Word: urbanity
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...well-observed comic novel that caught a generational updraft and became either The Catcher in the Rye of the '80s or the Trout Fishing in America of the '80s, depending on your estimation (I would come down somewhere in between). His subsequent books didn't stray far from the urban high life, but with his fifth novel McInerney aims to limber up and take on something more ambitious...
...cultural statement, a move beyond the exigencies that drove the adoption of "black" itself 30 years ago. In 1988, Jackson argued that to be called "black" made the community "baseless," while "African-American" restored the community's "cultural integrity" and "proper historical context." Ramona Edelin, president of the National Urban Coalition, said in 1989 that "African-American" stood as an expression of unity with Africa and the African diaspora, of whom African-Americans were first and foremost a part; it is, she said, "our proper geopolitical identification" and "the first step in the cultural offensive" worldwide...
...soul music lost a bit of its soul. Hip-hop took with it a chunk of the fight-the-power spirit that had once belonged primarily to soul and rhythm and blues. Back in the day--as the phrase goes--Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder sang of urban blight and soul power, about disintegrating families and spiritual transcendence, about "what's going on" and living in a "pasttime paradise...
...flow will pick up over the next few weeks with three impressive neo-soul releases: seductive crooner Maxwell has an album just out called Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite; in early June singer-bassist Me'Shell NdegeOcello will come out with her second album, Peace Beyond Passion; and in July the wistfully named vocalist ambersunshower will release her debut CD, Walter T. Smith...
Each of these new albums also brings something fresh to the pop- soul formula (verse, catchy chorus, hit-a-few-high-notes- at-the-end-to-prove-you-can-sing) that anyone who has listened to pop radio for more than 10 seconds knows intimately. Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, harking back to such great '70s theme albums as Gaye's Here, My Dear, is a song cycle that follows a single love affair from eyes-meeting-across- a-crowded-party to marriage proposal. The album's best song,...Til the Cops Come Knockin', is a lingerie-smooth tune with...