Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth

33⅓ Main Series #152

by Zach Schonfeld

In 1973, the musical collective 24-Carat Black released an unheralded masterpiece on Stax Records-and then disappeared. Misfortune's Wealth , a soul-funk concept album primarily written by the ex-Motown arranger Dale Warren, was too bleak, ambitious, or just outright bizarre to reach mainstream audiences. 24-Carat Black collapsed when Stax went bankrupt, and the group's only completed album sank into cultural obscurity. With deep reporting elucidating an untold story full of cinematic details, this book traces how Ghetto went from commercial flop to enigmatic underground classic embraced by the hip-hop community. It also chronicles, in infuriating detail, how the music industry of the 1970s systematically exploited soul musicians and then left them struggling to get paid-and where 24-Carat Black fits into this broader injustice. This is a fascinating and multilayered story about a remarkable album nearly lost to history. It's also a rare glimpse into what it's like to have your music resurrected by rap samples decades after your career fell apart.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

168 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2020

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

24 Carat Black are the equally the band you've never heard of but have always heard - this funk/jazz collective's debut album, Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth has been sampled by artists such as Digable Planets, Travis Scott, Dr Dre and NAS , Jay Z and many more.

The album itself is divided into two types of songs: moody spoken word pieces and upbeat funk dance floor filler numbers. In the process commenting on the state of Black America. It's powerful political record which will make the listener despair then dance.

Zach Schonfield not only analyses the album but gives us the whole history of 24 Carat Black from their roots, side projects and what the living members are doing today.

There's also a lengthy bit about sampling, as the band were used heavily by other groups and received zero profit and about 24 Carat Black's influence on hip hop culture then and now.

Excellent and encyclopaedic

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zach Schonfeld expertly researched and brought to life a little known and obscure musical groups “ before it’s time” album. An informative and enjoyable read!!!

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at the making of this little known album from the 1970’s which has been sampled by many Hip Hop artists.

[Margot Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I might not have read this exceptional book if I wasn't a fan of Zach Schonfeld's articles and blogs. I'm glad I am because this book took me into the reality of a genre I know nothing about and came away both better informed about popular music and the monetary reality that can result for some musicians from sampling. This book is a page turner weaving the creation of 12-Carat Black's singular album Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth, their lack of success with it and, yet, enormous influence on hip-hop and rap and other music, or as Zach writes, created "a shadow renaissance." The portrait of the members of the band is especially endearing and puts meat on the bones of the story behind their legacy enhanced from sampling, albeit without reparations. In additions, the story of many "soul savvy crate diggers" made me regret parting with my album collection years ago. It's all too rare to read a book that both engages one and advocates for a subject and participants that are not in the mainstream of the media. Now to find a copy of the album and use the "Guide" section of the book while I listen, like Princess or Niambi says in an interview, "Still kickin' - still breathin'."

[Ethan Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most entertaining, saddening, and excellent 33 1/3’s I’ve read—an incredible achievement. I had a moment of hesitation to jump into the book without having heard more than a few songs of the album beforehand, but the book was so absorbing that (1) I didn’t mind and (2) I now need to hear it all the way through. Schonfeld's writing style here feels like an ideal adaptation of how he writes for places like Pitchfork and New York Magazine, expanding on his perfect balance of details, personal quotes, and involving background. It's an absorbing read and one of the best music books of the year.

[Simon Vozick-Levinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling yarn of a tale about the making of a lost Stax classic in the 1970s, the rise of sampling decades later, and the music industry’s long and shameful history of financial exploitation of black artists. One of the best 33 1/3 books I’ve encountered.

[Elizabeth Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is layered and historical and deeply important.

[Zachary Houle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 33 1/3 series of books about albums that was founded in 2003 can be a varied beast. You’re apt to get a book that breaks down a record track-by-track as much as you’re likely to get a fictional novel inspired by the album in question. That quality of “you don’t know what you’re going to get” has sort of turned me off the series, but when a former colleague of mine, Zach Schonfeld, penned a book in the cycle (№ 152 for those of you counting), I felt compelled to read and review the book after he approached me. (Full disclosure: Schonfeld and I worked together as music editors at PopMatters, a pop culture webzine that, at the time, was getting more than one million unique visitors a month.) The book’s about an album by a soul-funk band that you have probably never heard of, but, if you listen to rap music or hip-hop, have definitely heard. There’s such a surreal story behind the group’s birth and re-birth that — I’m being completely honest here — I had to wonder at points in reading this book if Schonfeld had invented a very elaborate hoax. (A search of Snopes.com turned up nothing.)

I hope this synopsis does the book justice, but the strange but true story depicted in this book centers on a band named 24-Carat Black (sometimes stylized as The 24-Carat Black) who, in 1973, dropped an album on a subsidiary of Stax Records called Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth. The album — conceived by an alcoholic Svengali figure named Dale Warren, an ex-Motown music arranger — flopped. There were a few reasons for this. One, the record was dark and weird, and many of the songs exceeded the five-minute mark. Two, Stax Records was in its dying days before declaring bankruptcy and didn’t promote the album to radio, and that’s when it somehow managed to get it shipped to stores. In any event, the record would have died on the vine if it weren’t for hip-hop. Starting in the early ’90s, rap groups started finding the record in thrift stores and started incorporating elements into their work as samples. However, as Schonfeld details, none of the original band members who recorded the album have stood to profit from the use of these samples.

Read the rest of the review here: https://zachary-houle.medium.com/a-re...

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a whole lot of history to this one, which I, of course, appreciate. There's a lot of in-depth, to a degree, conversations with various members of the original 24 Carat Black. It also jumps in to a certain degree on the influence the album had on modern hip-hop, not to mention some of the troubles with sampling and old-school artist contracts from the music realm. Quick and easy, and an extension of an an earlier piece by Zach.

[Josh Hornik · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for the book. 5+ stars for the album.