Shuggie Otis – Inspiration Information (1974)
Learning to be anti-racist
“It’s more of a challenge for other people than it is for me. I have no issues with my identity.”
– Rashida Jones
For years, I have been mistakenly under the impression that ‘racist’ and ‘not racist’ were opposites. I’ve since realized that ‘anti-racism’ is actually the opposite of ‘racism’ & I need to do a better job of being actively anti-racist.
As a starting point, I want to commit to doing two small things every week:
- Listen & Learn. Share resources that I’ve found helpful.
- Amplify Black Voices. Each Wednesday, feature a Black Artist from the 1001 list.
So far, I’ve looked at Curtis Mayfield’s There’s No Place Like America Today, The Crusaders’ Street Life, Cypress Hill’s Cypress Hill, Cee-Lo Green’s Cee-Lo Green…Is the Soul Machine, Maxwell’s Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s, Shaka Zulu, Muddy Waters’ Hard Again, Fela Ransome-Kuti and The Africa ’70 with Ginger Baker’s Live!, and Femi Kuti’s Femi Kuti.
This week, Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information.
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[Album 790/1001]
I wholeheartedly approve of albums that lend themselves to charts & graphs.
Inspiration Information, for Shuggie’s own musical multi-tasking merit (in addition to its inherent graph-ability), is no exception.
It’s an intriguing listen as some tunes have plenty of lyrics (information), others are entirely instrumental (allowing for the listener to have some time for personal reflection, or inspiration), and a couple of tracks are somewhere in between.
When he delivers over 100 lyrics in a track? Optimal information.
No lyrics whatsoever? Inspiration is optimized.
Between 1 & 100 lyrics? Inspiration & Inspiration are neatly balanced, as shown below!
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Helpful Resources
“I am a mixture of races so I need to tell the truth or it gets confusing”
– Shuggie Otis.
It was interesting reading this feature on Shuggie Otis & also reflecting on his answer (quoted above) that he gives when someone asks him about his race.
I think this record is just about my favourite discovery from the book – they did a great job of shining the spotlight on an under appreciated talent.
Agreed – this is one of the albums that I may not have otherwise encountered but thanks to the list, I’m pleased I have!
Awww! Graphs!!! This is going to be a good day now!
Indeed John ! Geoff is the King of Graphs!
No one comes close
… Bar (chart) none!
Aww shucks, thank you all!