It Ain’t Retro: Daptone Records & The 21st-Century Soul Revolution: Daptone Records and The 21st-Century Soul Revolution - Softcover

Jessica Lipsky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1911036734 ISBN 13: 9781911036739

Publisher: Jawbone, 2021

Synopsis

It Ain’t Retro follows a family of musicians whose dedication to 60s and 70s sounds went from dingy basement studios all the way to the White House.

Soul is the most powerful expression of American music -- a distinct combination of roots, migration, race, culture, and politics packaged together for your dancing pleasure. But if you thought the sounds of Motown or Stax Records died along with 8-tracks and macramé, you’d be wrong. For two decades, Daptone Records has churned out hard funk and such beautiful soul that these records sparked a musical revolution.

Run by a collective of soul-obsessed producers and musicians, the Brooklyn-based independent label launched the careers of artists such as Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley, and Bruno Mars. Their records paid homage but never lip service to the original artists, proving that soul is still culturally relevant and just as exciting.

It Ain’t Retro charts this revival’s players, sounds, and tectonic shifts over the past twenty years, taking you from dingy clubs where soul crazed DJs packed the dancefloor, to just uptown where some of the genre’s heaviest musicians jumpstarted the renaissance in a basement studio, and all the way to the White House. This definitive tale of Daptone Records’ soulful revolution chronicles the label’s history, players, and sounds while dissecting the scene’s cultural underpinnings, which continue to reverberate in pop music.

About this title

About the Author

Jessica Lipsky is a journalist and DJ from Brooklyn by way of the San Francisco Bay. She first encountered sweet soul music as a child by obsessively tuning her radio dial and has since extensively covered soul, funk, reggae, and alternative Latin music. Her work on the intersection of culture, music, and politics has appeared in NPR, Billboard, Grammy.com, Columbia Journalism Review, Vice, and LA Weekly. In her free time, she likes to boogaloo down Broadway.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jawbone
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1911036734
• ISBN 13: 9781911036739
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304