“Country music issues a promissory note to its white listeners. The promise is that no matter how much the world around them may be changing, a country radio station or concert will be a safe space for white sentimentality.”
black music
Posted inReading List
The Power and Business of Hip-Hop: A Reading List on an American Art Form
Stories of hip-hop’s genius, influence, struggle, and endurance.
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Story, Writing
Miami: A Beginning
Jessica Lynne remembers a long distance love affair that began in Miami and the Billie Holiday song that kept her company through the relationship’s transitions.
Posted inArts & Culture, Featured, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Black America Unwittingly Provided the Soundtrack to Its Own Displacement
American music may be Black music, but it has now become the music of displacement.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
Wonderful Things: The Kid Creole and the Coconuts Story
Combining island sounds with stylish clothes and an unforgettable stage presence, one of New York City’s most original bands helped influence 1980s pop culture, and they never sacrificed their unclassifiable artistic vision.
Posted inNonfiction
White Looks
Should white critics cover black culture? Only if they’re able to own their whiteness.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
Shelved: Jimi Hendrix’s Black Gold Suite
The genius guitarist’s autobiographical, multi-song fantasy album sat in his drummer’s apartment for twenty years. Now in the care of the Hendrix estate, will it ever see the light of day?
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer
Hip-hop was a different kind of music that needed a different kind of writer to cover it. This is how Michael A. Gonzales came of age in a time when Black writers began breaking the white ceiling.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story
Odetta Holmes’ Album One Grain of Sand
The singular singer released her groundbreaking album in 1963, the same year as the March on Washington, and used her art and appearance as weapons in the Civil Rights struggle.
Posted inArts & Culture, Commentary, Culture, Feature, Featured, Story
‘Play Another Slow Jam, This Time Make It Sweet’
The term “slow jam” became widely popular when a song performed by Midnight Star debuted in 1983.