We're Gainin' On Ya!!!

The title of this blog is one of my favorite chorus-quips from my favorite band of all time, Parliament-Funkadelic. It comes from title track off the 1975 classic Chocolate City album. Throughout the whole album, but particularly on that song, George Clinton paints this picture of an America that is quickly becoming less WASPy and more colored. He used the term "funk" to describe and allude to so many things (drugs, sex, freedom, religion, being hip, food, existence, the list goes on)...and on this album he saw a trend toward a funky nation (eight years later it was One Nation Under A Groove, a nation where everyone had achieved Funkentelechy and conquered the unfunky squares that didnt "swim"). D.C. had long been referred to as the Chocolate City, because it was one of the few cities where there was a black majority, but where that black majority thrived.

So on this song the Brides of Funkenstein kept refraining "we're gainin on ya!" over this too-hip funk strut with short horn riffs and what not and every so often, George would come in and say stuff like "Cant'cha feel our breath?/All-up around ya neck." It's simply one of my favorite songs and a joint that makes me wish I was a teen or young adult in the 70s. There's a part of the song where George offers his dream presedential cabinet (the cover of the album has all the Washington monuments the color of chocolate, including the White House)...anyways, his cabinet is made up of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin (first lady), Richard Pryor, Ali (secretary of defense)..etc. They obviously wouldnt know the first thing about running a country, but back then it had to be cool to here someone present these individuals -- who happened to be the absolute best at what they did, game-changing, genius-icons -- as part of a funky takeover.

My favorite part of the song is when George said: "There's a lot of chocolate cities around/We got Newark, we got Gary/Someone told me we got L.A./ And we're working on Atlanta / But you're the capital C.C." C.C. being short for Chocolate City, D.C.'s nickname. Now, a white person may look at that and say "by all means, you can have Newark and Gary." After all, people in my generation have grown up equating, specifically, Newark and Gary to predominatly black cities whose two major charactersitics were/are blight and murders. But thats the thing...they hadnt become that yet in 75. George was embracing and loving the fact that these cities were becoming predominatly black and funky. All you read about in the papers back then was how white-flight was killing these cities (and it was/is, since -- unless its Houston/DC/ATL -- u need some white faces and a few men that have sex with men to keep cities vibrant); but George was like "funk all that!" We're gainin on ya! That was back in a time of optimism for black America. There was a feeling of civil rights victory in the air. Everyday, in many of the cities, a black baby was being born, a black kid was going off to college, a black man/woman was breaking down a barrier. And here they were, embracing these cities that phobia-riddled whites were fleeing (they were smart). George loved it all. He saod "Someone told me we got L.A." and although LA still has the largest black population, the MExicans got LA...but that cool, theyre funky too. And boy did blacks EVER get Atlanta.

As much as I love D.C., you have to call Atlanta the new Chocolate CITY, sense gentrification keeps pushing blacks out of that actual city and there's a new flight, Black Flight, going on there where upwardly mobile blacks continue to set up shop in suburban counties. PG County, my old hood, is the most wealthy, predominantly black county in the nation. Atlanta, however, hasnt yet gotten to the point where gentrification is taking scary roots in the CITY. Partly because not EVERYONE works in the city. I always get on my girl Iola about how far she lives from the city and she always says "You dont HAVE to live that close to Atl, because of all the office parks all around in the suburbs." D.C. on the other hand has a daytime population of 960,000...that's almost doubling its census pop of 580,000. But DC is also the 8th largest metro area in the nation and during the day most of the working pop jams the beltway and clogs the VA bridges and comes to work in the C.C., which has a lot of white folks (previously inhabitants of the Va suburbs and Mont. County and the new young-pro white population) sayin "F this. I'm buying a condo...in the city." (i'm incoherently rambling, but roll with me.)

But still, I kinda think Atlanta is a corny Chocolate City. Dont get me wrong, I actually love Atlanta. Yesterday afternoon, i was IMng my friend Sumaya, I was telling her about this dish Emeril had made on his show, she told me about her meal at his new restuarant in Atlanta where she resides, part of the meal was cheese grits, I told her I used to always kop cheese grits at the Flying Biscuit, a great brunch spot by Piedmont park that I used to frequent on my way to work when I was interning at the Journal Constitution. thinking about the Flying Biscuit and Piedmont park and all ATL's diff neighborhoods had me extra nostalgiac...i love the place and would live there in a heartbeat. But D.C. had something extra about it. ATL still seems new and frivolous and there's something very TD Jakeish about their very affluent black population. D.C. had this ill mix of semi-yankee/semi-country traditional locals, black politicians and black intelligencia that made for -- in my opinion -- the illest mix. Howard had a lot to do with it. And of course we know that, aside from being geechy and petty, much of ATL black pop is gay. Its the black San Francisco, except, black gay men dont bring with them an arts community and good taste; they bring Chris Brown concerts and chocolate men wearing lip gloss and husbands pokin these transgendered men in the kulo. i'll digress.

Anyways...I'm babbling, specifically because the gentrification going on in DC and places like Harlem and Brooklyn are SO bittersweet. bitter because the historically black hoods and cities with such import are getting erased and reimaged, but sweet because many of these hoods are being rebuilt and recast. In 2015, maybe even 2009, wont be no gun-bucking in BedStuy, just eateries, cafes, bookstores, indie clothing shops, art stores and friendly, bohemian neighbors. I mean, that aint all THAT bad, even though it is.

In the midst of all this bellyaching, tho, is the very real reality of what is going on in ALOT of American cities. That is, they're gettin funky and colored. This was all documented in an article in today's NY Times: "Minorities Now Form Majority in One-Third of American Cities." Cities like LA, DC, NY, Houston, Dallas, Atl, Raleigh are all inhabited by a mostly colored population. That's real. Its an interesting read, so check it out.

George was right. We're gainin on em.