![]() ![]() Mayfield wrote the entire album and cut it with his usual studio sidemen, recording all but one track in Chicago. ![]() It was the third solo album from Curtis Mayfield, former leader of soul vocal giants The Impressions, and one of the best soul singers of all time. ![]() Super Fly is the coolest, funkiest lament about the urban criminal lifestyle you could imagine. ![]() The album’s sound epitomises the funky soul of its era, but its lyrics do not celebrate the “junkie plan pushing dope to the man”. Curtis saw through the gangster chic and wrote songs that focused on the characters’ humanity, providing a deeper insight into their lives than the movie itself. Associates are killed, he is double-crossed, his mistress rejects him: it’s a grim situation dressed as dynamite action. The movie’s protagonist, Youngblood Priest, wants to quit his violent drug-dealing life but, locked in a society that offers little hope, his only option is one final million-dollar deal to bust him out of his invisible cage. It may have had a song on it called Pusherman, but it didn’t celebrate that way of life. The coolest, funkiest lament about the urban criminal lifestyleĬurtis Mayfield’s Super Fly soundtrack broke the rules it did not echo the movie’s attitude to its storyline and characters. While the film retains a period charm, it’s the songs that resonate when you see it, along with the sharp clothes designed by Nate Adams, and a touch of street attitude. Super Fly, the album, sold millions of copies and delivered hit singles, giving the movie’s profile a huge lift when it premiered in August 1972. They don’t make action-movie soundtracks like this anymore – probably because there’s nobody like Curtis Mayfield to write them. ![]()
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