Reviewed For TheFunkStore.com..By/Funk Journalist&Atlanta Radio Personality~"Bustin'"Bob Mitchell
1.O DIVINA
Dearest friends,
Here for your listening pleasure is the final edition of 'WILDCARD'.
I'm calling it 'THE JOKERS' EDITION' to differentiate it from the previous edition.
'THE JOKERS' EDITION' shall also come with these 19 songs
(a slightly different song line-up) as well as new packaging and photos, etc.
I hope you enjoy it!
It's been a very hard road but I believe in persevering with what you have faith in,
I also believe very much in these songs.
The old version is still being illegally exploited by Universal-Germany who are selling surplus copies to unlicensed territories at mark-down prices and they have also been less than honest with regards to the number of CDs sold in order to avoid paying money's due.
I guess it's all in a day's work for these cold hearted corporate thieves. It's also shamefull.
This new version however is free and clear of all that and I offer it to your ear from my heart!
Bless you! ....
Sananda
I will never forget the day it happened back in about 1987. I flipped on the radio and heard a familiar yet fresh groove. Seemed like gritty James Brown funk but as smooth as silk sheets. With a good dose of Al Green, Sam Cooke and Marvin Gauye over the top. The jock failed to mention who it was but as fate would have it later on that very night somebody asked me was I hip to Terrence Trent Darby (TTD). ‘Terrence Trent who?’ I exclaimed. Thus began my association with this musical chameleon born in New York some 40 years ago to an evangelist and his gospel-singing wife. Having studied journalism, taken up boxing (TTD is ‘spose to have a golden glove championship under his belt), and a brief stint in the military the dude ended up a musician, and a damm funky one at that!! It’s been a few years since his debut, “The Hardline According to Terrence Trent Darby” lit up the airwaves back in those bland 80s, well, and they weren’t all bad. After all, you did have folks like Darby, Prince and a few others pushing the musical envelope black to the future by embracing the raw soul of the late 60s and early 70s and fusing it with their own boldness and brashness of in-your face abandon. But Darby’s first lp was crackling with so much infused energy and spirit it quickly eclipsed much of the competition by breaking out of the whole ‘cookie cutter’ music industry anit-funk machine.
Darby’s creative wellspring never dried up, that slob-gobbling music industry monster just devoured it. You know the one that tries to sap all of a truly gifted artist’s creative juices before rendering them into an antediluvian cutout bin somewheres. Bottom line, they weren’t ready for TTD, and had no idea how to market him. Commercially/conglomerately speaking, how does a company steeped in dividing formats of music for radio approach a format-busting artist like TTD, who once said ‘Neil Young doesn’t have any more soul than Bill Withers, Aretha any more than Patsy Cline’. I guess George Clinton was dead on it when he said, ‘you don’t eat when you get too far ahead of your time’.
Although he probably put an LP out since then, the last thing I remember was 1995’s “Vibrator” set. I am more than refreshed by his innovative new collection, “Wild Card”. From braids to blonde coif and back, TTD now officially has a new name, Sananda Maitreya. Don’t ask me what it means, but I am sure it signifies a new found something or other. The boy continues to produce his brand of avant pop-laced funk. This time around it’s got a little bit more meat and potatoes on its bones. Sananda delivers the grits & gravy thru an ingenious bundle of 19 tracks. At times funky, deeply spiritual, earthy and introspective; there is no filler anywhere to be found. The key to any good game is being ‘fundamentally sound’, and Maitreya’s karma is definitely coming back around.
His pop music hit making machine is busy at work again on here. The low end gut bucket funk of “Designated Fool’ blazing in my ears as Darby’s, oops, Sananda’s scurrilous vocal acrobatics take center stage. A good shot of bugged out syth effects and nasty wah wah guitar monkeyshines consummate the cut. This is some smoove fonk, as Darby, dang I did it again; Sananda builds a solid, soaring, stocky groove. It’s funky. The percussion is fat all over the effort. On “Suga Free” his baby’s ‘sweet tooth is missing a cavity’ as the background vocalizations take you back to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. The witty, folk-jazz sensibilities of “Shalom”. The kool/hot dankness of “Ev’rything”. A Jim Morrison/Doors- like work out of “And they Never Know”. Let your mind go back to the yearning, churning slow escalation of “Sign Your Name”. The surging ballyhoo of “Dance Little Sister”. A different name, but you know this funky lil dude all too well. From braids to blonde locks and back at you again. New name, same transcending ,format busting spirit
2.DESIGNATED FOOL~ListenNow
3.MY DARK PLACES~ListenNow
4.THE INNER SCREAM~ListenNow
5.SRR-636~ListenNow
6.DRIVIN' ME CRAZY~ListenNow
7.SUGA FREE~ListenNow
8.WHAT SHALL I DO~ListenNow *new
9.TESTIFY~ListenNow *new
10.SHALOM
11.GIRL ~ListenNow *new
12.EV'RYTHANG~ListenNow
13.SWEETNESS
14.SOME BIRDS BLUE *new
15.BE WILLING
16.GOODBYE DIANE~ListenNow
17._AND THEY NEVER KNOW~ListenNow
18.SAYIN' ABOUT YOU~ListenNow
19.SHADOWS~ListenNow
WAS $22.99 ___Now
$18.99//$3.00 S/h 
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