MARTIN LUTHER
Rarely rebellion sounded so good !
Exclusive Interview
by Fouzia Burfield   

 

"I feel like I was called into action to represent an absence of Black men with intellect, to represent an absence of understanding that Black men in America are not only gangsters and thugs. (...) I like to give silence a voice (...), I want to make you want to do something as opposed to just put it on and listen to it"

After Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Luther Vandross, here is Martin Luther, suitable heir to those legendary voices. The gifted singer stretches effortlessly his superb singing ability, following the various moods of his new album "Rebel Soul Music".

Lyricist and music composer, this native of San Francisco refuses to compromise his artistic identity despite the pressures of the music business. Definitely eclectic, Martin incorporates rock into his soul and vice-versa. From politically incorrect to raw sensualism, Martin Luther appeals as much to the consciousness of our minds than to our less intellectual desires... Add his electrifying performing ability and here you have it : an explosive mixture which  provoke anything but indifference ! Open conversation with a rare artist...

 

FONKADELICA : Martin Luther, what's the story behind your name and how did that impact your life and personality ?

MARTIN LUTHER : My father chose the name. He had two choices : one was Malcom and one was Martin. So he ended up going with Martin, definitely impressed by the leader of the civil rights struggle. There isn't a whole lot more depth or merit to why my name is Martin Luther other than they decided to name me after a great man, and actually named me after two great men. The spirit of Martin Luther has an element of rebellion or revolt or non conformism. And I'm that as well. It's not a desire or a goal. It was just something that I had to accept.

How do you see your contribution to music ?

My first CD is entitled "The Calling". I feel like I was called into action to represent an absence of Black men with intellect, to represent an absence of understanding that Black men in America are not only gangsters and thugs, but also regular people who go to work nine-to-five jobs, people who also aspire to be construction company owners and manufacturers, distributors... who want to do things other than just thug life. So the music that I was hearing was just, you know, all west coast "gangsta" lifestyle music... I 'm from the west coast and I'm from the neighborhood so I know the lifestyle well.

I also know that there are people in the neighborhood other than just the people on the corner. So let me do what I can do to offer some balance to what has now just taken over the world but is only one slice of it. Now at the same time I'm bringing the soul music into the game, but soul isn't anything new. And there is a new soul movement that exists. And that is all great. I just speak from the heart. And say the things that I think need to be said. Often I get channeled the right songs; a spirit of a Martin Luther, or of a Jesus Christ, or of someone who wants to help and heal people comes through me sometimes. And I just write it down, and then I sing it.

SOB's, New York City, Avril 2005

What is the difference between "new soul" and "soul" ? Is it the same thing or has there been an evolution musically ?

Is it the same ? (Thinking) It's got to be different... but there are certain things about classic soul music that seem to affect every generation of people and all nationalities. And someone of the 2000 generation might think that Di Angelo or Musiq Soul Child or Badu or Jill Scott speak to them just the way someone from thirty four years ago felt like Al Green or Dinah Washington or the Isley Brothers or Etta James or Bill Withers spoke to them. So I can't really say it's the same. It has to be different. But...you know, I don't really know the answer to that question. It depends how we perceive it. Cause some of those songs of the old days just can't be beaten, you can't touch them. All you can do is remake it, but it's still not the same so... it's definitely different.

How did you decide to become a solo artist ?

I was in a group back in '94 to '97 called Aloosanation. That's when a lot of these ideas were being conceived. My first record "The Calling" came out in 1999. So I started out as a solo artist. I started touring with the Roots as a way to help promote my name and to learn about the international music scenes because they were going all around the world. And that's the way a lot of people have come to know about me. I never joined the group. I am a part of their touring band. They needed someone to sing, I needed a ticket to Europe so that's how it first started. I may do some shows with them in the future but right now my record is out and I have to go out and support it.

What does that entail to release your new album "Rebel Soul Music" independently ?

Being independent operators means we have a lot of duties that we have to take on our own shoulders. Every dollar counts. So far so good. I'd love to run into some financial assistance to help us spread this thing out. Until then we are just going to keep on walking one step at a time.

Where does your inspiration to write music come from ?

