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black music

Posted inEditor's Pick

The Black Vanguard in White Utopias

by Cheri Lucas Rowlands January 5, 2022October 19, 2022

“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.”

Posted inReading List

The Power and Business of Hip-Hop: A Reading List on an American Art Form

by Aaron Gilbreath June 10, 2020November 25, 2022

Stories of hip-hop’s genius, influence, struggle, and endurance.

Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Story, Writing

Miami: A Beginning

by Jessica Lynne February 27, 2020December 16, 2022

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

by Aaron Gilbreath February 12, 2020October 19, 2022

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

by Michael Gonzales December 18, 2019December 30, 2022

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

by Soraya Roberts August 26, 2019February 3, 2023

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

by Tom Maxwell July 16, 2019October 19, 2022

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

by Michael Gonzales June 10, 2019October 19, 2022

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

by Longreads May 22, 2019October 19, 2022

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’

by Danielle Jackson March 22, 2019November 23, 2022

The term “slow jam” became widely popular when a song performed by Midnight Star debuted in 1983.

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