It's Got to Be Funky: My Life in Music

The story of twentieth-century American music—what really happened, and how and why—from the right-hand man to James Brown, Prince, and D’Angelo, among others.

Alan Leeds is one of the most important figures in Black music, which might sound surprising given he’s a Jewish kid from Queens. You may not know him, but he knows everyone. For half a century, in at least three discrete artistic eras, he has been central to the way that Black music (from soul to funk to neo-soul to hip-hop) has been...