Lamar holds and trills his guttural utterances with the marvelous fortitude and surety of a Nina Simone or a Patty Waters. Wearing his blackademia on his form-fitted leather sleeves with equally tight-ass jeans, Lamar places the listener into often uncomfortable situations. I thought at times, bloody black fetuses might climb out of the piano’s guts, slither downstage, sit and stare accusingly at me. Like Kara Walker, or David Hammons, Lamar confronts with history, shuns with narrative, pricks our noses with shameless recall, all the while smiling, his eyes turned to the floor, waiting
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World Famous in San Francisco
"The singular artist M. Lamar is a classically trained counter tenor whose brilliant original work is in the unabashedly political yet emotionally powerful tradition of artists like Diamanda Galas and Paul Robeson. He also has a sense of humor, and the songs, with titles like 'That Obscure Object of Desire' and 'Exploitation Chic,' can be sexy, funny, angry, and sad, often all at the same time.".
-WBAI Pacifica Radio.
M. Lamar
7" EP - "Dirty Dirty Nigga"/"White Pussy"/"The Conquest"
M. Lamar is not for all tastes, not that that's a bad thing. Recently, I was at an M. Lamar show, and I heard someone comment with annoyance that Lamar's music was like a "vicious buzzing" in the poor listener's ear. Singing in a register better suited to a female soprano like Leontyne Price, and taking inspiration from the theatrically imaginative but polarizing Diamanda Galas, M. Lamar plays minimalist piano and spews provocative lyrics about sex, race, life, and death. In other words, don't file this under "easy listening."
On his new white vinyl 7-inch ("though 9 ½ would be more appropriate," Lamar quips in his publicity), M. Lamar presents three songs.
Side one plays at 33 1/3 rpm and features two of Lamar's more infamous provocations. "Dirty Dirty Nigga" is a rebel's strike against the conformity of the past. Lamar talks about his grandmother working as a cleaning lady and his mother telling him to stay clean. Lamar instead decides to be a "dirty dirty dirty nigga," an intention he declares as he clanks down hard on the piano, violent but also appealingly funky. (As Lamar later sings, "I don't even clean my ass/'Cause I want the funk to last.") "White Pussy" sounds like the come-on of the piano player in a brothel located somewhere between 1920s New Orleans and Hell: "They eat the pussy. They drink the pussy. White pussy for sale." Both of the side one tracks repeat the provocations of their titles again and again as M. Lamar wails and pounds the piano keys.
The track on side two, which plays at 45 rpm (a fact which I missed at first, and led to a moment of puzzlement as a much deeper voice than expected came out of my stereo speakers), offers -- probably intentionally -- a different side of M. Lamar's writing. "The Conquest" seems to conflate the war-stricken state of the world with M. Lamar's philosophy in the bedroom. Far less cynical and in-your-face than the songs on side one, "The Conquest" maintains the atmosphere of Lamar's other tracks but isn't satisfied to repeat a mantra-like verse. Instead, Lamar goes in for the sensual seduction -- "My weapon's yours to feel," he generously offers. But make no mistake, M. Lamar is an aggressor; as he declares in the song's first line, "Defeat is not an option."
All in all, this 7-inch is a solid introduction to the music and personality of M. Lamar. It certainly will be a helpful tool to decide where you stand on the love-him/hate-him divide. But I'd even recommend those folks put off by the upfront taboo-shattering of side one to still give the sultry cut on the flip side a chance.
--Justin
