Found that out young, at a record shop counter, maybe seventeen, wearing a Bad Brains shirt. Older dude behind me had a Led Zeppelin patch sewn to his jacket. He clocked the shirt, looked a beat too long, and asked did I even know who that was. Real slow, like he already had the answer. I told him HR could sing circles around anybody taped to that wall of his. Meant it too. He laughed, rang me up, and the whole thing stuck to me for years, because it said something rotten about who we let own the loud stuff. The riffs, the sweat, the whole inheritance.

Here’s what nobody wants to sit with. This genre has a memory, and that memory is selective as hell.

We treat a handful of groups like scripture. You know exactly who I mean. Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, that tier. The same five or six names pull the anniversary box sets and the remastered vinyl, plus a two hour documentary every couple years, narrated by somebody with a voice like warm gravel. Their smallest demos get treated like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Meanwhile artists who shaped every one of those sacred acts fade out quiet, like a fire nobody bothered to feed. And a whole lot of those forgotten folks look like me.

Go back to the root. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was already out there bending electric strings and dragging gospel somewhere wild and a little dangerous, and this was before your so called founding fathers had even picked up their first guitars. She had the fuzz and the swagger cold. Chuck Berry pretty much wrote the language everybody after him borrowed. Not just the duck walk, though that too. More the idea that a guitar could carry a whole song, tell a story, lead the thing instead of trailing it. Little Richard hollered the blueprint into the air with more nerve than a hundred imitators combined. Big Mama Thornton cut “Hound Dog” first, and you know good and well whose version became the global money machine. None of these are footnotes. They’re the slab everything else got poured on top of. Yank them out and the whole structure caves.

Yet ask a casual fan to name the people who invented the sound and watch how fast the conversation slides toward Liverpool and London. Nothing against those boys from across the water. Students, and good ones. They admitted it themselves, over and over, across a lifetime of interviews. Loving the source was never the issue. What curdled is how the culture crowned the students and let the teachers slip into the fog.

Consider the group Death. Not the Florida metal outfit, though respect to them too. Three brothers out of Detroit, the Hackney boys, punk before punk had a manifesto. Those kids were cutting snarling, urgent, forward music in the first half of the seventies when a label man told them to change their name so it would sell. They refused. So the reels went into a box, up in an attic, and sat there most of thirty years. Whole time, the accepted history had punk kicking off a couple years later with a different, whiter set of kids in ripped shirts. When somebody finally dug those Detroit tapes back out, folks who’d built careers on knowing this era cold had no idea what to do with themselves. How’d we miss this? Come on. You didn’t miss it. Somebody filed it under the wrong faces, that’s all.

Then you’ve got Living Colour, who could play circles around most of the untouchables and did it in front of arenas. Vernon Reid is a monster on that instrument, a real architect, and the group had the songs and the politics and the fury to match anybody. Fishbone brought a chaos and joy that half of what came after quietly borrowed and never credited. And Tina. Half the front people who ever strutted a stage were running her playbook whether they cop to it or not, yet for years her legend got told through the man who beat her, like the storm she was on her own somehow needed a co-writer.

You start to see the pattern, and once you see it you can’t stop seeing it. The keepers of the flame decide who counts. Magazines, hall of fame committees, radio programmers, the algorithm now too. They build the shrine and they choose the statues. And funny how the statues keep looking a certain way.

Some folks push back here and say it’s really about sales, or airplay, or who happened to catch lightning at the right moment. Comfortable answer. Lets everybody off the hook. Trouble is, it falls apart the second you look close. Plenty of these erased artists sold, toured, tore roofs off. They shaped the very people getting worshipped. Influence is the whole currency of this thing. We measure greatness by how many downstream acts somebody spawned. So when a person pours the foundation and then vanishes while their descendants get bronzed, that isn’t the market being neutral. Somebody chose that, and kept choosing it, until the choice set like concrete into what we call history.

And it isn’t only a Black thing, to be fair, though it hits hardest there. Women get vanished the same way. Big Star made some of the most quietly influential guitar music of their decade and got heard by almost nobody while it counted, and half the jangly acts folks adore owe them a debt they’ll never pay. The MC5 lit a fuse under everything loud and furious that came after and still barely register in the polite version of the story. Whole scenes get flattened into one convenient hero while the network of people who actually made it move go uncredited. The proto everything acts, the ones who were too early or too strange or too broke to get documented right, they slip through. Memory rewards the tidy narrative. One genius, one lightning strike in one lucky city, roll credits. Real culture never once worked like that. Always been a crowd instead, a bunch of people in the same sweaty room stealing and gifting and building off each other.

None of this is a demand to tear down what you love. I love plenty of the canon too. I’ll blast the untouchables loud as anybody when the mood hits. What I’m asking is smaller and harder. Make room. When you praise a group for inventing something, go find who they were listening to and say those names out loud too. When a documentary crowns another set of heroes, ask yourself who got left on the cutting room floor and why. Follow the trail back past the obvious.

Because there’s a quiet cost to a thin memory. Here’s the part that actually gets me. Some kid right now, looks like me, picks up a guitar for the very first time and gets handed a story where none of this was ever really his. A guest, more or less, in a house his own grandparents built. That lie has teeth, and they sink in early. Decides who even feels welcome to plug in, then further down the road it quietly sorts who a label signs and whose name still carries weight in forty years. Erasure like that doesn’t only insult the dead. The living pay for it too, pockets picked while they’re still on their feet.