Music is like my life work, so as I'm working on myself it comes out in my songs. As I am looking at things that I think need to be improved societly, it comes out in my songs; when I 'm doing things that are self abusive, it comes out in my songs, or if I see people being abused by others, it comes out in writings. I am just a product of my environment and I like to give silence a voice. That's one thing that I work on. I don't want to just sing a song that you've heard a million times. I want something that I do to resonate inside of you internally. I want to make you want to do something as opposed to just put it on and listen to it.

That may cross your mind when you end up seeing a child in your neighborhood who you know can possibly grow up to be somebody great, but until somebody reaches in and gives that child a hand or some assistance, that child might go right off to a prison life. I have friends, nephews and youngsters I talk to and my family members, we got to make sure that we're doing everything possible to lessen the amount of bullshit that's in the world 'cause there is enough of it already. And either we're gonna be a part of that or we're gonna be a part of something else better; so we're trying to get to that better side. And the music is one of the avenues: we got the film direction, screenwriting, advertising, things that we can do and we can put these minds to use; but we have to see and someone got to help us and show us how.

 
SOB's, New York City, Avril 2005

Can you illustrate your point with a song from your last album "Rebel Soul Music" ?

(The track) "Rise" : I wrote this song back in San Francisco. I was driving around the neighborhood and I saw my nephew. He was out there hustling or whatever... the things that you do on the block that everybody rhyme so tough about. Well either I'm gonna give him some information that's gonna help him become the best hustler of all time, or I'm gonna give him some information that's gonna make him think about curbing that desire to be so bad.Once you start to grow up a little bit and realize that there are repercussions for your actions, then what do you do ? When you come out of jail, what do you do? Who's gonna hire you ? How are you gonna make a contribution to the world? Why would you even want to? So all these things are on my mind when I'm writing the song "Rise" : "What's happening little brother, are you still getting by on the corner everyday, you like the pay... it keeps you getting high, and I'm only your reflection. I smoke weed too, I 'm a deeply complex chocolate soul complexion.“

And I believe we gonna rise again. It's gonna take time. So while you're there out hustling, take your time, I 'll be making sure you're doing it right. But I want you to keep in mind, no one can make you want it more than you, so you got to climb if you want to get somewhere up out of the shit hole that we are all in. Don't give up your spirit. 

Have you ever been tempted to give up yours ?

Yeah, I'm from the neighborhood so I've had my run ins with the law, I've had my dealings with the drugs, I've had my family members go out on dope. I've had also success stories in the family, entrepreneur businesses and all that. So I'm right in the middle of both sides. And I can't say that one is better than the other. But I can say that both are necessary 'cause it's like a balance of all that.

Is there a defining moment which made you take the path you are on today ?

I went to jail one time down in the South Carolina. And I knew that it was the last time that I would ever sing from a jail cell. For any reason. And that's crazy cause I went there on Martin Luther King's Birthday holiday week-end! (laughs !)

You wanted to celebrate in your own way ! (laughs)

That was crazy !

May I ask you why you went to jail ?

We were just speeding through county lines and didn't know we were egged on by the police who were actually acting like if they were part of the race, and once we crossed a certain line, bam! All these police cars came out of nowhere, took us to jail, took our money! We had to sit and realize just how the little traps work. We were like "Okay, I don't have time for this". Drug trafficking and things like that, I ain't gonna get caught doing that. I've had my dealings with dope culture in my neighborhood, doing things like hustling to get money but it wasn't going to be my profession. I grew up, went to college, got my degree, I am in the world now and I get caught up dealing dope! That would just suck. And my parents would just be pissed off at me.

The hustling mentality is there but it's what you do with it, it's how you grow up from there. You can make it and I want to be an example of someone who's doing something right. To a degree I ain't perfect, and I'm not asking anybody else to be, but I know the extra pain that we dump on each other that's really not necessary.

SOB's, New York City, Avril 2005

You sound like a very well read person...

It's just an impression. I have a bunch of books. I ain't read one of them (smile). For me it's music, experience, people... My mother used to punish me and make me read when I was little. And I couldn't go outside and play. It increased my ability to put my words together well, as a writer and as someone who reads words that were written. So now these songs and melodies, I can hear them because I was blessed with a voice and an ear.

Do you have perfect pitch ?

I can't say perfect but I definitely got my own thing with it. I trust it and I go with it.

Did you receive a formal musical education ?

