Topaz Jones
"Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma"
(New Funk Academy / Black Canopy)
"Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma" makes a lot of sense when you learn that rapper Topaz Jones, out of Montclair, N.J, is the son of a funk musician father and an activist-scholar mom. His music combines a funky, Sly and the Family Stone ethos of ensemble creation with a radical social consciousness, a potent mix that's best taken down in one session.
Jones sings and raps alongside choirs, recordings of his friends and family, and his own layered voice. Crooning, exhorting or just letting bars fly, every voice on the album asks for the same recognition: for their Blackness and humanity to be treated as one and the same.
It's a communal affair, from the image on the cover to an accompanying visual album that mines Jones' hometown for material. The vibe is more hazy hangout than house party, but creating that group intimacy seems like what Jones was aiming for.
For all the sonic inspiration that the album takes from the past - velvety guitars, outer-spacey keyboards - Jones' eyes are trained on the future. The things worth preserving will continue to be passed down, as he sings on the standout "Herringbone," but what's next? Could the generation of new forms, new ideas, and new expressions be the answer?
On "Baba 70S," Jones remembers when it seemed like a pair of Nikes was all he needed. "But by the time I got 'em they was out of style," he raps. "God got a sense of humor, learn how to smile."