On a chilly Oct. 3, I filed into Chicago’s historic music venue, The Vic, to hear Clarence Greenwood,
a.k.a. Citizen Cope, play his first national solo acoustic tour.

A plethora of sounds ranging from blues and folk to reggae and hip-hop can all be found in Cope’s
music. His funk, style and simplistic beats can be rooted back to the genre of “Go-Go,” Washington
D.C.’s original music scene that emerged in the 1970s led by famous funk and groove master Chuck
Brown.

The concert was an all-around humbling musical experience, which showcased the raw vocal and instrumental talent of Cope. “Bullet and a Target,” off the album The Clarence Greenwood Recordings,
“speaks about amputee’s in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s” to violence that corrupts the streets of American’s own cities, and how people are constantly stuck in situations “between a bullet and a target.”

“Let the Drummer Kick” was definitely the high point of the night. The accompaniment of the piano
against the backdrop of a hip-hop style beat mixed with lyrics reminiscent of pure poetry shook the crowd as everybody became in sync with the rhythm of the music.

As unique as his beats and instrumentals are, he also brings a lot of culture back into music. He refers
to politics, education, the people that he’s met, everyday experiences and art, all to create what he describes as a “story” from his music.

In one of his popular songs, “Pablo Picasso,” off the album, Clarence Greenwood Recordings, he sings about an eccentric relationship: “The woman that I love, is forty feet tall, she’s a movie star, she’s all in the papers” and “she never bats an eye, when someone takes her picture.” These lyrics, many fans believe, are about a man who has a certain love-connection with a piece of art.

The smoky voice with a subtle hint of a Brooklyn accent is truly the distinctive trait of Cope’s music – a trait that is restoring simplistic beats and reviving an art that has been lacking in mainstream music for decades.