The Power and Business of Hip-Hop: A Reading List on an American Art Form By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Stories of hip-hop’s genius, influence, struggle, and endurance.
Miami: A Beginning By Jessica Lynne Feature 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.
Black America Unwittingly Provided the Soundtrack to Its Own Displacement By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight American music may be Black music, but it has now become the music of displacement.
Wonderful Things: The Kid Creole and the Coconuts Story By Michael Gonzales Feature 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.
White Looks By Soraya Roberts Feature Should white critics cover black culture? Only if they’re able to own their whiteness.
Shelved: Jimi Hendrix’s Black Gold Suite By Tom Maxwell Feature 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?
It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer By Michael Gonzales Feature 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.
Odetta Holmes’ Album One Grain of Sand By Longreads Feature 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.
‘Play Another Slow Jam, This Time Make It Sweet’ By Danielle Jackson Feature The term “slow jam” became widely popular when a song performed by Midnight Star debuted in 1983.
When Black Male Singers Were Sex Symbols By Ericka Blount Danois Feature Teddy Pendergrass was the R&B singer women wanted and who men wanted to be. And the one whose life-sized cardboard cutout stood in one family’s living room.
A History of American Protest Music: Come By Here By Tom Maxwell Feature How cultural appropriation and erasure turned an African American spiritual into a white campfire sing-along.
Hellhound on the Money Trail By Longreads Feature Standard recording contracts screwed Bluesmen out of royalties in the early 1900s, and the system was no different when Columbia released “Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings in 1990.”
Shelved: The Lady of Rage’s Eargasm By Tom Maxwell Feature Rapper Robin Allen’s hit song bypassed the hip-hop boys club that held her debut solo album back.
Working to Preserve Traditional Gospel Music By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight With approximately 75 percent of golden age gospel music lost, the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project is trying to save what’s left.
Still Celebrating the Greatest Day in Hip-Hop By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight On one summer day in 1998, XXL magazine gathered 177 hip-hop artists for one of the greatest musical photographs of all time: A Great Day in Hip-Hop.
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