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ENTERTAINMENT
Band brings politically infused music to Huntington's V Club
Arrested Development will perform Friday, Aug. 29, at the V Club, 741 6th Ave., Huntington.
HUNTINGTON -- The spiritually-fueled and socially-charged Atlanta-based hip hop group Arrested Development is back with its first record in the United States in 12 years.
The two-time Grammy Award-winning group is now out touring in support of the CD, "Since the Last Time."
The group, which has been touring Europe, Japan, Australia and Singapore for the past eight years, has been back this summer hitting big, diverse fests such as Langerado and political events such as Asheville's Barack The Vote.
Friday, Aug. 29, the multi-platinum-selling band best known for its string of 1990s singles, such as "Tennessee," "People Everyday," and "Mr. Wendel," stops off in Huntington at the eclectic live music venue the V Club, 741 6th Ave.
The band is on its way to Legend Valley outside of Columbus for Hookahville XXX -- the band's last big United States festival gig for the summer before going to Europe, Dubai and South Africa.
Tickets to the Huntington show are $18 advance. They can be purchased online at www.etix.com or at www.vclublive.com.
Speech (Todd Thomas), who fronts the band that also features a diverse group of members including Dionne Farris, Eshe (Black Life), Rasa Don (Raz), Baba Oje (the elder) and Nicha, said it has been a joy to be reintroduced to music fans both at clubs and at the sprawling music fests.
"I love the club shows because it is our particular audience that is coming out to see us," said Speech, who has chalked up five Top Five hits in Japan on his five solo records since the band broke up in 1996. "I also love the festivals because there are so many types of people and diverse music styles that are represented there. People get introduced to new music, and that is what I love about festivals. Some people who had never heard of Arrested Development, walked up and heard us and loved it, and I love that whole concept."
If you've not heard of AD, the band's brief history goes like this ... the group's major label debut album "3 years, 5 months and 2 days in the life of..." spawned such unique singles as "Tennessee," (an open letter to God) that won an MTV music award for best rap single 1992. "People Everyday" was a super funky treatment of the immortal Sly Stone anthem "Everyday People" that also won them an MTV video award for best music video 1992.
Showing its collective soul, the band donated half of all its royalties to the National Coalition for the Homeless, from "Mr. Wendel" the band's biggest hit that put a human face on the homeless.
After winning two Grammy awards for best new artist and best rap single 1993, the band continued with a whirlwind of touring and activism, becoming the first African-American artists to donate money to Nelson Mandela and the ANC to help their brothers and sisters in South Africa and working with legends like director Spike Lee on the major motion picture "X."
After a Grammy nomination and critical acclaim for the album "Zingalamaduni," the band parted ways for a while.
"What happened in 1995 is that we did actually stop recording and stopped being together, and we took a break and people just wanted to live other lives," Speech said. "I got married and so did other members."
In 1996, Speech also began releasing the first of five solo albums in Japan, all of which have spawned Top 10 hit singles. His album "Spiritual People," released in 2000, went gold in three months.
Making at least two trips to Japan per year, Speech just recorded the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" TV theme song called "Everybody" with famed Japanese producers T2ya and Jeff Miyahara.
"We've been very fortunate because our career has steadily climbed in Japan," Speech said. "I think the main thing they like about Arrested Development is that sense of optimism. It is that sense that yes things are bad, but things can change, instead of things are bad, and that's all you've got to say."
Although AD had its first reunion in 2000 recording a CD for Japan called "Heroes of Harvest" that was cut at Tree Sounds Studio's with a dream team of musicians and engineers, Speech and the group felt it was time to focus on the United States.
To do so, the group has gone old-school.
Not unlike Arrested Development did back in the day with its nod to soul music's elders, the group has released "Since the Last Time," with promotional pressings of vinyl and cassettes all put out on Speech's boutique label, Vagabond Records and Tapes, out of Fayetteville, Ga.
"By releasing it independently, we felt like we could do a good job of maintaining integrity of the music over the long-term," Speech said. "...I think there's a certain security with doing it yourself. We've had platinum success, and we've walked Madison Avenue and had the whole big label thing and MTV and VH-1. We have that history and know what it is like on a huge label. The problem sometimes is you don't know why you are successful and what they're doing. When it starts going downhill, you don't know how to turn it around. You just feel like you're at the whim of the label."
Speech wanted to set the band apart from the Dirty South rap scene that has come out of the band's home of Atlanta.
"The South has been through so many mutations and the way we look at the South is from a historical place and also in the present," Speech said. "In a way. a lot of the Dirty South tends to look at the South only in the present and not in the past. We know that in the same city where there is now strip clubs and everybody has gold teeth and is riding on nice rims and all this stuff, is this same city people were hung because of their race, and Jim Crow laws kept us from going in the front door of a building, and people were not able to vote. We come from this -- from more of a historical Southern place -- but bringing it to the present instead of ignoring it."
Like Johnny Cash, AD members, Eshe, 1 Love, Tasha and Speech just shined a light on the United States' burgeoning prison population (the highest among industrialized nations) by recording the Solomon Burke song "None of Us are Free" at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, the largest women's prison in the country.
AD and Jamie Catto (1 Giant Leap), also recorded the song with the prison gospel choir.
"One of the inmates said something to me that was profound, and she said the biggest lesson she has learned being in prison is that being in there, it is like you are dead," Speech said. "They just move on without you. That is profound because they are not dead, they are alive. But they are pretty much forgotten by people in the world. These are people who are shut out and forgotten, and they are mothers and sisters and granddaughters and daughters. We felt like we had a role to play, and I think that is what Development was trying to do -- just show them we love them and that we are here and we are glad you are alive. There was a camaraderie there and it was encouraging."
Speech, who was asked to tour with Al Gore and Hillary Clinton during their presidential campaigns, said it's also encouraging to be out with his seasoned band, playing and encouraging young people to get involved in politics and to get out and vote.
"This is the first time in my life that I have been this excited about politics because of the energy of Barack (Obama)," Speech said. "I am inspired for him to lead this country. His lack of experience inspires me because no president is ready to be president before they take office. Being a senator or governor you still need advice and you do need some help. He doesn't know all the rules of Washington and I think that's refreshing -- his take on having a vision for this nation instead of a jaded view."
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