There is a clip making the rounds on the internet lately of a 1983 MTV interview with David Bowie where he calls the network out for its lack of diversity in the music videos it broadcasts. Sure there was a smattering of pop, R&B, and rap videos featuring Black artists as the decade continued, but in the genre of rock and roll, which was dominated by White Baby Boomer artists reinventing themselves as slick adult-oriented-rockers with synthesizers, or countless White hair bands in tight spandex, MTV (and even radio) was grossly segregated.
Then, in 1988, Living Colour released the video for “Cult of Personality” and another cultural barrier was smashed. Seeing an all-Black hard rock band with crunchy heavy metal riffs and socially conscious lyrics was a revelation for many viewers.
Heavy rotation on MTV and radio helped Living Colour’s critically acclaimed debut album, “Vivid,” go Platinum and earned the band a 1989 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance.
“We were this anomaly,” explained Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid over the phone. “We’re considered this anomaly, but I’ve always thought of ourselves as an extension, and definitely a part, of a tradition. Really, an unbroken tradition, but that tradition was, in a weird way...the commercial world kind of didn’t want to engage with it or promote it.”
Living Colour formed in the mid-80s and honed their sound playing countless shows at the legendary CBGB’s. Although they were respected in their New York scene, the music industry ignored them until Mick Jagger stepped in, getting them signed to Epic Records, and inviting them to support the Rolling Stones on their massive Steel Wheels stadium tour.
“There’s kind of a narrative of Rock and Roll — Black people started it and White people took it over,” said Reid. “That narrative I’ve never accepted. No, Black people originated it and then everyone came in. Everyone came in with themselves. Black artists have still been expressing themselves within the idiom. That’s kind of how I look at it, and in a way that helped me psychologically not succumb to any kind of idea of desiring to be white or whatever that means, because all of those meanings are subject to inquiry.
"Like when somebody says, ‘White,’ what exactly do they mean? In a weird way, Whiteness is a way of avoiding ethnic differences, you know what I mean, and Blackness is a way of subsuming a lot of differences.”
For good or ill, many of Living Colour’s socially conscious songs have continued to resonate, particularly in the Black Lives Matter era. Songs like “Funny Vibe,” from their debut album, still seem to reflect common moments of racism 30 years later.
“The whole notion of history falling into loops and tropes, repeating motifs, is very much present and current now,” said Reid. “Even with everything shifting to become utterly different and unrecognizable, we’re also living with loops. That’s why something like ‘Funny Vibe,’ it was about a lady cringing in an elevator holding her handbag, and it was an outrage to me, and I wrote it and sort of went for it. Then you see this video of Amy and Chris Cooper, where Amy calls the cops. I’m going, ‘That’s the ‘Funny Vibes’ scenario 2.0, or 3.0!’”
Just with it’s unforgettable riff and shirt grabbing opening lyric (“Look in my eyes, what do you see?...), “Cult of Personality” would already be guaranteed a continued presence on the radio, in video games, and in sporting events for decades to come, but the song’s socio-political message also seems to be be eternally relevant.
“It’s fascinating because that was written in the shadow of the Cold War,’ said Reid. “It was written in the shadow of a certain kind of dynamic. We included Mussolini and Gandhi because, what is this ineffable thing that makes us gather around a particular voice? We’re in a period now of kind of crypto, micro-cults. There are people who you’ve never heard of that have a million people hanging on their every word, and that is kind of taking what Andy Warhol predicted, everyone is going to be famous for fifteen minutes, and flipped it on it’s head.”
Vernon Reid developed as a guitar player in the jazz fusion scene in New York City, playing with Ronald Shannon Jackson (Ornette Coleman’s former drummer), and his band Decoding Society, as well as collaborating with artists like Bill Frisell, John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, and even Public Enemy. His eclectic tastes in music also shaped his approach to guitar.
“I think of my interests as being cumulative,” said Reid. “All the music I absorbed from my childhood, everything from hearing the Beatles to Sly Stone, and the Rolling Stones, Cream, hearing B.B. King, Hendrix, and Santana, all of that became cumulative, and along the way I got introduced to the music of Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, of Ornette Coleman. I found that I just absorbed, in terms of aesthetic and feeling for it, pop music, too. The great Hal David, Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick music, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, all the great Stax stuff, the wonderful stuff from Motown. It all struck me as all this music hits me in different emotional places. I never stopped enjoying anything.”
Reid especially cites hearing Julie Andrews sing “My Favorite Things” from the “Sound of Music,” and then being exposed to John Coltrane’s version of the same song, as a formative moment.
“Hearing the connection, and then really feeling the connection that John Coltrane loved Julie Andrew’s version, as well,” recalled Reid. “That combination between pop music, popular music, and more esoteric music, so-called avant-garde music, has just stayed with me my whole life.”
Reid is known for hair-raising guitar solos that balance jazz informed technicality with barely contained punk rock chaos. While he was ranked #66 on Rolling Stone magazines 2003 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, Reid remains humble and still focuses on absorbing more.
“The guitar is not fixed,” said Reid. “There’s certainly masters of the guitar, but I think of myself as still learning how to do it. I’m still learning two things—I’m still learning how to play guitar, but I’m still learning how to be myself with the guitar….Everyone has to find their voice and thing, and that is what it is for me. My crooked path to finding my voice and my thing.”
With six acclaimed albums and a new one on the horizon, Living Colour continue to inspire bands to challenge their listeners and break boundaries.
“Just the existence of Living Colour made it possible for today to be a Rage Against the Machine or a T.V. on the Radio, even though we weren't directly involved, per se,” said Reid. “In the same way that Fishbone, because they were out before us, and Bad Brains, and Kings X, were part of how Living Colour appeared on the scene. It’s a continuum.”
Living Colour are coming to Victory North with Summerland Tour mates Hoobastank (incase you needed another “reason” to not miss this incredible show).
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: 'Cult of Personality' and the enduring relevance of Living Colour
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