Audio By Carbonatix
With 1 day left in our spring campaign, we have a new $10,000 goal!
New Times members have already contributed more than $8,000 - can you help us hit our new goal and keep New Times free and in print every week? If New Times matters to you, please take action and contribute today.
Sometimes the heckler is right. Many moons ago, a young Millie Jackson wrecked some poor tuneless hackette’s act at the famed Harlem nightclub Small’s Paradise. The would-be diva dared Jackson to come onstage. Oops! After dusting off the object of her ridicule with her gorgeous, soaring alto, Jackson embarked on a monster career that has spanned more than 30 years, 26 albums, and a slew of top 20 R&B singles.
While some of her best-selling singles are straight-ahead love songs like “My Man, a Sweet Man,” Jackson’s strongest weapon is an ability to mix her sweet singing voice with half-sung, half-rapped, brutal sexual politics. Cheating husbands and the suckers who put up with them are equally subject to scorn in songs like “Leftovers”: “Tell me something/You been married to her and shackin’ with me/So who do you feel you’re cheating on?” The jackass doesn’t think he did anything wrong. His wife shows up to claim him and Jackson drops one on her: “How can you lay there stretched out in my bed?/With my brand-new nightie on/And my brand-new rollers in your nappy head?” Jackson kicks all their asses out and the people cheer.
