Zach Schonfeld

In 1973, the musical collective 24-Carat Black released an unheralded masterpiece on Stax Records—and then disappeared. Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth, a soul-funk concept album primarily written by the ex-Motown arranger Dale Warren, was too bleak, ambitious, or just outright bizarre to reach mainstream audiences. 24-Carat Black collapsed when Stax went bankrupt, and the group’s only completed album sank into cultural obscurity....