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Chicagos South Side in the early 70s was an epicenter of African-American musical creativity: Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ras Arkestra, Phil Cohrans Artistic Heritage Ensemble, and others led the charge away from mainstream, commercial music. Many followed: The Pharaohs, Pieces of Peace, and Earth, Wind & Fire would attain local, national, and then international acclaim. An outsider even in an outsider subculture, Boscoeboth band and self-titled albumhas been denied a place in the Great Black Music only by its own profound obscurity. Issued in a pressing of just 500 copies, 1973s Boscoe documents an explosive live act unclouded by the passage of time. Free of studio polish or perfectionism, every bass run booms, every vocal rumbles over a patina of reverb. Before Side A ends, we witness the invocation of death, a war for peace that black America must fight, Malcolm Xs violent passing, brains already in the grave, Gods damning of us all, and a glib parody of The Star Spangled Banner, all delivered by a crawling funk fusion as eager to blast us awake with harsh words as with insistent horns.