Throwback: Happy Black History Month: Aretha Franklin

Today is the eighth day of Black History Month. Because the current administration is racist, fascist and wants to deny the existence and histories of anyone that isn’t cis-het and white, there are some important things everyone should remember during this month — and every single month: 

• You can’t love Black artists and their work, and not see them as people 
• Black lives — and Black art matters 
• Black culture is American culture 

As we go through the month, I’m going to talk about a collection of Black artists. It’ll be fairly comprehensive and eclectic list — although it won’t be a complete list. Of course, there are some important Black artists, who were also born during Black History Month. 

So far, I’ve talked about the following, extraordinary artists:

• Big Boi, who also celebrated his 50th birthday on February 1
• Rick James, who was born 77 years ago on February 1
• James Brown, the legendary Soul Brother #1
• The Temptations‘ Dennis Edward, who also was born 82 years ago on February 3
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the godmother of rock ‘n’roll 
• Bobby Brown, who also celebrated his 56th birthday on February 5
• The legendary Bob Marley, who was  was born 80 years ago on February 6
• James Dewit Yancey, best known to the entire world as J. Dilla, one of the most influential and important hip-hop producers and beatmakers who was born 51 years ago on February 7

Are there any artists more transcendent, more important and more influential than Aretha Franklin? I sincerely doubt it. You can’t think of soul, pop, R&B or gospel without mentioning Retha at some point. Nor can you think of an artist in the last 60 years, who wouldn’t cite her work as being an influence on them.