There’s a reason that record shop moment stays with me. The man wasn’t cruel. He probably thought he was guarding something sacred. But his version of sacred had a wall around it, and the wall had a shape, and I didn’t fit it. Here’s the thing though. Truth doesn’t need that wall. Runs bigger and messier and more beautiful than any shrine. A gospel woman with an electric guitar. Three brothers in Detroit refusing to sell their name. Big Mama’s voice buried under a stolen hit. All of it, tangled together, none of it separable no matter how hard the story tries to pull it apart.

So play your favorites. Wear the patches. Just don’t let the memory stay this thin. Say the names that got left out. Dig for the tapes in the attic. Give the teachers their flowers, not just the students. The music was never supposed to be a museum with a bouncer at the door. It was a riot. Everybody was in it. And it could be that again, if we’d just remember the thing right.

Staff Writer; Bobby Jackson

This brother is dedicated to covering heavy metal and rock music with depth, respect, and cultural awareness. His writing highlights Black heavy metal and rock artists while also celebrating the genre’s broader legacy, influence, and artistic power.

Contact him at: BobbyJ@TheBRHM.com.

Sound Barrier came up out of Los Angeles in 1980. Bernie K. on vocals. Spacey T. tearing up the guitar. Stanley E. holding down bass. Dave “Skavido” Brown behind the kit. Bernie K. and Spacey T. first crossed paths grinding in an R&B funk outfit, then decided they wanted something heavier, louder, meaner. So they chased it. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, even a little Rush in the DNA when it came to musicianship. This was real metal, dual leads and all, not some watered down crossover thing cooked up in a boardroom.

Picture the Sunset Strip back then. Hairspray for days. Marshall stacks stacked to the ceiling. Spandex and bad attitudes everywhere you looked. Sound Barrier walked into that circus with chops most of those Aqua Net bands couldn’t touch, and they looked sharp doing it. They had the sound. They had the stage presence. Spacey T. could flat out play, fluid and nasty in the same breath, the kind of guitarist other guitarists nodded at from the side of the stage.

Then came the part that should have changed their lives. MCA signed them in 1982. A major. Real money, real distribution, real machinery behind the music. Sound Barrier became widely credited as the first all-African-American metal band to land a major-label deal, which in 1982 was no small thing. Their debut, Total Control, dropped in 1983. Nine tracks, melodic where it needed to be, blistering where it counted. By every measure that mattered on paper, these brothers had arrived.

So what happened? The record moved around twelve thousand copies and MCA dropped them. Twelve thousand. For a band with that kind of talent and that kind of shot, that number doesn’t tell a story about the music. It tells a story about everything wrapped around the music.

Here’s where it gets real. A radio programmer in 1983 gets a press photo across his desk. Four Black faces. What does he assume before he even drops the needle? R&B. Funk. Soul. Anything but a band that worships Priest. So the record never sniffs the rock format that would have loved it, and it sure isn’t getting spun on the urban stations either, because it’s loud guitar music that doesn’t fit their lane. No home anywhere. Caught in the gap nobody built a bridge across.

And the label? Marketing a metal band means a specific playbook. Get them in the rock rags. Get the video in rotation. Push the single to album rock radio. Now imagine the promo guy whose whole job is selling to programmers he knows are biased, who maybe carries some of that same baggage himself. Does he fight that fight, or does he let the record die quiet and move on to the next sure thing? Sound Barrier got the deal. What they didn’t get was anybody swinging for them.

You want to talk MTV while we’re here. In those early years, MTV kept a nearly all-white playlist and gave very little space to Black artists. We all know the stories. It took muscle from a major label and a guitar solo from a white rock god before “Beat It” helped crack that wall wide open. A young Black metal band with a modest budget and no leverage? Forget it. The one place a wild looking, hard charging act could have caught fire visually was a door bolted shut from the inside. So the look that should have been an asset never reached the eyeballs that needed to see it.

Genre boxes did the rest of the damage. The industry loves a tidy shelf. Put the artist in a category, hand the category to the right department, collect the check. A Black act gets filed under urban almost on reflex, no matter what’s actually coming out of the speakers. Sound Barrier made heavy metal, full stop, but the system kept trying to read them as something they weren’t. When the box doesn’t fit the music, it’s always the artist who bleeds, never the box.

They didn’t fold up and quit, though. That part I love. After MCA cut them loose, they put out the Born to Rock EP in 1984 on their own Pit Bull imprint. Do it yourself before do it yourself had a name. Then Metal Blade came calling and they cut Speed of Light in 1986, even flipping a Thin Lizzy tune in the process, which felt like a wink to anybody paying attention to where their hearts lived. By then, the original all-Black lineup had already shifted after Stanley E. left and Emil Lech joined on bass. By 1987, the band itself had broken apart, and the music world barely noticed a thing.

Now watch the timing, because it stings. A year or so later, Living Colour walks through a door Sound Barrier spent the decade pushing against. Vernon Reid had the Black Rock Coalition behind him, a movement built specifically to drag this exact conversation into the light, plus a co-sign from a producer with a household name. “Cult of Personality” hits, the Grammy comes, and suddenly the mainstream acts surprised that Black folks play rock, as if Chuck Berry didn’t invent half the vocabulary. Sound Barrier had been saying the same thing years earlier into a room that wasn’t ready to hear it yet. Right message. Too soon. That’s the cruelest spot to stand in, knocking before anybody decides to answer.

The talent never went anywhere, by the way. Spacey T. kept eating. He joined Mother’s Finest and helped make a record literally titled Black Radio Won’t Play This Record, which might be the most honest album name in the history of the format wars. Later he ran with Fishbone for years, touring and recording, putting that fluid menace to work for a whole new crowd. The man’s fingerprints are all over the alternative and funk metal lineage, even when the casual listener never connected the dots back to where it started.

