Throwback: Super Fly Soundtrack

[youtube id=”9hBE6NL3KWg”] Curtis Mayfield’s funky soundtrack to Gordon Parks, Jr.’s story of inner city drug dealer Priest, played by Ron O’Neal  is one of the most favored and influential soundtracks from the blaxploitation era. Mayfield’s liquid falsetto, multi-perspective narrative and warm rhythm with the right amount of horns made Super Fly a benchmark in ’70’s pop and soul. The movie was criticized for making a hero out of a drug dealer and some people believed it was a critique of the Civil Rights Movement’s failure to create better economic opportunities for African-Americans. But all could agree that what Super Fly lacked in morality was made-up for with style, O’Neal’s good looks and Mayfield’s music.  Super Fly the movie and soundtrack is still an influence pop culture’s drug obsession, music and the need for people not in the mainstream to have their own idols that look like them.