Father Divine [Explicit Lyrics]

Mike Ladd | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 15, 2005)
• Original Release Date: November 15, 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Label: Roir
• ASIN: B000AARKN0
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #439,002 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Apt. C2 (3:08)

2. Awful Raw (2:53)

3. Crooner Island (5:40)

4. Black Rambo (1:31)

5. Barney's Girl (4:14)

6. Little Red (3:25)

7. Water Bomb (2:54)

8. Ike Turner Dub (4:06)

9. So ‘n So (3:14)

10. Just In Case (4:19)

11. Murder Girl (4:18)

12. The Last Sea (2:10)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Mike Ladd will go down as one of the most important artists of our time. With albums such as Welcome to the Afterfuture, Negrophilia, Nostalgialator, and through his Infesticons/Majesticons project, Mike makes unclassifiable music in the best possible sense—rock, soul, spoken-word, blues, punk, psychedelia all housed in a hip-hop shell and hatched through Mike’s peculiar production techniques and vivid lyrics. To many, he’s black music’s Beck. Mike’s delivery, which runs the gamut from the sweet world-weariness of an old bluesman to the righteous bark of a Last Poet, is one of the most evocative in music.

Product Description

The Father Divine project started two years ago as an attempt to capture the original, analog-laden ROIR cassette sound (of Bad Brains & Suicide, of punk & dub) as filtered through Mike Ladd’s artistic vision: I’m not one to be over-enthusiastic about any label I’m working with but for me ROIR is pretty special considering they put out one of my all-time favorite albums: Bad Brains. I’ve always loved the grimy, haphazardly compressed sound of tapes. I still use them in my music and wanted to capture that on Father Divine. It then morphed into a religious cult-figure concept-album (google “Father Divine” to learn more). However, during the recording process life stepped in and whisked Mike away to Paris (for love, of course) and rewarded him w/ a wife & child. Extreme change makes one reflect on one’s life and often opens new creative avenues. For example, Mike explains, “Now that I’m safely married, I find it easier to write about girls.” Father Divine has two classic girl tracks (“Barney’s Girl” and “Murder Girl”). They, along with a few others, are great examples of Mike making peace with a former life. “Apt C2” is at once a requiem for his Bronx apt and a tentative hello to his new life in Paris. Father Divine is pregnant with personal imagery of Mike’s past, as well as his trademark political fury toward the present and inimitable visions of the afterfuture. Father Divine is also an album with big, BIG MOJO. It’s easily Mike’s hottest, dirtiest-sounding album yet. There’s that ROIR sound—of anger and fun and dirt—plus there’s a bit of that Father Divine mystique and dubby echo which adds some spookiness (all good records need it). And it’s all burning. Father Divine is the sound of dirt burning up. That has a lot to do with Mike, but also with his collaborators. On Father Divine, Mike worked with Priest (of Antipop Consortium) on synth, Pianist Vijay Iyer, ROIR artist Raz Mesinai a/k/a Badawi (dubs & percussion), Damali Young on drums & guitar, Dave “Eastwood” Sztanke on keys, and Jaleel Bunton (of TV On The Radio) on guitar. But his main man on Father Divine is a Spanish/French kid from Southern France mysteriously named Gymkhana, whose studio is an analog lover’s dream. Much of the production work was done there, as well as Mike’s home studio, and one can hear a slightly meatier sound on Father Divine as compared to Mike’s other work. Mike describes Gymkhana as “an experimental electronic maestro whose sensibility ended up colliding with my off-kilter pop sensibility in some interesting ways.” Indeed. The supreme instance of this collision is the epic “Crooner Island”, which ranks as the strongest instrumental track in Mike’s entire oeuvre. Gymkhana’s excellent keyboard work grounds Mike’s stuttering beats at the beginning of the song then grows increasingly playful before blasting off for the finale. Other tracks, such as “Awful Raw” & “Murder Girl” (which sounds like a lost Prince gem), exhibit bombastic production and lyrical bravado unique to Father Divine. It might have you screaming “gotta get your channel on” before long.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Virtually Unclassifiable, Underground Hip-Hop, November 28, 2005

By 

Troy Collins (Lancaster, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Father Divine (Audio CD)

"Father Divine" is both a love letter to Mike Ladd's past and to the history of ROIR records. Ladd is one of underground/experimental hip-hop's most politically charged voices, while ROIR is best know for releasing innovative Dub records as well as issuing the finest first generation hard core album, Bad Brains self titled debut from 1982. Ladd lets his guard down for the first time to wax poetic about his own past, which coincidentally references the era and music that made ROIR a household name.

An invigorating mix of spacey dub, seventies funk, eighties big-beat electro, old school hip-hop and even early Prince, "Father Divine" is Ladd's most lyrically accessible and sonically enjoyable album to date. "Barney's Girl" finds Ladd reminiscing about a long lost love over a soulful vibe, while "Awful Raw" is a heady mix of sampled Bollywood horns and gritty, bhangra flavored hip-hop. Ladd's closest flirtation with pop music arrives in "Murder Girl," which comes off like a spunky, lo-fi Prince tune. Peppered with numerous instrumental dub and electronic meditations, the album is awash in cultural collisions. His collaborators include frequent partner, jazz keyboardist Vijay Iyer, Priest from Antipop Consortium, Jaleel Bunton from TV on the Radio and producer Gymkhana, a new face on the scene.

Borrowing the album title from the adopted name of a charismatic, self-styled preacher from the Depression-era, Ladd delivers his pronouncements with the same authority befitting an outcast leader. Widely considered the first example of a religious cult, Father Divine's Peace Mission is used here by Ladd as an example of the power of self-myth. One of Ladd's best records and one of underground hip-hop's better albums this year, "Father Divine" is not to be missed.