My father got me into Living Colour when I was a boy – for his part there was quite a bit of pride involved as one of the original members, Muzz Skillings grew up in my father’s old neighborhood of Hollis; my father described him as one of the young knuckleheads who would try to hang out with the cool, older musician kids until they’d tell Skillings to scram because they didn’t want to deal with his folks. But on another level, there was pride in seeing black folks who could get up on a stage and kick ass – and as an 8 and 9 year old boy, the release of their debut effort, Vivid was like a revelation to me. I couldn’t be like Metallica or Def Leppard (despite how much I loved them) because they were white but I could be like one of the guys in Living Colour, talking about the neighborhood I knew, the people I saw, loved, hated, etc. 

Unfortunately, I only caught about 3/4s of their Afropunk set back in 2013, as their set managed to overlap a little bit with Chuck D’s set. So as you can imagine my inner 8 year old is absolutely thrilled to finally catch Living Colour for an entire set at Brooklyn Bowl tonight. And in honor of that occasion, I had to post one of my favorite Living Colour songs, “The Solace of You."