Stew & The Negro Problem
It’s been nearly a decade since the last album by Stew & The Negro Problem, but it’s not as if Stew and long collaborator Heidi Rodewald weren’t busy. The pair created the Off-Broadway/Broadway theatre piece Passing Strange, which was also the subject of a Spike Lee documentary. The Wikipedia entry calls it “a rock musical about a young African American’s artistic journey of self-discovery in Europe, drawing on heavy elements of existentialism, metafictional comedy, and the Künstlerroman” (the entry is worth a hop, skip & jump through the hyperlinks). It’s a work with huge reach, boundless subtleties, and lots of consciously uncomfortable moments, which also applies to Stew & The Negro Problem’s new release, Making It (released January 24 on TNP), an early contender for Best of 2012 lists.
Beginning with a funky fanfare and then quickly dissecting the virtues of stupid little songs versus the clever, broad canvas of theater, Making It delights in peeling back the covers – social, satin and otherwise. Moving with a sophisticated gait somewhere between later period Leonard Cohen and early Steely Dan, the album undresses homegrown masquerades, exposing scars and tear stained faces to the light with a deft flick. Raunchy, laugh out loud funny, and daringly honest, the song cycle is a lovely mixture of discomforting ideas in comforting settings. A ton of murky psychology swirls inside these revealing passages, but delivered with such gorgeous, yin-yang-ing judo that one only realizes their head is hitting the mat well after the knockout blow has firmly landed.
