11:20.679 --> 00:11:23.299 his armor. But as we move forward in his life, 00:11:23.639 --> 00:11:25.559 that intense need to control his environment 00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:28.779 bleeds into his politics and his community activism. 00:11:29.039 --> 00:11:31.870 And it gets complicated. It really does. Honestly, 00:11:32.009 --> 00:11:33.590 this is where I start getting really confused 00:11:33.590 --> 00:11:36.590 because his political actions seem completely 00:11:36.590 --> 00:11:39.620 contradictory. The paradoxes of his public life 00:11:39.620 --> 00:11:42.259 are fascinating. A great starting point is April 00:11:42.259 --> 00:11:46.899 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. has just been assassinated. 00:11:47.539 --> 00:11:50.100 A hugely pivotal moment. Cities across America 00:11:50.100 --> 00:11:53.179 are erupting in riots, burning with grief and 00:11:53.179 --> 00:11:55.860 anger. And James Brown happens to be scheduled 00:11:55.860 --> 00:11:58.399 to play a massive concert at the Boston Garden 00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:00.919 the very next night. And the mayor of Boston, 00:12:01.059 --> 00:12:03.519 Kevin White, is terrified. He wants to cancel 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:05.679 the concert because he thinks a massive gathering 00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:08.320 will spark a riot in his city. Right, but they 00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:10.600 eventually strike a deal to broadcast the concert 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:13.039 live on public television to keep people at home 00:12:13.039 --> 00:12:15.120 off the streets. And it worked, didn't it? It 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:17.000 was a massive success in terms of public safety. 00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:19.940 Brown's performance transfixed the city. Boston 00:12:19.940 --> 00:12:22.600 remained relatively calm, while other major cities 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:25.379 saw a severe unrest. But there was a catch. Always. 00:12:25.879 --> 00:12:28.740 The underlying mechanics of that night show Brown's 00:12:28.740 --> 00:12:30.960 ruthless business acumen. Because the concert 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:33.200 was televised for free, ticket holders demanded 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:35.940 refunds, Brown was facing a massive financial 00:12:35.940 --> 00:12:38.259 loss. So what does he do? He basically holds 00:12:38.259 --> 00:12:40.899 the city hostage, right? Essentially, yes. He 00:12:40.899 --> 00:12:43.039 went to the city's power brokers and demanded 00:12:43.039 --> 00:12:47.120 $60 ,000 to cover his lost gate fees. Unbelievable. 00:12:47.419 --> 00:12:49.139 He made it clear that if they didn't cut him 00:12:49.139 --> 00:12:51.019 a check, he would go public about the backdoor 00:12:51.019 --> 00:12:53.659 arrangement, or worse, he just wouldn't perform 00:12:53.659 --> 00:12:56.250 at all. For a mayor, trying to stop a riot, that 00:12:56.250 --> 00:12:58.970 would have been political suicide. The city found 00:12:58.970 --> 00:13:01.629 the money and paid him. He saves the city from 00:13:01.629 --> 00:13:04.570 burning, but he makes absolutely sure he gets 00:13:04.570 --> 00:13:06.529 paid for the service. Exactly. And then a few 00:13:06.529 --> 00:13:09.429 months later, he records Say It Loud I'm Black 00:13:09.429 --> 00:13:12.350 and I'm Proud, which becomes the defining anthem 00:13:12.350 --> 00:13:15.009 of the civil rights movement. But then I read 00:13:15.009 --> 00:13:17.169 that he actually regretted making it. He did. 00:13:17.330 --> 00:13:19.590 How do you regret your most famous Pride anthem? 00:13:19.990 --> 00:13:23.370 He felt it was misunderstood. By 1984, he stated 00:13:23.370 --> 00:13:25.610 publicly that while the song did a lot of good, 00:13:26.009 --> 00:13:27.850 he wouldn't do it again if given the choice. 00:13:28.269 --> 00:13:30.929 Why? His reasoning was, quote, I don't like defining 00:13:30.929 --> 00:13:34.669 anyone by race. To teach race is to teach separatism. 