Category: Music
You Remember the Beat. But Do You Remember What Chubb Rock Was Saying?
I have been thinking about Chubb Rock’s “Treat ’Em Right”.
Maybe it is because I keep hearing people talk about hip-hop as though an entire generat [...]
Florida A&M Marching 100: They Gave Dolly Parton Her Flowers Like Black HBCU Bands Do
A great Black marching band performance is not casual praise. It is labor as praise.
Somebody had to arrange “9 to 5” for that instrumentation. Music [...]
Dance is a Weapon, a Womb, and a Journey Back to Ourselves
They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds. And we dance where they tried to end us.”
Across time and across oceans, African peoples [...]
Cathy Hughes and The Quiet Storm: Healing on the Airwaves
“Good evening, sweetheart…”Those few words, whispered through radios across America, weren’t just an introduction—they were an invitation. An invita [...]
Survivor Affirmations: I Am Allowed to Be More than My Worst Decision
Maybe we don't have more talented female singers in mainstream markets these days because we never learned how to treat them?Â
There was something [...]
They Loved the Style, Not the Black Woman: Esther Jones and the Betty Boop Lesson
Exploitation is a hand that smiles while taking.
It praises your light, then sells your flame.
It calls it “help,” but leaves you colder.
 [...]
Across the Water: We Were Never Surviving Alone
There is a way of telling Black history that can accidentally leave Black Americans standing alone.
We learn about the courage it took to survive s [...]
I Don’t Remember a World Before Dolly Parton
I think some artists enter your life so early that you cannot remember becoming a person without them. Their voices get mixed up with childhood itself [...]
BLUEPRINT vs ALGORITHM: Black Sound, Black Memory, Black Authority
There is a moment when a culture starts arguing about what it already built.
Black Music Month becomes a conversation about whether our icons are “re [...]
When You Stop Feeling Like You Have to Keep Proving Yourself
Lauryn Hill was awarded the BET Icon Award, and some are still saying that she didn't do enough. "It was just one album."
That framing leaves out a l [...]