Curtis Mayfield
Superfly

THE REVIEW

Helicopter blades, female voices, police sirens, the rustle of dust.... the hell has begun.

A hell from which only children can escape, rediscovering their wild side, the primitive instinct to run, to flee for survival. An American metropolis like New York, but it could be any concrete trap where it is difficult to stay alive.

Hunger, Sex, Dirt, neon lights under which to wait for the appointment of a lifetime. Walking chilled through the Bronx, black in the black. A doorbell rings at your door, the descent into illogical visions begins, among the burning dumpsters and elderly with long beards and no clothes who beg, shout shamanic rites for change. Eddie is at the center of all this, a navel of shit. Torn, wounded, he finds the only refuge and the only damnation in drugs.
Stupefied drugs in front of his eyes to leave or just to try to stay. Confetti hairstyles, sunset orange freak outfits, bloodstains on the jacket with rhinestones, but coke might be the solution. Tracks of trips that begin when the moon is high in the sky, among the fumes, the vapors of Harlem that inhales itself, for lack of anything better.

Curtis Mayfield keeps his small Lennon-style round glasses in front of his pupils to avoid crying, to avoid getting angry, he after all with an elegant and sinuous falsetto like velvet just wants to tell you the small daily tragedies of a people, a ghetto-people, a generation-people. But even the velvet subway didn't go for the subtle if you remember well. It's all sarcasm, giving you a candy to hurt you, to make you stand up. Everything is at stake here, and you need to learn the game quickly, or you're finished, you don't exist at all.
Eddie wants to find love, would like to protect a woman, but first he has to think about protecting himself from the bigger fish. The drums are pressing, the hi-hat has no time to look around, it gallops asking the bass for help, asking for a path, the road to take. For a few moments it seems done. the piano supports you, don't worry, the traffic in the upper neighborhoods pays well, always pays better, and if you don't get caught you can plan a new house, the new tie, the police... the police would do its course, like everyone else, without fear, without counting your breath or your steps.

But every story worth telling has its epilogue, and in the best case it cannot end well. For someone else maybe yes, but not for those who can no longer find a friend, a grip. You die, after a fuck a few hours before in a bed full of mold, after dragging yourself through a glittering ballroom that blinds you and the drinks don't have time to reach your stomach. Curtis observes, moves his puppets as in a small theater, between compassion and emotional participation. He invents an elegy of a man-character who was a dealer, who they called Superfly. And when you're a pusherman in New York it doesn't matter if you're a good guy or a bad guy, you have to do it, for someone who will never remember you anyway. Or will pretend not to know you. It's the fate of the Superfly. Curtis Mayfield is the Giovanni Verga of blaxploitation.

If Roots were his Malavoglia, Superfly is his Mastro Don Gesualdo.

Note: I have not seen the film and I don't know the plot, except from what was derived from the exclusive listening of the aforementioned soundtrack.
Note 2: highly recommended is the "Deluxe 25th Anniversary Edition" composed of a full two CDs and rich in all kinds of unreleased tracks, mostly very valid.