00:13:35.110 --> 00:13:37.730 So what does this all mean? How does the man 00:13:37.730 --> 00:13:40.190 who wrote the ultimate black pride anthem end 00:13:40.190 --> 00:13:42.909 up getting picketed by black audiences, holding 00:13:42.909 --> 00:13:46.899 signs that say James Brown? Nixon's clown. It's 00:13:46.899 --> 00:13:50.059 a stark contrast. Because he endorsed Democrats 00:13:50.059 --> 00:13:52.559 like Hubert Humphrey, but then he threw his full 00:13:52.559 --> 00:13:54.679 weight behind Republicans like Richard Bixson 00:13:54.679 --> 00:13:57.600 and Ronald Reagan. And while he's hanging out 00:13:57.600 --> 00:14:00.220 with conservative politicians, he's actively 00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:02.700 mentoring a teenage Al Sharpton in the civil 00:14:02.700 --> 00:14:05.120 rights movement. I just don't see how these pieces 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:07.779 fit together. It looks like pure chaos from the 00:14:07.779 --> 00:14:10.340 outside. Yeah. But if we look objectively at 00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:12.820 the facts, there is a very clear mechanical logic 00:14:12.820 --> 00:14:15.690 to it all, which is Absolute self -reliance. 00:14:15.870 --> 00:14:18.230 Back to the childhood trauma. Exactly. Remember 00:14:18.230 --> 00:14:20.450 the wooden shack? Remember the juvenile detention 00:14:20.450 --> 00:14:23.169 center? Brown didn't care about the traditional 00:14:23.169 --> 00:14:25.330 left -wing or right -wing political spectrum. 00:14:25.929 --> 00:14:28.750 His sole political compass was black economic 00:14:28.750 --> 00:14:31.549 independence. Oh. When Richard Nixon ran for 00:14:31.549 --> 00:14:33.889 president, he heavily promoted a concept called 00:14:33.889 --> 00:14:36.769 black capitalism to appeal to moderate black 00:14:36.769 --> 00:14:39.389 voters. OK, so what did black capitalism actually 00:14:39.389 --> 00:14:42.330 mean in practice? For Brown, it meant ownership. 00:14:42.590 --> 00:14:45.529 He wanted black Americans to own radio stations, 00:14:45.870 --> 00:14:48.129 banks, and grocery stores rather than relying 00:14:48.129 --> 00:14:50.750 on government assistance. I see. He didn't see 00:14:50.750 --> 00:14:53.389 aligning with Nixon as a betrayal of civil rights. 00:14:53.669 --> 00:14:56.490 He saw it as a pragmatic, necessary alliance 00:14:56.490 --> 00:14:58.929 to get black entrepreneurs access to federal 00:14:58.929 --> 00:15:01.289 loans and capital. Oh, that makes the Al Sharpton 00:15:01.289 --> 00:15:03.970 connection make more sense. Right. Mentoring 00:15:03.970 --> 00:15:06.230 Al Sharpton to fight for civil rights on the 00:15:06.230 --> 00:15:08.149 street while shaking hands with Ronald Reagan 00:15:08.149 --> 00:15:10.330 in the White House wasn't a contradiction to 00:15:10.330 --> 00:15:13.179 James Brown. It was just... Him playing every 00:15:13.179 --> 00:15:15.860 available angle to secure economic power and 00:15:15.860 --> 00:15:18.580 self -reliance for his community. He wanted absolute 00:15:18.580 --> 00:15:21.519 control over his money, his narrative, and his 00:15:21.519 --> 00:15:23.779 community standing. Completely. But, and this 00:15:23.779 --> 00:15:26.419 is the profoundly tragic turn in this deep dive, 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:29.000 that need for control eventually collapsed in 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:31.500 on itself. We've spent this whole time talking 00:15:31.500 --> 00:15:34.120 about a man who demanded military -level discipline 00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:37.059 from everyone in his orbit. But behind closed 00:15:37.059 --> 00:15:40.659 doors, his personal life descended into absolute 00:15:40.659 --> 00:15:43.940 chaos. The rules he rigidly enforced on others 00:15:43.940 --> 00:15:47.259 ceased to apply to him. For decades, he ran a 00:15:47.259 --> 00:15:50.019 strictly drug -free band. He would fire a musician 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:52.100 instantly if he caught them high. Right. Another 00:15:52.100 --> 00:15:56.610 $50 fine. Or worse. Much worse. But by the 1980s, 00:15:56.809 --> 00:15:58.970 Brown himself was struggling with severe substance 00:15:58.970 --> 00:16:02.850 abuse, specifically heavily using PCP, also known 00:16:02.850 --> 00:16:06.450 as angel dust. And the results were incredibly 00:16:06.450 --> 00:16:09.789 destructive and very public. In 1988, he gets 00:16:09.789 --> 00:16:14.070 involved in a high speed two state police chase 00:16:14.070 --> 00:16:16.580 along the Georgia, South Carolina border. It's 00:16:16.580 --> 00:16:19.059 a really infamous incident. The police shot out 00:16:19.059 --> 00:16:21.340 his tires and he just kept driving on the rims. 