Bad Brains needs no introduction to anyone who has sat in a high school classroom the past 30 years. Inevitably some young man or woman with tight black jeans and patches on their black denim jacket wandered in with a Bad Brains lightning bolt either scribbled across a notebook or held onto a bicycle bag with two rusty safety pins. For those who discovered them early on, their career it must have been equally as fascinating to see the rise of gangsta rap and other forms of hip hop grow in popularity.
Save for Living Color and other notable African American punk bands -- Detroit's recently rediscovered Death, for example -- punk has for the most part has primarily remained a 'white' thing. It's interesting then that the band not only grew in popularity as the decades progressed -- even being forced to record under the moniker 'Soul Brains' for most of the nineties due to a legal entanglement, but are arguably the godfathers of what is referred to as "Hardcore." And yet, this is one of many styles and directions they explored during their long and continuing career. No matter what others (ahem, journalists) have piled on top of the altar of meaning that is Bad Brains, they maintain they are a spiritual band above all else.
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