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In addition to my career as a Professor of Ethnic Studies and my passion for writing detective fiction, I am also a guitar player. Above is a picture of me and a custom made Les Paul guitar (named "Angela" for my wife) by a close friend, colleague, former bandmate, and local luthier. I grew up in a musical household. My father was a classically trained clarinetist who played jazz records for me the minute I was brought home from San Francisco Children's Hospital and who taught me how to listen and what to listen for in jazz. I started playing classical guitar at 8 and then switched to jazz, blues, and rock by the age of 13. I've played a lot over the past two decades for a now defunct local blues band called Root Down and for the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane band, Ohnedaruth, including a memorable performance in Paris at Cite de la Musique. I am currently building a soul/funk project called The Dred Scot Decision. I am also married to a conservatory trained opera singer!
Given my musical background, I wrote The People’s Detective with an eye towards how the story and the landscape of Oakland, California might translate to the big screen. Foremost in this process were my considerations of a soundtrack for the novel. Every chapter was written with one or two songs that represented the main themes, characters, and action. Often I began with a song that I knew captured the mood and tone of what I wanted to write. I listened repeatedly, as jazz giant John Coltrane recommended, and, after my meditation, the words began to unfold.
You can listen to The People’s Detective: A Sonny Trueheart Mystery Playlist on Apple music
Play each of the selections either before, during, or immediately after reading the chapter. I trust that you will have a greater sense of my inspiration –my strange and wicked sense of humor, and my depth of my love for this story and these characters– as the story unfolds, and that the playlist will provide a
complete experience through the union of words and sound.
James Baldwin once said that he wanted to write the way that Aretha Franklin sang. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man begins with his unnamed character smoking reefer and listening to the great Louis Armstrong sing "Why Am I So Black and Blue?" The great playwright August Wilson, wrote dialogue that came straight from his keen listening of the blues tradition. As you go through this extensive playlist, you will notice an eclectic mix of voices including Jimi Hendrix, Lauryn Hill, Ritchie Havens, The Isley Brothers, Ben Harper, Grace Jones, Bob Marley, India Arie, Funkadelic, Jorja Smith, and Marvin Gaye. I want you to feel Sonny riding down the pothole laden streets of Oakland on his Harley-Davidson Fatboy motorcycle when you read and listen to Anthony Hamilton's "Comin' From Where I'm From" and I want you to experience the intensity and desperation of Aurora Jenkins' escape attempt when you read and listen to Ritchie Havens' "Follow the Drinking Gourd." The music for each chapter really helped to link me to the emotions that I wanted to convey for the action and dialogue that I wrote for The People's Detective. And, if you want to feel more of the spirit that I was feeling when I created these characters and scenes, we have the aid of digital music, something that Baldwin, Ellison, Wilson and so many others would likely have used.
Enjoy!!!
Nicholas Louis Baham III
1 The End of Misogynoir
Ben Harper - “The Will to Live”
2. The People’s Detective
Anthony Hamilton - “Comin’ From I’m From”
3. Cargo
The Specials – “Gangsters”
4. Traffick
Steel Pulse - “Human Trafficking”
5. Ghost in the Machine
The Police – “Spirits in the Material World”
6. The Segregated Illuminati
Makaveli / Tupac Shakur – “White Man’z World”
7. The Onanist
Chuck Berry - “My Ding-a-Ling
8. Backstabbers
The O’Jays – “Backstabbers”
9. Aaminha
India Arie – “Video”
10. Captivity
Bob Marley - “Soul Captives”
11. Trouble Man
Marvin Gaye - “Trouble Man”
12. Old Man Kaz
Robert Cray - “I’m A Good Man”
13. The Young Detective
Steely Dan – “With a Gun”
14. The Arrangement
Too $hort – “Blow the Whistle”
15. Brother Malik
Prince – “Gigolos Get Lonely Too”
16. Afro Samurai
Joe James - “Afro Samurai”
17. Trans Lives Matter
Jorja Smith - “Bussdown”
18. Oaksterdam
Funkadelic - “Maggot Brain”
19. Blues and Bruise
Amy Winehouse - “You Know That I’m No Good”
20. Raising the Dead
Bhi Bhiman - “Guttersnipe”
22. Sexual Healing
Marvin Gaye “Sexual Healing”
23. Journalist, Councilman, and Traitor
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy -“Music and Politics”
24. The Mistress and the Benefactress
The Ohio Players – “Fire”
25. Escape
Ritchie Havens - “Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd”
26. Straighten Up and Fly Right
Nat King Cole - “Straighten Up and Fly Right”
27. The Bardo
Isley Brothers – “Footsteps in the Dark”
28. The Kingston 11
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Burnin’ and Lootin’
29. Hunger Strike
The Temptations – “Message from a Black Man”
30. Reconnaissance
O’Jays – “For the Love of Money”
31. Smoke and Mirrors
Jimi Hendrix – “Fire”
32. Acrophobia
A Tribe Called Quest – “Check the Rhime”
33. Game of Death
Carl Douglass - “Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting”
34. Recruited
Sade – “Feel No Pain”
35. Black is the Color
Nina Simone – “Black is the Color”
36. Heist
Celly Cel – “It’s Goin’ Down Tonight”
37. Slave to the Rhythm
Grace Jones – “Slave to the Rhythm;” and
Iggy and the Stooges - “Search and Destroy
38. Gimme the Goods
Boz Scaggs – “Gimme the Goods”
39. Fight
Erykah Badu - “Soldier”
40. Wretched of the Earth
Sade – “Soldier of Love”
41. Exposure
The Black Tones – “The End of Everything”
42. Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night
Jimi Hendrix - "1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)"
43. Requiem for a Mistress
Velvet Underground – “Venus in Furs”
44. Do It Again
Steely Dan – “Do It Again”
45. I’m Your Momma, I’m Your Daddy
Curtis Mayfield – “Pusherman”
46. The Trickster
Bobby Womack – “Across 110th St.”
Richie Rich - “Let’s Ride”
47. Did You Think I’d Forgotten
The Isley Brothers – “Fight the Power”
48. Epilogue: The People’s Detective (Slight Return)
Jimi Hendrix “Voodoo Chile” (Slight Return)