No, it’s just the ear and the desire. I was in choir rehearsal all the time though when I was singing in the Church. That's training. I always wanted to play guitar. I took a couple of piano lessons when I was a kid. I rebelled against the teacher cause I didn't like what the teacher was teaching me. I thought that was boring and I started to write and rewrite songs in Church. So I was ready to do something with it. I was just a little eager to do something else as opposed to just sit down and learn the instrument. I still don't know how to play any instrument officially. I just pick it up and mess with it 'til I get something out of it that I like. 

Who, musically, from your generation has it down ?

Who has it down?... (Thinking) Jill Scott has it down: I think she's just a monster. I am a Di Angelo fan, I think he's a monster too. Who else would I listen to? Have I recently listened to someone that was just killing it for me?... There aren't too many...Faith Evans: I like her art. I like some of the stories of Omar from overseas... (pause). There probably are some more that I just can't think of right now cause this question always catches me on the spot.

Who are the people who influenced you musically ?

There are a lot of musical influences because of my father : he listened to Brooke Benton, Dinah Washington, Etta James, Bill Withers, Ray Charles... My brother is eleven years older than me, and he was heavy in the Parliament/Funkadelic. He actually sat me down and told me: "Listen to this 'cause if you ever have anything to do with music, you should listen to what they did. 'Cause they involved the gospel, the blues, the jazz, and the rock, and the soul, all in one group.Then, there was Prince who was up and coming in my era. He was just a phenomenon. So he could do all of this stuff and he used to get all the girls going crazy ! That became the reason why I was shaking form... you see what he was doing ?! Now, I can't wear those spandex and those bikini (smile). But I will push the envelope with my own style to a degree and mix rock and soul as seamlessly as I can. Prince put a lot of soul in his rock music, he a multi genre artist. Those are the type of artists that impress me a lot. Then Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone who was in my neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay area. He was like a local hero to us. I think Sly' s is the funkiest band of all time if you go back in that era where they were doing "Small Talk", "Fresh", and "There's a Riot Goin' On". Some of those records and recordings, no one could even ever think to write that! It's that intricate.. it's so much so that Janet Jackson's whole album "Rhythm Nation" was built from one, two bar loop of a Sly's record ! That's how powerful his little contribution to music is : it's huge.

Who else ? Albert King cause he was a guitarist who impressed Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy impressed me. James Brown...

Who do you think was at the "avant-garde" of Funk ?

Ask George Clinton for that answer. 'Cause George has been around. He was doo waping with the Parliament and then the psychedelic phase was beginning; the cats looking clean and like the Temptations were on their way out. He adopted a couple of acid trips and started taking off his clothes and rocking out. But Funkadelic and Parliament, they came up with something else really unique. You also got Earth Wind and Fire, The Ohio Players, The Bar Keys and a lot of other groups who also were in it. Al Green's music is just as funky. Albert King was also doing some really funky stuff. But it was with the blues element and that was before the Funk started kicking as a popular music of the day. So all these things contributed to the development of Funk. George admitted to taking a concept from James Brown to put it on the One. James would be "On the One!! Hit me! Two time!" So George was like : "Okay... that “on the one” is kind of hot : loop it! And loop it again, don't stop to loop.” So every time it kept coming around on the one two three four, one two three four ( He accentuates on the one). So it gets deeper and deeper and deeper into the listener. He said something that was very profound: "Funk not only moves, it can remove".

George just shares this information with me because I happen to speak with him; but all these groups contributed to what was funk. George masterminded the concept and made it marketable and went beyond just playing funky grooves. Some people just made the funky sound and some people made it the translator of some of the issues of the day we were dealing with: Clinton was the master of that. I don't think that anyone has ever been that clever lyrically as George Clinton.

SOB's, New York City, Avril 2005

When you say he marketed Funk, do you think that he used Funk to also advance a cause ?

In my opinion, George Clinton is the Godfather of what is hip hop. The rap, the language, the dialect, using certain catch phrases that were cliche to your clique or to your group. Some people were in cocaine culture, some people were in street culture, some people were in the gospel culture. He put it all in one thing and made it accessible to you and he took your mind out of the box it had been in and said: "One day, we're gonna see a Stevie Wonder as the Minister of Music in the White House". He started saying these things that were fictional, but in your mind it started to be physically tangible. We could start seeing ourselves in the White House. We had never thought about being in the White House because we never thought being there as black people. But then he just said it so he's now importing into the listeners of his music, he's putting a foreword spin on the thought of people who listen to his music. He ain't just saying we're black and we follow you.

