Today is the fourth 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
Rock ‘n’ roll was created by Black people — in particular, Little Richard and this incredibly talented sister right here, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Elvis, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry and countless others all claimed they were fans and that she influenced them, and you can hear it in their work. So it shouldn’t be surprising that over the past handful of years, Tharpe has been considered the godmother of rock ‘n’ll.
Simply put, without Tharpe there probably isn’t rock ‘n’ roll as we know it.
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