The story gets a little redemption, too, which I needed. In 2017 a reunited Sound Barrier played the Whisky a Go Go under a banner that read Metal Has No Color, and the room was thick with believers. Tom Morello showed up and produced their new single. Corey Glover from Living Colour was there. dUg Pinnick from King’s X stood in the building. A generation of Black rock musicians who came after, paying respect to the cats who took the early shots and ate the early losses. That night the truth finally got said out loud to a crowd that already knew it in their bones.

So why does any of this matter now? Because the thing that buried Sound Barrier was never the riffs and never the songs. It was a machine that couldn’t read a photograph without flinching. The sound was there. The look was there. The chops were undeniable and the major-label shot was real. What failed was an industry that built its shelves before it built any imagination, and a country that kept acting shocked at something it had been told a hundred times already.

I want you to go find Total Control. Put it on loud. Sit with the fact that this was sitting right there in 1983, waiting for somebody brave enough to push it the way it deserved, and nobody did. Then think about every other name we lost the same way, the ones who didn’t get a reunion night or a Morello cameo, the ones who just faded because the gatekeepers couldn’t see past a press photo.

Sound Barrier wasn’t ahead of the music. They were dead even with it. The world was just running late, and four bad brothers from LA paid the bill for everybody else’s lag. Crank it up. Say their names. They earned that much and a whole lot more.

Staff Writer; Bobby Jackson

This brother is dedicated to covering heavy metal and rock music with depth, respect, and cultural awareness. His writing highlights Black heavy metal and rock artists while also celebrating the genre’s broader legacy, influence, and artistic power.

Contact him at: BobbyJ@TheBRHM.com.

Black Death. Say the name slow and let it sit. These dudes came together in 1977, so picture it. Disco running the airwaves, everybody out on the floor doing the hustle, and meanwhile down in the Rust Belt you got Greg Hicks, Phil Bullard, and Clayborn Pinkins building something loud and ugly and beautiful with no lane to even drive it in. No name yet. No singer for a stretch. Just three Black men making a racket nobody had given them permission to make. Sit with how bold that is. There was no roadmap. Nobody to copy off of. They were drawing the picture and inventing the colors at the same time.

Then Siki Spacek walked through the door, and the whole thing snapped into focus. Real name Reginald Gamble, but the man renamed himself like a comic villain and backed up every syllable. He turned into the voice, the writer, the lead riff machine, the engine that pulled the whole train. And here’s the part that gets me grinning every single time. The fellas he linked up with didn’t really know what they were getting into. Siki had to teach them. Sat them down with Scorpions songs first. Then he dragged the crew to a Judas Priest concert just so they could feel in their chest what he was already hearing in his head. You understand what kind of belief that takes? You’re chasing a sound nobody around you recognizes, and instead of folding, you school your own people until they can hand it back to you.

So now let me get to why I titled this thing the way I did. Ahead of their time. And I don’t mean by a year or two. I mean these brothers were operating in a future the rest of us hadn’t booked tickets for.

Think about the timeline real careful. When D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies and that whole crossover wave finally taught the hardcore kids how to bang their heads, when speed and punk officially shook hands and the magazines acted like somebody had split the atom, Cleveland’s finest had already been smashing those worlds together in sweaty little dive bars for years. The self-titled record didn’t even land until 1984 on Auburn Records, which is its own kind of perfect. But the songs on it were older than that. Road-tested. Beaten into shape on stage long before any tape rolled.

And what does that record actually sound like? It runs. It runs hard. You hear thrash before the word thrash was on everybody’s lips. You hear speed that’s about to trip over its own feet and somehow never does. You hear punk in the snot and the swagger and the way the whole thing refuses to be polite. The production is rough as a gravel road, no budget, no studio gloss, like the tape itself was a little scared of them. And honest to God that’s the magic. That dirt under the fingernails is the point.

Reach for a track called “The Scream of the Iron Messiah” and brace yourself, because that’s the four-piece at full sprint, riffs tumbling over each other with Siki’s voice clawing up out of his usual deep growl into something almost feral. Then you got “Streetwalker,” which is where the lyrics earn their keep. That ain’t dungeons and dragons fantasy fluff. That’s life on the corner, the grind, the hustle, the stuff Siki could see right outside the window. Long before a lot of these subgenres pretended to discover that you could put real street truth inside heavy music, this Ohio crew was already doing it without making a press release about it. “Night of the Living Death” and “Fear No Evil” round it out, and the whole platter holds together like one long fever.

Now I can’t tell this story honest and skip the heartbreak, because there’s a heavy one. Their first bass player, Clayborn Pinkins, got murdered in 1979. Shot dead. The man went to pick up his lady from a chicken spot over where Broadway meets Union, and that was it. Gone, right at the start, before he ever got to watch what they’d become. That kind of loss could have buried the whole project. Folks have quit over a whole lot less. Darrell Harris eventually slid in on bass and locked down the lineup you hear on the album, but you best believe that shadow followed the music.

And here’s a thing that knots my stomach a little. For all that vision, for all that fire, they never really busted out of their hometown. They opened for cats like Rick Derringer, Anvil, and Helix. Real rooms, real crowds. But the bigger stages, the major label money, the world tour, none of it came knocking. They watched other acts who looked a little more familiar, a little more expected, walk right past them and grab the deals. You want to talk about a tax that doesn’t show up on any receipt. Being first and being unfamiliar at the same time can cost a man everything but the satisfaction of having done it.

