Our Time Press "Her shoulders...are the strong supports for such artists as Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu and others.  Although exceedingly complimentary, the appellations, comparisons and string of adjectives miss by a mile the monument that is Camille Yarbrough.  Miss Yarbrough is beyond category. Kevin Powell (Poet, Author/Artist) "Camille Yarbrough...who told her she could be a renaissance woman?  She empowered herself". Billboard Magazine "Poetess-soul singer Camille Yarbrough has stylish traces of Nina Simone and Gil Scott Heron.  Her songs are all thought provoking". Katti Gray (Columnist, New York Newsday) "...Camille's music is medicine for the sick...designed to uplift, to counter every ugly word we sing about ourselves..." New York Beacon "Given today's conservative climate, Yarbrough's message of...strength joined with her belief that love motivates and sustains African Americans, is a welcome one.  No, better, it's a needed one". Elombe Brath (New York Beacon News Review) From the musical collage by Camille Yarbrough centered around her composition, "Family Forever", from her widely popular Ancestor House CD, with excerpts from "Tell It" into her hit "Family", she engaged the audience in an African call and response serenade that had the audience standing, applauding, singing, rhythmically swaying to the tempo and embracing, which was so effective that many in the Namibian guest party found themselves joining in the celebration.  "Family Forever" became more than just a song, but a collective mutual affirmation of love of one's African heritage, an understanding of the present plight of the Black people all over the world, and an anthem for a serious movement to renew our solidarity into an impenetrable unity to guarantee the goals fo a united Africa.

FATBOY SAMPLES/BLACK POWER SOUL Camille Yarbrough the iron pot cooker (Vanguard). The selling point here is "Take yo praise," the vocal source of Fatboy Slims "Praise you" (yeah, the way he pitched it, I though the singer was a guy, too). But beyond the sound bite is a lost LP's worth of mid 70's urban griot poetics from a hip-hop foremother. Yarbrough testifies over organ-dampered funk in the spirit of Gill Scott-Heron and the last poets - except, unlike her brothers, she focuses her politics through the fractured lens of love. As much performances artist as soul diva, Yarbrough introduces sonny boy the rip-off man and little sally the super sex star ~ refreshingly glamorless versions of the thug and the glossy ghetto ho, respectively. And the slim-free remixes of "Take yo' praise" raise the disturbing question of whether a sample artist can sue a sample source for appropriation.

CDNOW/Adam McGovern Camille Yarbrough The Iron Pot Cooker (Vanguard Records) The most important discovery of the year: Camille Yarbroughs one album. Obscure since 1975, fills out the spoken word Mr. Rushmore of last poets, waits prophets, and Gil Scott-Heron, completing the chrysalis phase of poetry moving into rap in the half decade before hip-hop. A mixture of dramatic oration, gospelesque testimony, protest chant, and intermittent song with minimal jazz-industrial accompaniment. The album simultaneously occupies several stylistic dimensions in a way much more at home in our own pluralistic time. The flow between speech and song is a natural as the nuaneed, two-way view of a couples emotional obstacles in "But it comes out mad;" the arrangements of "Aint it a lonely feeling" and "Take yo' praise" display an astate and agile interplay of fullness and silence years before this become a stock pop technique. The multiple soliloquies of the 14-minute medley "Dream/panic/sonny boy the rip-off man/little sally the super sex star (taking care of business)" are backed with a sequence of transitions from sparing africanate percussion to a gunshot sound-effect to carnival-barker ambiance to strip-club vamp that can only be called "Prog-rap".   Simple but eloquent humble yet stirring in her performance career activist Yarbrough makes the rare leap from front person to prophet. The indomitable conviction of her delivery is as encouraging as the persistent relevance of her tales of eroding rights is ominous. The original six tracks are rounded out with two remixes of "Take yo' praises" bowing to its recent sampling by Fatboy Slim for his hit "Praise you." But this music needs no technical enhancements to sound brand new. Buffalo Evening News - Weekend Pause (Jan. 31, 1976) Cesar Williams "Camille Yarbrough is one of those rare talents who rips straight to the heart with her music.  Her first - and to my knowledge only - album was reviewed in this column earlier.  Unfortunately, through a grievous oversight, I neglected to choose The Iron Pot Cooker as one of the finer albums of 1975.  I know correct that state of affairs, urging you to check into the album if you want to hear some excellent poetry and song in searing style.  You'll be wiser for the experience.  The album is a heavy black experience piece.  It's not for the feint of heart or for those who'd like to drift through life with rose-colored shades over their eyes. And i throw out a challenge to all music programmers of appropriate local radio stations: show some courage...give the public a chance to hear this sister do her thing.