(Charlie has even taken to changing his whole image as of late)

but talking about the stuff he was doing with the hip-hop producers and R. Kelly... hell yes. I wrote about it in another thread. I hate that he seems like such a sideman on his own albums as a solo artist.

In light of how said hip-hop producers (and Snoop) helped to pull him from the ashes, I mute some of the criticism, but not all. You're absolutely right about the kind of things he has to do to stay in the public eye... couple that with what he's gone through, man.

That being said, Charlie didn't always write their hits (I think "Yearning For Your Love" was from Gap Band member Oliver Scott and "Outstanding" was by Raymond Calhoun)

but from day one, Charlie was listed as writer or co-writer of many Gap songs, going back to the Leon Russell-associated days.

I've been diving deep into the Gap's discography, and I've found that the Gap Band (in the Lonnie Simmons era) were getting Death Row-ed like shit. The Gap Band albums after VII for Total Experience had little to no involvement from the band and seemed to have been resurrected from sessions they must have compiled together (granted, Gap Band 8 has some jammin' ass music), and their run on Capitol was kind of short.

I'm kind of glad he's still around after all of that. But man.