Millie Jackson – “I’m Tired Of Hiding”

From Millie’s 1974 masterpiece, Caught Up.  There’s not a bad cut on the entire album, and the whole thing hangs together not just as a concept album, but as a narrative album.  Millie became notorious for her sexually explicit lyrics in the 1980s, but she was already explicit here – the pedestrian details, the confessional tone.  Rap and pop music has taken a sharp turn in this direction in the last couple of years.  On the tip of the iceberg, Ke$ha and Drake are basically reading their diaries over synth pop, while rappers like Danny Brown, Zeroh, Yelawolf, Quelle, Playboy Tre, Z-Ro, and dozens of others have created their own brands of confessional rap, all eschewing the broad strokes we’ve painted pop music with for so long.  I doubt there’s a direct Millie Jackson influence there, but she was laying foundation years ago.