Rod McGaha - The Black Flower Project (2014)

Tracklist

01. The Challenge
02. Inner Courage
03. Lullaby
04. Bleep Blop
05. Wish I Knew
06. Black Flower
07. Unexpected Soul
08. Mama Said
09. When I Was Growin' Up
10. Here's That Rainy Day
11. Cookout
12. Your's Truly

Rod McGaha's “The Black Flower Project” counts on this fact. And, why shouldn't it? McGaha took a racially diverse, multi-generational group of musical artists and formed this project. If they could not only grasp the universality of the subject, but also build upon it, certainly it would be comprehensible for the listening masses.

“The Black Flower Project” is an example of Identity Art going aural. McGaha launches into it with a rigorous, raw energy at the very beginning on the fiery tune, “The Challenge”. You may not be sure if McGaha meant the challenge of self-examination or the challenge of viewing someone undergoing such an examination. However it is meant, we are both provoked and thrilled by the music. As always, Rod is a gentleman and sometime chooses to put us at ease with compositions like Lullaby and the titular, sublimely lovely, yet wonderfully soulful Black Flower.

Rod is also true to form by introducing tunes for your amusement like Bleep Blop and Cookout. And, if you were wondering, yes, he is aware of the melodic allusion to Bobby Timmon's Moanin'. Miles said it best, “Bad musicians borrow, the good musicians steal!”

Songs like Inner Courage and Unexpected Soul make us consider the lush richness of the “African American experience”. Certainly not to be missed is McGaha's attempt at a sort of mental slight of hand, causing us to look back so acutely that we somehow see the future. Rod does this on the tune When I Was Growin' Up by utilizing the heralded and surprising lyricist (XXL and NPR have already agreed), who goes under the moniker of “OpenMic”. Apparently, the maxim is correct, the apple does not fall very far.

Altogether, this is a 12-track exhibit of the inner-world and history of an African American musical artist. If Freud was right and there are at least two of you in actuality, Rod McGaha hopes that at least one of those yous will appreciate “The Black Flower Project.”

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