I Am the Black Gold of the Sun

Recorded for Rotary Connection’s 1971 album Hey, Love at Ter-Mar Studio in Chicago, with Minnie Riperton on soprano vocals and Charles Stepney producing and arranging. Gary Starr handled engineering. The track was one of Rotary Connection’s standout recordings and drew strong critical praise, with later writers calling it a highlight of the group’s catalog and crediting it with helping revive interest in the band. It was part of the album that remained closely associated with Minnie Riperton’s early breakthrough. It became one of the group’s most anthologized songs and was later revisited in club and soul contexts, including a well-known Nuyorican Soul cover. Its long afterlife has kept Riperton’s early work in circulation far beyond the original LP.