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:23.259 He was eventually caught convicted of carrying 00:16:23.259 --> 00:16:26.039 an unlicensed pistol, assaulting a police officer 00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:28.440 and driving under the influence. A judge sentenced 00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:30.879 him to six years in prison, though he was paroled 00:16:30.879 --> 00:16:33.799 after two. But the tragedy extends far beyond 00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:36.820 a police chase. The historical record outlines 00:16:36.820 --> 00:16:39.299 a harrowing pattern of domestic violence. It's 00:16:39.299 --> 00:16:41.620 very difficult to read about. Former band members 00:16:41.620 --> 00:16:43.580 have recounted witnessing him being physically 00:16:43.580 --> 00:16:45.840 abusive toward Tammy Terrell, who was just as 00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:48.620 a teenager singing in his review in the 1960s. 00:16:48.940 --> 00:16:51.700 And later in his life, his third marriage to 00:16:51.700 --> 00:16:53.919 Adriana Rodriguez was plagued by numerous arrests 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.960 for assault. She filed reports stating he beat 00:16:56.960 --> 00:16:59.740 her with an iron pipe and even shot at her car 00:16:59.740 --> 00:17:01.879 while they were both under the influence of PCP. 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:05.839 It's a genuinely dark reality to reconcile with 00:17:05.839 --> 00:17:07.700 the musical genius. It really is. It makes you 00:17:07.700 --> 00:17:11.180 wonder. did the same obsessive boundary pushing 00:17:11.180 --> 00:17:13.880 drive that allowed him to escape poverty and 00:17:13.880 --> 00:17:17.119 invent a new genre of music inevitably lead to 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:19.839 his total personal unraveling. This raises an 00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:21.640 important question about the ghosts of our past. 00:17:22.059 --> 00:17:24.380 James Brown conquered the music industry, he 00:17:24.380 --> 00:17:26.500 amassed incredible wealth, and he forced the 00:17:26.500 --> 00:17:28.740 world to respect him. Yeah. But he was never 00:17:28.740 --> 00:17:32.140 able to conquer his own internal demons. The 00:17:32.140 --> 00:17:34.859 profound trauma of his childhood, you know, the 00:17:34.859 --> 00:17:37.539 abandonment, the survivalist mentality, it seems 00:17:37.539 --> 00:17:39.480 to have stalked him until the end of his life. 00:17:39.859 --> 00:17:41.880 He was a man who never learned how to stop running. 00:17:42.359 --> 00:17:44.180 And honestly, the running didn't even stop when 00:17:44.180 --> 00:17:47.299 he died. He passed away on Christmas Day in 2006 00:17:47.299 --> 00:17:50.019 from congestive heart failure. But reading about 00:17:50.019 --> 00:17:52.500 the aftermath of his death, it was an absolute 00:17:52.500 --> 00:17:55.859 circus. The chaos completely outlived him. His 00:17:55.859 --> 00:17:59.539 death triggered a sprawling 15 year legal war 00:17:59.539 --> 00:18:02.980 over his estate. 