Is It Because I’m Black

Excellent Chicago soul album from blues singer Syl Johnson, who generally keeps the mood pretty low-paced and simmering over the eight tracks with even the funkier songs having a languid, still air to them. The brooding, plaintive blues-funk of the title track remains one of the most powerful records of the civil rights era and together with his ‘Concrete Reservation’ form a social-conscious precursor to Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’. Not especially successful on release, it’s since been heavily sampled by the hip hop community and ‘Is It Because I’m Black’ is now rightly considered a classic.