24-Carat Black

Formed in the early 1970s, 24-Carat Black was a project led by songwriter, arranger, and producer Dale Warren. The nephew of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy’s second wife, Raynoma (aka Miss Ray), Warren was a trained violinist. Hired by his aunt in 1961 to arrange strings for Motown Records, he began working in the same capacity for other independent labels. Stax Records recruited him and Warren arranged and orchestrated Isaac Hayes’ “Walk On By” single and the albums Hot Buttered Soul (1969), The Isaac Hayes Movement (1970), and …To Be Continued (1970). Warren was featured as both a composer and conductor at the Wattstax ’72 concert. He then discovered The Ditalians, a young soul outfit from Cincinnati, Ohio and he began to groom them. Convincing them to change their name to 24-Carat Black, Warren wrote, arranged, and produced their 1973 ‘concept’ album Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth. The album was broken down into eight songs that addressed different aspects of poverty. While the musical and lyrical scope of the album was ambitious, it failed to find a large audience when it was originally released, the album eventually became a cult classic. Decades after the album’s original release, many of hip hop’s biggest artists - including Dr. Dre, Eric B, Naughty by Nature, Kendrick Lamar and others - began using samples of tracks off the album. The album’s legend grew so large that Warren and the band’s abandoned second album from 1974 was finally issued in 2009 as Gone – The Promises of Yesterday. In 2020, an album of Warren’s 1980s demos was released under the title III.

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