Curtis Mayfield – Superfly (1972)

Curtis Mayfield – Superfly

If you’ve heard any of the other classic Blaxploitation soundtracks from the early 70’s (Isaac Hayes’ Shaft, Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man or maybe Willie Hutch’s The Mack) then you would probably be pretty excited to hear Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly. If you’ve heard Mayfield’s first two albums, Curtis and Roots, then you would really be excited! And rightly so, Superfly is probably the best of the whole bunch, a lean and inventive funk album that, like most of the aforementioned, has completely overshadowed the movie it was attached to. The soundtrack was unique at the time, contributing a unified theme of urban black life along with a blend of soul and funk, but it was still just that, a soundtrack. It ended up becoming a surprise hit and eventually it even out-grossed the movie. The success of Superfly led the labels to not just employ black artists the way that Motown had done, to create Top 40 pop music, but to acknowledge the huge market there was for black music made with little studio interference. Much like the film, the album struck a chord by allowing the disenfranchised in this country to enjoy a more progressive amount of representation on the screen (even if that representation was not always the best). Besides all that though, Superfly is a fun, exciting album, one that is of its time and place in the best way possible. It is a classic in the funk and soul genres and Curtis Mayfield’s last truly great contribution to a genre he helped define.

~9.5

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