You’ll catch some debate about whether they were truly the very first all African American crew in the genre. Sound Barrier, another pioneering all-Black heavy metal band, released a full-length record, Total Control, in 1983, one year before Black Death’s 1984 album. Fair enough. But Black Death’s roots go back to 1977, and most heads who know the history still give these Cleveland boys the crown for arriving on the scene first. Siki himself never made the whole thing about color anyway. He’s got this great line about how being all dark skinned wasn’t some plan they cooked up in a back room. To him it was simply how the lineup turned out, and a coloring book stays a coloring book no matter what shades you fill it with. He just wanted to build the ultimate heavy band, the kind that could hit every emotion the way Hendrix and Sabbath and the rest hit theirs. Race was real, he knew the world made it real, but the mission was the music first.

They went quiet around 1988 and stayed mostly silent for two long decades. When the dust finally settled there was even a little family feud over the name, Siki running one camp and Greg another, the way these old stories always seem to fracture. Spacek’s version eventually rolled on as Black Death Resurrected. But the part that warms me is what happened to that lone old album. Hells Headbangers got it reissued, put it back in physical form, and all of a sudden a new generation started catching on. Decibel wrote it up. Kerrang gave it ink. Collectors started chasing the original pressing like buried treasure, because that’s exactly what it is.

So when I say they were ahead of their time, here’s what I really mean. The blend they were brewing in 1977, the way thrash and speed and punk attitude and honest social truth all got thrown in one pot, became the recipe a dozen famous outfits would later get rich and celebrated for. These dudes were the prototype. The proof of concept nobody acknowledged. They showed it could be done, and then the spotlight swung over their heads and landed on the folks who arrived after the door was already open.

And maybe the sweetest part, for somebody like me, is what their whole existence quietly says back to that uncle at the cookout. Brothers absolutely do rock. Brothers helped build the thing. Black men were in the engine room of heavy music from the jump, sweating and bleeding and inventing, whether the history books bothered to write it down or not.

Go put that record on. Crank it loud enough to annoy your neighbors. Then ask yourself how something this raw, this fearless, this far out in front, ever got left in the dark this long. Black Death earned their flowers a long, long time ago. The least we can do is finally hand them over.

Staff Writer; Bobby Jackson

This brother is dedicated to covering heavy metal and rock music with depth, respect, and cultural awareness. His writing highlights Black heavy metal and rock artists while also celebrating the genre’s broader legacy, influence, and artistic power.

Contact him at: BobbyJ@TheBRHM.com.

Most of these songs are from the band’s hot late-1970s run where Phil Lynott had become seasoned as a front man. The 80s weren’t the best time for the band as really drug abuse impacted their recording.

The Boys Are Back in Town (Jailbreak, 1976)

This is a track that everyone raised on radio has heard at least once. It was regularly in local commercials here in the Yellowhammer State along with Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”.

Despite how overplayed the song is, it is the best introduction to the band’s music. The opening verse lets you know it’s just about bunch of hometown boys who returned to the city:

“Guess who just got back today?
Those wild-eyed boys that had been away
Haven’t changed, haven’t much to say
But man, I still think those cats are great”

Lynott’s vocals here are pretty much his baseline. This was a commercial hit that had a little of the trademark street-dangerous energy of Thin Lizzy but this song isn’t our next three tunes.

Johnny (Johnny the Fox, 1976)

One of my all-time favorite Thin Lizzy tunes: “Johnny” tells the story of a drug addict driven to the extremes of armed robbery. The titular Johnny finds himself surrounded by police only to meet his death in a dirty alley.

As an aside, I think this Johnny is the same one that was mentioned in “The Boys Are Back in Town” but not the titular Johnny the Fox.

I love storytelling songs and at just shy of four-and-a-half minutes, this is one of the best ones I’ve heard. Depending on the singer, this could’ve been just another song but Thin Lizzy’s performance made the song.

Hands down, “Johnny” is the best song on the album and one of Thin Lizzy’s best.

Opium Trail (Bad Reputation, 1977)

Lynott passed in January 1986 at the age 36 of sepsis. For years he had dealt with drugs and alcohol during a chaotic period for rock and roll. I view “Opium Trail” as something of a part one to our next entry as it’s about the highs and lows of drug use. We’re not at the end of a story like “Johnny”.

The song has a different vibe from a lot of Lizzy songs in that it’s funkier—much like the excellent “Waiting for An Alibi”. Most of Thin Lizzy’s songs are heavily rooted in blues. Actually, it’s one of those classic rock bands where you can still hear the blues roots in their music as it developed.

Compared to the rest of the songs on this list, only “Opium Trail” and the last entry give off a different vibe for Thin Lizzy.

Got to Give It Up (Black Rose: A Rock Legend, 1979)

This track our pretty much be in the middle if you were to put “Johnny” and “Opium Trail” in a sequence. “Got to Give It Up” is basically about an addict explaining why they need to quit drugs and telling the listener to tell their parents about how they’ve failed at trying to get off the stuff.

“Got to Give It Up” was definitely a personal song for Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy. Again, this was a period where Lynott and other musicians were heavily into drugs and the effects on recording were usually evident.

In Thin Lizzy’s case, the issues came through in the recording process even though the band was ridiculously consistent with releasing albums during their run. Lynott’s singing here is blues-y as usual but it’s the significance of the song that gives it that extra nudge to being an essential track.

Our next track has never been considered an essential track but it’s definitely a must hear Thin Lizzy song.