Georges was taking us where we were in thought and advancing us to another level that we hadn't seen in our music. (He sings the beginning of 'Mothership Connection') :"If you hear any noise..." .Okay fine; but then he started lacing you with little afro futuristic thoughts in the same time when he was reminding you of the fact that we are going through hell. 

Did you realize back in the 70's the political side of the music or did that come later on ?

I think I was aware of it at that time. Because Stevie Wonder in his music was popular back then. And Stevie was always putting information in his music. If you have a white person and a black person and they have a baby, that's a black baby. He'd say that and you had a group of kids saying it in the song. And I'm a kid hearing them saying that in a song so I am learning about life by him making these songs. A friend of mine told me that Stevie Wonder taught him how to write poetry just by listening to his writings. And he taught me to a degree the same thing: how to be poetic about the problem. (He sings "You put me, you got me on the frontline. You got me standing on the frontline. But you keep me in the back of the line when it comes to getting ahead." This is Stevie telling us and speaking our experience but not doing it in a way which is confrontational and saying: ''Go kill the person who is oppressing you". He's just being very vocal about the things that were being oppressive to us. So I was learning and I was getting information from those writers.

Modern music is more concerned with mega money only not so much informing people. So not that's the only type of music that's available now, it's just that's what's being popularized. Back in those days, our artists who cared for us were popularized and exalted to the highest caliber , the highest degrees, on the highest marquees, on the biggest shows... We felt empowered by them. Now a lot of our artists who are number one will empower us on the information on how they hustled and made it, or how they struggled and made it.

How do you explain that the artists in the 70's who had a message seem to lack the recognition they deserve from the newer generation ?

I can't speak for all the reasons why. But I can say that one thing about Black America and our artistic contribution to the world is that we are very fast out with the old, in with the new. Supporting the old when there's a new thing coming in called hip hop becomes a problem because the kids are taking from the past but are not making the past their champion. They're not saying: 'Hey, go back twenty years ago and listen to the records!". They're saying: 'Hey! That loop that ya did twenty years ago is hot, I'm gonna take that and I am gonna rhyme over the top of it." The old guy is saying: 'Hey don't just take from me, make your own, be original. That ain't original that hip hop thing y'all doing." So here you have it : the separation between the two. We're not interdependently supportive.

 
SOB's, New York City, Avril 2005

You mean that there's no communication between the generations ?

Well to some degree. In the US, our contribution to music is our natural resource. So largely that's a huge place we can look to generate income. But if the church and the blues are at war because they don't want to come together, they're using the same chords, same melodies, different subjects: one is honoring the devil, one is honoring God. So that just started a little division where there's a separation thing going on. So these cats are now thirty years removed from where they were in their heyday and they don't have anybody who's now promoting them or anything to stand on because the time came and went. So this hip hop era, it will come and go, the next thing will come in.

Do you feel that the responsibility lies within the community ?

We have a way for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to honor Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. We should be honoring them ourselves. We haven't got ourselves on the good foot yet. So there are a lot of reasons why those cats can just stay into obscurity and it will be our fault. It won't be because somebody else's media didn't promote them. It'll be because we didn't take up ourselves to protect ourselves that which we created. Look at hip hop : there will be a lot more white rappers taking over the airwaves soon.

Martin Luther, I can't help asking you : what is your dream ?

I have a lot of dreams : one of my dreams is to never hear people of my complexion ever have to complain about the system or about what white people did. Now is the time to put our own thoughts and our own actions to work for us, to advance us. We're still late but either I can give up on that and just say whatever, let me just make some money, go and have a family, go on tour whenever I want to, go on vacation and have my house and everybody else I don't care. Or as I'm going to build my house, as I'm going to gather my lumber I'm going to show another younger couple of cats how they can help me build this house so they can end up building one for themselves. Then we have three houses as supposed to one ; and they might help some cats, and it continues. So that's a part of my dream.

And I want to be rich and famous and have as much money in the world and be as carefree as the next person. But the truth is that I actually do care.

Interview by Fouzia Burfield
© Fouzia Burfield 2005

Fouzia Burfield and Martin Luther

www.rebelsoulmusic.com