15 years. How does an escape 00:18:02.980 --> 00:18:06.490 battle last a decade and a half? Because the 00:18:06.490 --> 00:18:08.910 sheer complexity of his life finally caught up 00:18:08.910 --> 00:18:11.230 with him. First, there were multiple unacknowledged 00:18:11.230 --> 00:18:13.569 children coming forward, requiring a wave of 00:18:13.569 --> 00:18:16.490 DNA tests. Oh, wow. Then there was a massive 00:18:16.490 --> 00:18:19.210 legal brawl involving a woman named Tomi Ray. 00:18:19.910 --> 00:18:22.250 She claimed to be his legal widow and demanded 00:18:22.250 --> 00:18:24.609 a massive share of the estate. And did she get 00:18:24.609 --> 00:18:26.809 it? Well, the fighting was so vicious that it 00:18:26.809 --> 00:18:28.390 went all the way to the South Carolina Supreme 00:18:28.390 --> 00:18:31.339 Court. In 2020, the court finally ruled that 00:18:31.339 --> 00:18:33.619 she was never legally his wife because she had 00:18:33.619 --> 00:18:35.680 failed to properly annul a previous marriage 00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:38.019 before marrying Brown. That is messy. It wasn't 00:18:38.019 --> 00:18:40.819 until 2021 that the estate was finally settled. 00:18:41.099 --> 00:18:43.359 15 years of lawyers fighting over the fractured 00:18:43.359 --> 00:18:46.680 empire of a man who demanded total control. It's 00:18:46.680 --> 00:18:49.500 a really heavy place to land. It is. We started 00:18:49.500 --> 00:18:52.140 this deep dive looking at a cartoonish godfather 00:18:52.140 --> 00:18:54.720 of soul. But what we actually found in these 00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:57.680 sources was a man defined entirely by extreme 00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:00.619 dualities. Very true. He was born into the dirt 00:19:00.619 --> 00:19:04.480 of poverty and died with immense wealth. He pioneered 00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:06.960 a musical discipline so perfectly strict that 00:19:06.960 --> 00:19:09.720 it required hand signal fines, yet his personal 00:19:09.720 --> 00:19:12.420 life was swallowed by drugs and violence. Yeah. 00:19:12.819 --> 00:19:15.099 He was a civil rights icon who believed deeply 00:19:15.099 --> 00:19:19.079 in black pride, but he was also a ruthless pragmatist 00:19:19.079 --> 00:19:21.599 who used conservative politicians to build his 00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:24.180 own economic power. It is an incredibly dense 00:19:24.180 --> 00:19:26.779 legacy, but for you, the listener, I think there 00:19:26.779 --> 00:19:28.779 is a very practical takeaway. What was that? 00:19:29.099 --> 00:19:30.859 The next time you put on a pair of headphones, 00:19:31.140 --> 00:19:33.279 whether you are listening to a classic hip hop 00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:36.400 track, a funk groove, or even modern electronic 00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:40.039 dance music, try to actively listen for the one. 00:19:40.440 --> 00:19:43.240 Beat one. Yes. Listen for that explosive anchor 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:46.079 on the very first downbeat. When you hear it, 00:19:46.220 --> 00:19:48.640 you are hearing the exact space where James Brown 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:51.099 stripped the engine of Western music down to 00:19:51.099 --> 00:19:54.539 its bare rhythmic core. I really love that. And 00:19:54.539 --> 00:19:56.140 while you're listening for the one, I want to 00:19:56.140 --> 00:19:57.819 leave you with a final thought to mull over. 00:19:58.460 --> 00:20:00.519 We spent a lot of time today talking about James 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:03.660 Brown's relentless, almost dictatorial demand 00:20:03.660 --> 00:20:06.839 for perfect, flawless rhythm from the human beings 00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:10.470 around him. Today, nearly all popular music is 00:20:10.470 --> 00:20:13.269 made using computers and drum machines that quantize 00:20:13.269 --> 00:20:16.109 beats, snapping them perfectly onto a digital 00:20:16.109 --> 00:20:19.329 grid without a millisecond of human error. Do 00:20:19.329 --> 00:20:22.430 you think that modern robotic perfection is the 00:20:22.430 --> 00:20:24.769 ultimate realization of what James Brown was 00:20:24.769 --> 00:20:27.890 always searching for? Or would he hate it because 00:20:27.890 --> 00:20:30.490 the music finally achieved absolute control but 00:20:30.490 --> 00:20:33.029 lost the sweaty, desperate human struggle that 00:20:33.029 --> 00:20:35.930 made it funk in the first place? That is a fascinating 00:20:35.930 --> 00:20:37.630 question. Think about that. Next time you tap 00:20:37.630 --> 00:20:39.369 your foot, we'll catch you on the next deep dive.