Last week's conference on James Brown at Princeton was a mindmelting world of amazing thoughts on the life and times of the Godfather with some of the most brilliant folks I've ever had the pleasure to hear. I put up "It's A Man's World" as the afternoon panel looked at Brown's relationships with women and his often "queered" body and performance. Mendi Obadike suggested, based on a comment made during the Augusta funeral service, that "It's A Mans World" came out of a conversation with his first wife, a sort of challenge and response. I found this video and am now listening intensely to figure out what that woman said after his second cry about the world - was this a song always meant to provoke? I never really thought about the things Brown lists here - cars, lights, toys to pacify and please, money - but it lends pretty easy to a switch between "a" man and "the" -- especially when thinking about American blackness historically marked feminine/childlike.

Folks moved between calling Brown a cosmopolitan and calling him, as Imani Perry did, country, and I began to think of Brown by the end of the evening as a lot of each, a true midcentury cosmopolitan American, a man born in a moment to experience the pleasures and grimness of citylife, able to travel internationally to bring his own fiercely individual idea of black pride to post-colonial peoples.

Cornel West was keynote and took the podium sans notes to deliver what seemed like a basic biography. James as stillborn baby, James as little one locked in a shack all day. His father having a differently last name - working these facts into a story of a life in which death and suffering hovered always, pleasure given and performed. Later that evening Pee Wee Ellis admitted that he avoided Brown as much as possible when not on stage and couldn't really remember Brown having any friends. Godfather of soul to all, friend to no one. That is a tough thing to think about.