Living Colour frontman Corey Glover made an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show last week to perform his band's signature hit, Cult Of Personality.
Clarkson regularly performs rock classics during the Kelly-oke segment of her popular talk show, but with the host being off last week, Glover popped in the Cameo-oke section of the show on March 17, and delivered a superb performance of the New York's band's 1988 hit single.
Cult Of Personality is the opening track on Living Colour's acclaimed debut album, Vivid, and was the second single lifted from the two million-selling record. A warning against blind worship of politicians, particularly those who might not have one's best interests at heart, the song includes sampled speeches from Malcolm X, President John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt, while also name-dropping Mussolini, Stalin, and Mahatma Gandhi.
Talking to Classic Rock's Dave Ling in 2019, Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid said, “Cult Of Personality was about celebrity, but on a political level. It asked what made us follow these individuals who were larger than life yet still human beings. Aside from their social importance, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King both looked like matinee idols. That was a strong part of why their messages connected.”
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Cult Of Personality reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in America (and number 67 in the UK) and won Living Colour a Grammy award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1990.
In 2023, Glover issued a statement expressing Living Colour's belief that they have been shunned by the Black entertainment industry for playing rock music.
“None of us has been awarded let alone acknowledged for our achievements,” he wrote. “Living Colour in the past has worked with such historical luminaries as Little Richard and Mick Jagger. We’ve worked with a hip-hop royalty from Queen Latifah, Doug E Fresh, Chuck D & Flava Flav to Run DMC. And yet there’s barely a mention of rocks contribution to what is modern black music, let alone in rock and roll circles.
“It’s been our experience that most people of color have no idea how deep and far reaching the influence of Black people in the modern-day rock ‘n’ roll there are, let alone it’s impact on R&B and hip hop. What we hear is “that’s white people stuff” when in fact, it is not!
Glover rounded off his statement saying, “It’s hard enough to live in places where you expect white supremacy, but not from your own people.”