Cold Sweat (Thunder and Lightning, 1983)

As mentioned in other articles, Thunder and Lightning marked a stylistic change for the band. The albums that were released during the late 1970s had a little bit of metal in them. There was definitely an “edge” there that made their hard rock sound a little more aggressive and a little more dangerous than contemporaries like KISS.

To be a little more specific, Thin Lizzy was like an Irish version of Australia’s AC/DC but Thunder and Lightning was the band’s Painkiller. It’s a direction Thin Lizzy should’ve taken earlier as the band’s trademark dueling guitars were a perfect fit.

The awesome thing here is that everything around Lynott changed while he came in with his tried-and-true performance and it worked wonderfully. The guitars had much more bite to them on this album and “Cold Sweat” is the best example of that new direction.

While the album as a whole is both late for the band but just in time for that wave of hard rock and metal, this track would’ve been at home on an older album like Jailbreak, Black Rose: A Rock Legend, or Renegade.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

It’s never been particularly difficult to mix in funk with rock or metal to get a good mix. Living Colour, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Faith No More all did this and produced legendary bangers. As far funk taking in elements of rock, it’s been done with the likes of War, Mandrill, Funkadelic, Prince, and Rick James. We’ll definitely get into Funkadelic because their sound mixed psychedelic rock and their brand of P-funk wonderfully.

Rick James and His Street Funk

However, Rick James—who had a rock edge to his funk since 1979’s Fire It Up—had been considered one the main names in early funk rock. One way to describe it that I really liked was “funk straight from the street”. That’s actually very accurate because even in metal now, having a sound that has a street-wise edge—especially in speed metal—tends to add some character to a Motorhead, Hellhammer, or early-Venom-inspired band.

While his tales of street life, sex, and sleaze predated the L. A metal likes of Motley Crue, Faster Pussycat, and W.A.S P, it was that extra rock bite that made that took his funk from the jam-like enclosures of Parliament and Bootsy Collins and actually saw him become a name in the early MTV age. His funk and later Prince’s were marketable to the mainstream. It wasn’t dated and was right at home alongside Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, and so on.

Street Songs was the approach of Fire It Up revisited and sharpened. Released in 1981, Rick James had dropped an album loaded with memorable bangers, MTV and radio-ready, and headed up with four very strong singles. The other eight tracks that weren’t singles were no slouches either!

He had found a formula that would work for this period and simply had to stick with it. Of course, those in funk or with funk roots regularly experiment and aim to evolve their sound to some degree. While we might hear some funk acts in a form they’ve been in for 10 to 20 years now, it took them years to get their sound to that point and decide “This is it, this is the sound.”

Plus, you have to hear a funk band live to really hear them go through different influences, sounds, and tempos. Yes, even on records funk can be wild and unchained but even those releases see the acts take the best, most cohesive tracks for a release meant to make a profit. Once they’re live, you get a mix of promo and the band in their natural environment.

Rick James was no different despite the decade. Even when he made a comeback with the momentum from his Chappelle’s Show appearances, there was still a fast and loose approach to his performances as he touched on the classic bangers that brought him to the dance. That approach is why the star of Street Songs, “Super Freak” has an amazing 7-minute version—which could’ve been longer, honestly.

Looking at it now, it would’ve been interesting to see how his sound would’ve evolved in the early 1980s with the rise of the glam metal bands—some of which had a very Rick James-approach to their lyrics and showmanship. Could he have gone in a faster, harder direction as many acts do with age and seniority in the industry or would he have kept his approach in full and become eclipsed by his contemporaries who surpassed him before the decade was out?

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

This was an album I saw in stores as a kid and thought it looked cool from the artwork. I used to draw a lot back then and stuff like comic book and album covers were an influence.

Mind you didn’t, I didn’t hear the album until a decade later. When I finally did listen to it, it was something entirely new. By that time I was listening to hip-hop but mainly stuff from the South.

It was 2005 and 1992’s Body Count was the first I’d heard any Ice-T project. This album piqued my interest and is the reason I enjoy Power and O.G. Original Gangsta now.

The Vision for Ice T and Body Count

Body Count made its debut on O.G. Original Gangsta. This likely contributed to the band being labeled rap rock tag. If it needed a new title, “street metal” or “hood metal” would’ve done it. Ice T doesn’t actually rap on the first album.

It’s more of a mix between singing and spoken word. Growing up, Ice T took in all kinds of music and had friends who played rock and also enjoyed metal. Ice T’s hip-hop career definitely allowed for exploration of different styles.

What Ice T and Ernie C wanted to achieve with the band was rock and metal with hip-hop energy and storytelling. As a long-time fan of rock and metal, I can agree with his view that the lyrics do tend to lean more towards fiction depending on the band.

I believe the intent was to merge rock and hip-hop together merging content that is usually addressed in politically aware hip-hop with the technical side of rock.

This mix should’ve been massive in rock and resulted in more artists from a hip-hop background or who grew up in the trappings discussed in hip-hop telling their stories in rock. Professionally, it brought Ice T into households and on radios that didn’t entertainment hip-hop.

What happened with this meeting of styles was more like bands taking the technical aspects of both and making of rap rock or rap metal. Stories—about a part of America that the mainstream usually ignored until something bad happened—were still being told.

However, for the most part they were more aggressive versions stories we’d heard for decades in same genre. They were just faster, louder, and often featured rapping.

Influences of A Pioneering Band

That brings us back to how the idea of Body Count came about. Ice T and Ernie C rocked with Black Sabbath as well as the thrash metal and hardcore punk bands of the decade prior. Crossover thrash was also an influence and was ultimately the direction the band ran.

