Today is the ninth day of Black History Month. Over the course of the month, I’ll spend some time paying tribute to Black artists across a wide and diverse array of genres and styles. My hope is that these posts should serve as an important reminder that the Black experience is the American experience, that Black culture is American culture — and importantly, Black lives and Black art matter. You can’t love Black art and Black artists without giving a shit about Black people.
This month won’t be a comprehensive study of Black music. It’ll be more idiosyncratic because — well, JOVM after all. Now, if you’ve been following this site, you may recall that so far I’ve paid tribute to:
- Chaka Khan
- Reverend Al Green
- The Whispers
- Rick James
- Aretha Franklin
- Sylvester
- Sister Rosetta Tharpe
- Chuck Berry
- Donna Summer
- Janet Jackson
- Prince
- The Isley Brothers
- James Brown
- Whitney Houston
- Bob Marley (whose birthday was also on Sunday)
- Syl Johnson, who we lost last night at 85
- Louis Armstrong
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Roy Ayers
Now, as you can tell, I’m specifically making every attempt to split attention on both Black male and Black woman artists, wherever possible. Today, we must show love to ridiculously talented and charismatic Queen Latifah. Although, it’s been a while since we’ve heard new music from her, but her output in the 90s was legendary — righteous, defiantly feminist, Black as hell.
