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Writer's pictureEmmanuel Mehr

April 2, 1939 (85 years ago today): Birth of Marvin Gaye


A black-and-white portrait photograph of African American man Marvin Gaye, who is smiling and looking to the side while stroking his beard with his right hand.
Jim Britt, "Publicity photo of Marvin Gaye," 1973

Happy Birthday to singer, songwriter, and Motown icon Marvin Gaye (b. April 2, 1939, in Washington, D.C.), who sang about multi-faceted liberation. Whether chronicling sexual freedom or social change, his music inspired and continues to inspire people to live more freely. Examples are helpful to think this through. While both of these songs were album title tracks, let us focus on the individual songs themselves. Gaye’s 1971 track “What’s Going On” chronicled the African American struggle with government influences and poverty that harmed Black urban communities. He began the song with: “Mother, mother / There’s too many of you crying / Brother, brother, brother / There’s far too many of you dying / You know we’ve got to find a way / To bring some lovin’ here today.” Here he advocates finding love despite the social obstacles disproportionately faced by African Americans in the early 1970s. By contrast, his 1973 track “Let’s Get It On” is about a different kind of liberation. It is about letting go of self-doubt and wholeheartedly embracing the love of another person.

 

Citations: “Marvin Gaye,” The Black Perspective in Music 12, no. 2 (Autumn 1984): 275-276, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1215036; Sarah Fila-Bakabadio, “‘Pick Your Afro Daddy’: Neo Soul and the Making of Diasporan Identities,” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 54, no. 216 (2014): 922, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24476189; Jim Britt, “Publicity photo of Marvin Gaye in 1973, during recording sessions for the album Let's Get It On at the ‘Hitsville West’ Studio in Los Angeles,” photograph (Los Angeles, CA, 1973), public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marvin_Gaye_(1973_publicity_photo).jpg#/media/File:Marvin_Gaye_(1973_publicity_photo).jpg.

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