In 1992, there were hip-hop artists and groups that made darker music while still staying firmly in the realm of reality. The goal was to use the dark sound of rock they enjoyed and address issues Ice-T did in his hip-hop career.

On paper, it was simple. Bring the dark mood of Black Sabbath, discuss real life social issues as they relate to the artists, and make it loud, fast, and intense. Body Count nailed that on the debut album.

The Debut Album

What I liked most about the debut album is the experimentation from Ice-T. A lot of songs feature shouted spoken word from the lead singer. Then you get a track like “The Winner Loses” which is a dark song about a crack abuser.

A song like this one and “Cop Killer” have warnings and messages amongst the guitars and drums. That’s another thing; the other members were on top of it. Guitarists Ernie C and D-Roc the Executioner, Mooseman on bass, and drummer Beatmaster V all brought it on the debut.

When listening to rock for a while, it can become easy to overlook other members of a band unless they do an exceptional job. It’s also hard when you’re like me and put a greater emphasis on singing performance and lyrics.

The entire album is dark but not dark to the point of being bleak. It’s a mix of metal and hardcore punk on the sound side and the album structure from hip-hop with interludes being used regularly.

You know, the skit track that you might skip over on an album. Some of them are placed really well and sets up the next song. Allof the interludes were placed for a specific effect on the listener.

However, the overall flow could be impacted at times. You had some interludes that result in a tone shift between songs as was the case in listening to “KKK B****” then getting into “Voodoo” which is a horror-themed song about a run in with voodoo.

I definitely recommend this first album if you’ve wanted to hear Ice-T in a different but familiar environment. It’s also always good when an artist has love for a genre that isn’t what they’re known for, pursues a project, and have it end up successful.

Here’s hoping Denzel Curry takes note and pursue rock as well.

Staff Writer; James Swift, Jr.

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

That doesn’t take away from the musicianship or songwriting, I’m into faster, aggressive, energetic music. Of course, there are bands such as Electric Wizard, Lucifer, Acid King, Witch Mountain, and Doomsword that are staples of my rock listening.

This brings me to Black women singing doom metal. Now, there aren’t a ton of them singing doom metal. Hell, Black men aren’t even threatening a monopoly in metal, however Black women are there and the two singers we’re going to focus on are crushing it.

One singer might be familiar to TheBRHM readers—Kayla Dixon—but we’ll get into a brief intro of Cammie Gilbert and her singing ability as well.

Back Up…What’s Doom Metal?

In simplest terms, doom metal is a slowed down version of traditional heavy metal—Judas Priest, Iron Maiden-period metal.

While Black Sabbath created heavy metal and the guitar sound so closely associated with the genre, a sizeable chunk of their first Ozzy Osbourne era stuff is doom metal.

So, Black Sabbath presented two genres of metal during its early years and some bands went the slower doom metal direction.

The slower, deeper playing of doom metal comes adds to the music’s atmosphere with lyrics often being centered on themes of emotions, life, dreams, horror, drug use and dark literature.

Basically, if it could be made dark and possibly moody, doom can and most likely will do it. That said, not all doom metal is dark and depressing. Just any form of metal, the lyrical content can be about anything but the music itself is performed with that atmosphere and tempo in mind.

If a doom metal band wanted to make an album about kittens, pandas, and fries—or chips for our readers in the UK—a band can do that. Metal is flexible like that.

A more musically trained person could explain the intricacies of doom metal better but this is the gist. In the same way that speed metal is faster old school metal, doom is old school metal thrown in reverse at core.

Cammie Gilbert of Oceans of Slumber

Getting away from the genre lesson, we have Cammie Gilbert of Houston, Texas band Oceans of Slumber. Formed in 2011, the band plays progressive and doom metal but their album The Banished Heart was a really a mix.

More on that album in a review. Cammie Gilbert joined Oceans of Slumber in 2014 and made her debut on the Blue EP in 2015. It was her vocals on the band’s cover of Candlemass classic “Solitude” that impressed me.

With the release of the band’s sophomore release Winter in 2016, we got to hear Gilbert’s singing put to the gauntlet of an hour-long doom and prog album and she doesn’t budge.

Her singing performance doesn’t sound better on some songs than others. She’s just consistent throughout. What also rocks about her singing style is that Oceans of Slumber puts it at the forefront of the band’s sound.

Even with the 2020 self-titled album, she’s still the vocal focus despite having bass player Semir Özerkan and guitarist Alexander Lucian providing backup vocals and doing a damn good job of it.

Check out the tunes below to experience Gilbert’s singing.

Recommended Songs: “Solitude” (Candlemass cover), “Winter”, “A Return to the Earth Below”

Kayla Dixon of Witch Mountain

Dixon and Witch Mountain have been mentioned before. Hailing from Washington D.C, Kayla Dixon has a background in jazz, musical theater, ballet, musical theater, and acting. A true polymath of the creative arts.

She joined the Portland-based Witch Mountain in 2015 and made her full-length debut with the band on their 2018 self-titled album.

The sound Dixon brings to the band is similar to what Cammie Gilbert brings to Oceans of Slumber. When the music has this darker or more occult vibe or atmosphere to it, you want a certain voice or tone.

It doesn’t have to be a female singer but going back to Coven’s Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls from 1969, you had Jinx Dawson heading up a dark band and her vocals just fit the music.

