15 June 2025

SLY STONE (born Sylvester Stewart) left us and the whole wide music world a week
ago, on June 9, aged 82. He was a pioneering artist who mixed soul, funk, psychedelia
and rock into an effervescent cocktail of dance frenzy. With his Family he released
10 LPs.

One of his best-known albums was/is THERE’S A RIOT GOIN’ ON.
His 5th one, which came out in 1971 and topped the US Charts.

On this record he departed from the optimistic sound of the previous longplayers music and explored a darker, more challenging sound featuring edgy funk rhythms, a primitive drum machine, extensive overdubbing, and a dense mix.

Conceptually and lyrically, There’s a Riot Goin’ On embraced apathy, pessimism, and disillusionment with both Stone‘s fame and 1960s counterculture amid a turbulent political climate in the United States at the turn of the 1970s, influenced by the decline of the civil rights movement and the rise of the Black Power movement.

Sounds familiar, mister macho Trump? You make America rioting again.

Sly image: cover of his live album ‘Sly Lives’ (Aka The Burden Of Black Genius).