Shadow - Born To Hustle (1981)

Yesterday, I got the first taste of the party flyer for an upcoming event in O-Town hosted by our West Coast funk correspondent Hot Damn. And it's a beautiful, revolutionary work of art almost ready for mass distribution on the telephone poles of Chapel Thrill. Gay Sock Hop in the hizzouse, all the funk you can handle spinning at 45 RPM!

To give Hot Damn a sample of the funkiest stuff I'd heard in the past twenny-four, I hit YouTube to search for a track I'd re-discovered the nite before, the title cut from Shadow's 1979 debut LP Love Lite. Which is a masterpiece, but it's not on YT. Very few tracks by this group are. Shadow were an Ohio Players-spinoff who never got the love their impeccably tight music demanded.

But in the process of digitally digging, I found another cut by Shadow that I'd never heard before, off their third LP, Shadow In The Streets.



And that cut is today's Joint of the Birthday, since apparently a member of the SOUL crew is having a birthday today! Shadow themselves were shrouded in mystery, so we won't reveal exactly which DJ is celebrating. Or where the party's gonna be.

There's no f-ing doubt this is the birthday jam right here. A mind-blowingly funky, solid as a rock choice, and even better that it dropped in 1981, exactly thirty years ago. When this particular birthday DJ was 10 years old, and wishes he had been hanging out in Kim Patton's basement at some of her infamous rollerskating jams. So without further ado, presenting...Born To Hustle!

- Dyn-O-Mite