Dixon has that the same kind of energy to work with WM and her background in stagecraft adds to live performances. She doesn’t come off as an overly technical performer but as one who enjoys what she’s doing and believes in her band’s talents.

Even though I discovered Dixon in Witch Mountain, the song “Remnants of Stars” stands out to me mainly because of her performance but also because it’s her plying her craft in a power metal band.

The faster, bombastic stuff will always win me over and Dixon with Helion Prime impressed the hell out of me. Her classical background was a perfect fit for the band and I’d like to see her return to the genre in the future if possible.

For now, get a load of Kayla Dixon’s singing chops with these recommended tracks.

Recommended Songs: “Remnants of Stars”, “Midnight”, “Nighthawk”

Black Women in Doom Metal

I’d love see more Black women singing doom metal or playing whatever instruments. Black women playing straight-up metal is something I can get behind. It would add something not just from a performance standpoint but there’s a lyrical benefit there.

Who are some Black women you’d love to hear perform metal? Be sure to let us know in the comments below! Drop some names and we could get into them in future article.

Staff Writer; James Swift, Jr.

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

In 1999, the band dropped its third album Post Orgasmic Chill. This is the album that turned me on to the band and prompted me look into the first two albums as well as Skin’s solo stuff.

An Intro to Skin

As I’ve mentioned multiple times: I’m big on singers and Skin has a powerful voice. Along with Cass on bass, Ace on the axe, and Mark Richardson on drums, Skin was a band to check out.

A lack of traction and radio play in the U.S meant that you had to really be an audiophile seeking new tunes if you were an American listener.

Born August 3, 1967 in the Brixton section of London she grew up in a “strict Jamaican” family. Her early brushes with music came via her grandfather’s basement nightclub.

While she was inspired by other music, originally, she wanted to go a more classical route and play the piano. This part of her history always interested me because that seems to be a key part in the roots of a lot of pioneering Black musicians in rock.

Many have classical or traditional training whether it was via music lessons or in the choir but the path they take is rock. That background adds to a different sound to whatever instrument.

In Skin’s case, it was these vocals that could sound soulful even when the song itself is less praise and celebratory and more rebellious and aggressive. Post-Skunk, she embarked on a solo career and also began DJing electric dance music (EDM).

Skin’s Voice

One thing to point out about Skunk Anansie is that in listening to their 90s trifecta of albums in 2021, you might realize that the overall sound is very 90s. It doesn’t sound dated but you know it came from the 90s.

There were several bands from that period that had a sound similar to Skunk’s. They might have taken the more aggressive parts or they took the stuff that leaned more towards mellow-range alternative rock.

Other bands did similar to Skunk Anansie and featured both approaches. One thing they couldn’t emulate was Skin’s voice. When you hear it, you know it belongs to a seasoned, talented singer with a set of lungs on them.

The closest comparison while still in the same genre would probably be Shirley Manson of Garbage—a band from the same period—only with a different vocal range.

Manson’s sit at contralto while Skin is in the soprano range. However, they were both able to deliver these voices that matched the direction of their respective bands at the time.

The Sound of Skunk Anansie

The best way to describe the band’s sound is that it’s a mix of everything. There’s some punk, hard rock, a drop of pop. I say “a drop” because there are some catchy songs in their catalog but a lot of their tunes have this energy and power to them.

You can attribute that to Skin’s ridiculously powerful vocals and strong instrumentals from the rest of the band. They just blend perfectly. You could actually take each member, put them in a different act, and get a different sound.

Whether it’s a good or bad sound depends on your personal tastes but you will get something different. On their 90s albums, you’re likely to hear some aggressive, intense songs alongside tunes that are soulful and more reflective but still have that same weight to them as the aggressive ones.

Again, Post Orgasmic Chill is probably the best example of this balance whereas the first three Skunk Anansie albums gave you a more aggressive mix from start to finish.

Staff Writer; James Swift, Jr.

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Bad Brains Explored a Fusion with Metal

This album’s sound saw the band take their hardcore punk roots and throw in some metal of the thrash persuasion.

It was a wise decision as crossover thrash and straight up thrash metal were either popular or rapidly gaining in popularity among that decade’s rock fans.

Also growing at the time were the alternative metal and funk metal genres. While not the ooze for those genres, Bad Brains were ahead of the curve as far as burgeoning sounds in rock.

Plus, the band cranked out some dope reggae tracks alongside the heavier offerings. The other two albums that pushed things along for Bad Brains were 1989’s Quickness and 1993’s Rise.

 This third album is an important one as it was a landmark of dissention in the band. Brothers H.R (lead singer) and Earl Hudson (drummer) sought to steer Bad Brains from heavy rock to reggae.

Meanwhile, Dr. Know (guitars) and Darryl Jennifer (bass) wanted to explore rock more. Remember, things were really moving and growing with rock music and Bad Brains were always in the thick of it. Issues could’ve probably been resolved with double albums.

One side being rock featuring reggae and the other with reggae featuring rock could’ve worked. Hell, that idea was just expanding what they usually did and flipping the concentrations as desired.

Instead, the Hudson brothers bounced and Bad Brains had to enlist the talent of session musicians and vocalists within the rock sphere. All of this history brings us to Rise.

Doing the vocal duties here is Israel Joseph I of later of Fireburn while Mackie Jayson—formerly of The Cro-Mags—handled the skins.

Bad Brains – Rise A-Side

Featured on the A-side are six tracks: “Rise”, “Miss Freedom”, “Unidentified”, “Love Is The Answer”, “Free”, and “Hair”. Off the bat, “Unidentified” is the star of this side. Actually, it’s the star of the album.

