It Ain’t Retro: Daptone Records and The 21st-Century Soul Revolution

Soul is the most powerful expression of American music -- a distinct combination of roots, migration, race, culture, and politics packaged together for your dancing pleasure. But if you thought the sounds of Motown or Stax Records died along with 8-tracks and macrame, you d be wrong. For two decades, Daptone Records has churned out hard funk and such beautiful soul that these records sparked a musical revolution. Run by a collective of soul-obsessed producers and musicians, the Brooklyn-based independent label launched the careers of artists such as Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley, and Bruno Mars. Their records paid homage but never lip service to the original artists, proving that soul is still culturally relevant and just as exciting. It Ain t Retro charts this revival s players, sounds, and tectonic shifts over the past twenty years, taking you from dingy clubs where soul crazed DJs packed the dancefloor, to just uptown where some of the genre s heaviest musicians jumpstarted the renaissance in a basement studio, and all the way to the White House. This definitive tale of Daptone Records soulful revolution chronicles the label s history, players, and sounds while dissecting the scene s cultural underpinnings, which continue to reverberate in pop music.