James Brown on Racism & Music Biz [VIDEO]

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 12:22 PM on January 2, 2007.

This entertaining and touching out-take from Jon Alpert's doc on the music industry have James Brown and a young Al Sharpton dishing on the music industry and its treatment of a talented and intelligent black man.

Freeze frame:

JON ALPERT: Tell us the story. What happened? And this is something that everybody might be interested in knowing about. You tried to become independent, what happened?

JAMES BROWN: The system crushed me.

JON ALPERT: Give me some examples.

JAMES BROWN: Well, no one, I couldn't get into television, I couldn’t get into movies. The record company was cutting my records up, and wouldn't promote ‘em, and wouldn’t even send ‘em out. Why did all the black-owned record companies fold? Why? Because they were forced out by the big ones. Every one. And not just the black owned ones, all the small--I think you got two independents right now. A good friend of mine, Henry Stone, in Miami, Tone Records, he's being forced out. He's a good friend of mine, you know, forced him out. And he's not black, he's jewish, but he's being forced out. Name an independent record company? You name one.

JON ALPERT: Is there one?

JAMES BROWN: That's what you’re saying, is there one? But when you were a little kid running around, James Brown. There was 300,000. There's not any now.

JON ALPERT: So if you're independent, you can't get records out?

JAMES BROWN: Not a one.

JON ALPERT: And how about if you’re independent, can you get on the radio?

JAMES BROWN: Independent, nada.

JON ALPERT: Let’s say you walked in with a tape?

JAMES BROWN: No. Never get it on...

Full transcript HERE.

Tagged as: racism, music, james brown, al sharpton

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.