Category: Music
Dance is a Weapon, a Womb, and a Journey Back to Ourselves
They tried to bury us, but they didnât know we were seeds. And we dance where they tried to end us.â
Across time and across oceans, African peoples [...]
Cathy Hughes and The Quiet Storm: Healing on the Airwaves
âGood evening, sweetheartâŚâThose few words, whispered through radios across America, werenât just an introductionâthey 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 âhelp,â 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 Donât 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 âre [...]
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 [...]
10 Ways to Reconnect with Yourself (The 1980s Way) w/ Affirmations
10 Ways to Reconnect with Yourself (The 1980s Way)
If you want to step away from the digital noise and tap into that grounded, authentic energy of th [...]
The Phenomenal Phyllis Hyman, Institutional Betrayal, and Affirmations for Your Own Battles
Sometimes it isn't 'imposter syndrome.' Sometimes institutions just want you to be something that you are not because it is easier for them. B [...]