Soul City, USA
1 Soul provided an avenue for black entrepreneurship.
As the genre’s popularity grew, smaller labels around Chicago flourished. Most famously, singer Curtis Mayfield cofounded Curtom Records with Impressions manager Eddie Thomas and “became his own (September 30, University of Chicago Press). With everything from songwriting to distribution handled in-house, artists had more freedom to pursue their own sounds—and they and their local backers saw more of the proceeds.