This track is everything that I dig about Bad Brains’ music. It’s fast, loud, and is just an energetic song overall. “Rise” and “Miss Freedom” are also strong tracks with “Free” and “Hair” holding their own.

While they don’t top the first four tracks, they round out the rest of the A-side and keep it as an extremely good first album.

I mentioned the first four tracks as the reggae song “Love Is the Answer” does a great job of cooling thing down after three fast and heavy tracks. As a song without a specific duty, “Love Is the Answer” is a very good one.

Listening to it separately from the rock material allows it to stand out on its own. It also shows that without the Hudson brothers, Bad Brain didn’t completely unravel and just leave reggae behind. Not only that, it also showed that they could still deliver it with a compatible singer and drummer.

Standout Tracks: Rise, Miss Freedom, Unidentified*, and Love Is The Answer

B-Side

We’ve crossed over into the second act of Bad Brains’ third run with hardcore and crossover. This side includes five songs and six tracks overall: “Coming In Numbers”, “Yes Jah”, “Take Your Time”, “Peace of Mind”, and “Without You”.

Yes, I never include the outro unless it’s an actual song called “Outro”. This side was decent, I can’t honestly say it was truly strong side. Half of the B-side was strong and other side was decent—definitely better than “acceptable”.

The standouts were “Coming In Numbers”, “Take Your Time” and “Without You”. Of the three, “Without You” stood out the most as it was a change in tempo and showcased Israel Joseph I’s singing ability more.

The rest of the songs showcase his singing as well but in listening to Rise and figure out the flow of the tracks. However, that last song could be a rock tune or a reggae track. This was something different. It put me in the mind of “She’s Calling You” and “Secret 77”. They were slower songs that still had heft to them.

“Without You” had less heft but more emotion and I really enjoyed it. More than the other songs on the B-side. It was a great, unexpected album ender.

Standout Tracks: Coming In Numbers, Take Your Time, Without You*

Black Rock Verdict

I dig the hell out of this album! Growth-wise, it’s exactly where Bad Brains would’ve headed if H.R and Earl Hudson had stayed in the band. It’s the natural extension of the sound they had developed since 1977.

It’s faster than Quickness which was faster than I Against I so major bonus points there. I’m big on speed and pace and the band nailed one of the important things that will keep me glued to an album.

The mandatory reggae tracks worked for me as well. You expect them with Bad Brains and in later albums, it seems as though the band met its happy medium because we’d hear more reggae in future albums.

Joseph I’s singing performance here was excellent and turned me on to his current band Fireburn. That’s a great bonus from Rise. Mark this release as “recommended” but not as recommended as I Against I and Quickness. It does finish out a strong trifecta for Bad Brains.

Staff Writer; James Swift, Jr.

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Rest in Power Omar Higgins

Before I get into Negro Terror, it’s important to mention that in late 2019, lead singer and bassist Omar Higgins passed away at 37. The singer was known for his energy and the power he put behind the band’s rapid, aggressive approach.

In addition to hardcore punk, he also performed reggae with Chinese Connection Dub Embassy. The band features his brothers Joseph and David. Trust me, it was a difference experience after seeing Omar in a hardcore punk band first.

That said, they make dope music and are pretty much the reggae act in Memphis-10. Plus, if you’ve listened to Bad Brains’ catalogue, it’s not that strange to see a musician do two different styles such as rock and reggae.

If anything that makes them a truly diverse artist. That said, rest in power to Omar Higgins. There was a lot more to do with Negro Terror with you heading up the vocals.

Negro Terror: More Than Newcomers to Black Rock

There are no shortage of rock and metal bands from Memphis and almost every major city has a punk scene of some sort. Negro Terror is a band I discovered early in 2020 after finding their The Bootlegg EP, released in 2017.

From there I checked out the Negro Terror Documentary Film from 2019. I really wish there were more Black Rock documentaries, these bands have been around for years and you don’t really hear about them unless they start to make waves beyond their region.

It’s a hard feat when a lot of newer Black bands are viewed as novelties despite having respect and support in their regional scenes. Back to Negro Terror, the band gained national attention after doing covers of defunct white power rock band Skrewdriver.

While this probably raised a few—a couple—of eyebrows, Negro Terror made those songs distinguishable from the original band’s versions. As a matter of fact, hearing “Invasion” I thought “This sounds familiar.”

Negro Terror’s spin on the song and spinning “Voice of Britain” into “Voice of Memphis” made for interesting choices and their performance pretty made them their songs. Just like Whitney Houston making Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” her song.

The band’s approach is similar all-Black band and DC hardcore punk pioneers Bad Brains’ early work. It’s fast, aggressive, and energetic. The contrast comes in the vocals.

While Bad Brains lead singer H.R could do some of everything vocally, Omar Higgins—who could also change up his singing—really delivered with the harsher, growls. Really makes me wonder how he would’ve done in metal.

Recommended Material

As it happens, there isn’t a ton from the band on Apple Music and Spotify. There you can find “Voice of Memphis” and “We Need Support”. Those two can also be found on YouTube.

If you want more Negro Terror, hit up their Bandcamp and check out The Bootlegg EP. Also support the band, their EP is $2. This EP features another cover called “Rapist” from British band Combat 84.

The band ended up being lumped in with the white power music scene based on controversial statements in the aftermath of the Southall riot in 1981.

As with other covers by the Terror, songs by racist or perceived racist bands aren’t spared. Here’s hoping that the band continues and doesn’t end as a “what could’ve been”.

Staff Writer; James Swift, Jr.

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.