Pusherman

"Pusherman" was first released on the soundtrack of the 1972 Blaxploitation film, Super Fly. Curtis Mayfield wrote and produced all the songs on the soundtrack, which went on to be one of the few movie soundtracks to out-gross its associated film. With a pair of million-selling singles, "Freddie's Dead" and "Superfly," Curtis Mayfield struck gold in 1972 for the album and in 1973 for the title track.

Curtis Mayfield used each song on the album, Super Fly, to demonstrate a different aspect of the problems he noticed were plaguing inner-city America. "Pusherman," the second track, takes on drug dealing. We see the Pusherman (the drug dealer) as a businessman, trying to make a living and a better life for himself in the tough situation. The Pusherman is both good and evil. Mayfield sings, "Ain't I clean, bad machine, super cool, super mean," to show the man's tough exterior, but he implies that the Pusherman is just as much a victim as he is a villain with, "A man of odd circumstance, a victim of ghetto demands."

Mayfield takes an observer's view on this song, refraining from judgment and showing the pusherman from the perspective of a potential client. To a kid on the street, the drug dealer shows up everywhere, and can take on many forms: mother, father, doctor, friend. Said Mayfield: "The first thing I wanted to do was not condone what was going down, but understand it, and speak in terms of how one can keep from getting locked into these things which youngsters and a lot of people see all around them."