>Definately a life soundtrack

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At the conference I was just at in Iowa, the other scholar who presented on Sun Ra, James Caroll, tied Nigerian nationalism to African-American nationalism in really interesting ways. Its funny that he did so, because I remember putting this album on a month ago when I was going through a 70s-Stax phase and thinking of all the congruence it had with soul from the early 1970’s (I’m thinking mostly of Stax, but there are definately others). I wish I could understand the lyrics, but do I have to? The spirit seems similar to me. Imagining Nigerians making music in a refashioned state and economy that seemed hopeful seems to cross-polinate with what it must of meant to be emerging from the 1960’s with a sense of maybe a malleable future, one in which creativity could play a role in shaping what kind of nation there could be. Watts-Stax is the obvious example. But what does it mean to listen to this music 35 years later? Thats the question that plagues me, I guess.