The Glory of Sly Stone

Lookin' at the devil
Grinnin' at his gun
Fingers start shakin'
I begin to run
Bullets start chasin'
I begin to stop
We begin to wrestle
I was on the top

Flamin' eyes of people fear burnin' into you
Many men are missin' much, hatin' what they do
Youth and truth are makin' love, dig it for a starter
Dyin' young is hard to take, sellin' out is harder

—Sly Stone

I’m trying not to focus on what is happening on the streets of Los Angeles right now. Our nation is fractured. Tear gas. Rubber bullets. The military patrolling its own sidewalks. The President calling for the arrest of the state’s Governor, the sort of banana republic shit normally associated with….well…..”shithole countries”. Wasn’t that the official term used? I’ll have to check my notes.

But I’m still drawn to LA, because the death of Sly Stone brought me back there. Sly. A man so ridiculously talented that we’ve been trying to invent categories to put him in for more than 50 years. Rock. Soul. Funk. Pop. Blues. Hip hop before it had a name. And whatever exists in between those genres. His band. Blacks. Whites. Men. Women. They didn’t ignore race. Or the sexism of the age. They simply bulldozed it out of the way. Even today, a generation later, he seems revolutionary. And even a little scary. His vision started with your shoes, and worked its way up. Sly was out of fucks 60 years ago.