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Cameo |
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 Black-mon - Who Is He
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Word Up.... |
Cameo was rough. It's one thing to flirt with societal preconceptions of black male sexuality. [Black-mon....indeed]. It's a whole 'notha thing all together when you hit the stage rocking a codpiece. Excuse me. A bright red leather codpiece. Cameo was no joke. |
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Their Style
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Cameo's Band |
It wasn't just the Jean-Paul Gautier duds or lanscaped do's (dig if you will three male Grace Jones), signifying that Larry Blackmon and Cameo might have been there to play. The fashion only fortified Cameo's fierceness, a fierceness that came via a sound that was hardcore and intense. others might have used the dance floor as a sanctified space to unify the races, uplift the masses and deliver the power of the boogie. cameo pointed a finger in your face.
Their fusion of R&B, disco, funk and rock got you on the good foot, but you had to work for your abandon. The songs lurched back and forth, wildly shifting gears, sometimes mid-thought. Head Cameo in charge Larry Blackmon was alternately funky and freaked out, and lurking under the beat was an aggressiveness that bordered on anger. If the Club life was a prepaid ticket to fantasy, Cameo's darkly comic POV dimmed the bright party lights. Rather than extolling love and sex Blackmon growled that he "had no time for psychological romance." The group offered up a hedonistic homage to the "Single Life," set the song against the reality of the rising AIDS epidemic and anchored it with a damn near fascistic male choir. in 1986 Cameo put the hip hop nation on notice with the confrontational "Word Up", in which Larry snarled "All you sucker DJs who think you're fly/There's got to be reason and we know the reason why/You try to put on airs and act real cool/But you've got to realize that you're acting like fools."
The Cameo motto? Get your freak on but it will cost ya... |
The Saga Continues
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Cameo avec son Red CodPiece... |
Cameo was the brainchild of native New Yorker Larry Blackmon, a former Julliard student. The multi instrumentalist/Songwriter/producer was a veteran of the NYC club scene and in 1974 he formed the 13 pieces were Tomi Jenkins (Vocals) and Nathan Leftenant (trumpet/Vocals); the triptych of Blackmon, Jenkins and Leftenant would eventually be the group's core. Casablanca partner Cecil Holmes signed the New York City Players to the company subsidiary, Chocolate City,Renamed Cameo, Blackmon and company started looking to the Midwest funk bands like Parliament and the Ohio Players for inspiration.
On their first album Cardiac Arrest Blackmon and crew stuck pretty faithfully to the funk playbook, mixing in humorous asides with instrumental jams and thundering basslines. you can hear the cosmic slop influence on the group's maiden single "Rigor Mortis". Blackmon once recalled that he was at his day job in an uptown tailor shop when "Rigor Mortis" made its NYC radio debut. By the end of the first verse Blackmon, exhibiting the chutzpah that would fuel his career, threw down his marking chalk and walked out the door. That brashness started making its way into Cameo's music. by their fourth album, Secret Omen, Blackmon had begun to establish the group's vision. the single "I Just Want To be" featured quirky, off-kilter synths and Blackmon's deadpan wit. "I Just Want To be" would become a club and radio favorite and in the ultimate tribute, sampled by Afrika Bambaataa on "Jazzy Sensation" in 1981 (and later by DJ Quik and Boyz II Men). Cameo also proved that could get their love thing on with soulful ballads like "Sparkle." They may have still been contenders, but it was evident that Cameo was going somewhere.
By 1980 the group had slimmed down, losing three members. their fifth album, Cameosis, upped the ante with gut bucket tracks like " Shake Your Pants." the groove continued on The Feel Me and Knights Of The Sound Table but Blackmon had his eyes on a bigger and bolder prize.
By the early 80s many African-Americans had started a reverse migration, south, to Atlanta. In 1982 the group, now consisting of Blackmon, Jenkins, Leftenant, Gregory Johnson and Charlie Singleton, made Atlanta their HQ, predating such heavyhitters as L A Reid and Babyface by several years. As semi-stars in a smaller scene Cameo ruled and that confidence and cockiness was apparent on their most cohesive album, Alligator Woman. Blackmon now dipped further into mood and atmosphere as the synths grew more splintered, the beats more brittle, and the lyrics more subtle and subversive. Blackmon even altered his vocals to suit the aggressive attack, taking on the adenoidal yowl of Sly Stone and the Ohio Player's Sugarfoot Bonner. |
Word Up
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Cameo.... |
Cameo followed up Alligator Woman with Style, the first release on Blackmon's Atlanta Artist label. but the noise would be brought for real with 1984's She's Strange. The title track had lyrics that were more Byron Gison than Smokey Robinson; the haunting whistle was bit from Ennio Morricone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (and actually lifted from the Jonzun crew's "Space Cowboy," payback for Bambaataa sampling "I Just Want To Be"). Ultra modern, laced with fury and a bit chilly, She's Strange ushered in Blackmon's most significant creative period.
With 1985's Single Life, Cameo became a trio and more focused than ever. Blackmon's stalking grooves grew more insistent and intense. the spaghetti Western whistle was reprised on the omninous title track, adding to the song's creepy, mournful ambience. once again Blackmon laced the funk with industrial rhythms and witty non sequiturs. Somewhere Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were listening to Blackmon's jackbooted jive and taking notes. The "formula" hit its zenith with Word Up!, the culmination of Blackmon's guttural ghetto genius. The single "WOrd Up" became the biggest hit of Cameao's career - embraced by the rock press, long time funkfans and b-boys alike. Love from the latter crowd was ironic, since the vitriol of the song seemed aimed directly at rap's Kangol-clad head. The video marked the debut of the codpiece and solidified Cameo's swaggering "bad boys of black rock and roll" stance. One of those rare "dance" songs that worked on and off the floor, "Word Up" -again featuring the whistle- would prove to be the last gasp of hard core funk before hip hop culture rose up to dominate black music. As expected, Blackmon refused to go quietly into the night, also flinging the metallic and guitar-stoked "Candy."
The next salvo was Machismo's "Skin I'm In," a defiant retort to Sly Stone's upliftinh song of the same name. Like "Talking Out The SIde Of Your Neck," the song highlighted Blackmon's barely disguised disgust at the state of racial politics. Machismo also featured a collaboration with Miles Davis (on "In the Night"), but Blackmon's one-two punch of rhythm and rage was starting to lose steam. the group went quiet until 1990, when the thundering "I Want It NOw' broke out from the album Real Men Wear Black. It was their last album with Mercury Records. |
Les Derniers gloires...
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Blackmon was soon named Vice President of A&R at warner Brothers, where he stayed for three years and also delivered a Cameo album for the company. The group toured off and on, which was documented on the live collection Nasty (2000). their influence on a new generation of artists was greatly felt in the new funk of the late 1990s; and in pop hip hop, where Will smith highlighted them on his 1997 album Big Willie Style. Mariah Carey remade "Candy" for her hit "Loverboy" and featured Blackmon, in all his flat-topped glory, in the video.
In the 80s we were told it was morning in America. It was true for some but certainly not for all and the artists that had the most impact were those who cut through the illusions and honed in on the gritty reality. With their cacophonous and conflicted grooves, Cameo gave us the night in America. They celebrated the frustration, fears and roughness, bubbling barely under the surface. |
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