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You might've heard Black Girl Magic before, but do you know the meaning of the movement? Black Girl Magic is a movement all about praising and recognizing black girls/women all around the world. It takes a moment to celebrate their wins and educate people that black women can do it all too. This is a form of black power because it's encouraging black girls to thrive and do what they couldn't before in previous decades. This could be excelling at education, career, and even self-development.

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What we mean by Black Girl Magic - The Boston Globe

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Black women are not mythical. Nor superhuman. Our magic is in our realness, our love, and the way we rally around one another.

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NWA is an African-American hip-hop group that talks about real-life experiences growing up in Compton, California. These experiences are mostly being black in America, and the challenges that come with it. Most of the topics that they've covered back when they first recorded their music are still issues that are prevalent in the black community today. Such as police brutality and the injustice against black people. Their message is timeless as long as America continues to oppress black people

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(Douglas R. Burrows / Los Angeles Times )

Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella caused a seismic shift in hip-hop when they formed N.W.A in 1986. With its hard-core image, bombastic sound and lyrics that were equal parts poetic, lascivious, conscious and downright in-your-face, N.W.A spoke the truth about life on the streets of Compton, then a hotbed of poverty, drugs, gangs and unemployment. In "Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap" (Atria: 288 pp., $26), Times music reporter Gerrick D. Kennedy traces the origins of the group that birthed the first major disruption of hip-hop during the genre's infancy. Ice Cube once said, "Everything in the world came after this group." In this exclusive excerpt, Kennedy details the brash arrival of N.W.A.
OF THE MANY BIG BANGS that have transformed rap over the decades, N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton" is one of the loudest.

It was a sonic Molotov cocktail that ignited a firestorm when it debuted in the summer of 1988. Steered by Dr. Dre and DJ Yella's dark production and Ice Cube and MC Ren's striking rhymes, then brought to life by Eazy-E's wicked charm, the record fused the bombastic sonics of Public Enemy's production with vicious lyrics that were revolutionary or perverse, depending on whom you asked.

The world hadn't heard anything like it before. Radio stations and MTV refused to add the title song to their playlists. Critics didn't get it, couldn't see past the language, or, worse, refused to acknowledge it as music. Politicians even launched attacks, working to great lengths to condemn the music and its creators.

N.W.A were to hip-hop what the Sex Pistols were to rock - and really, what's more punk than having a name that dared to be spoken or written in full, and music that incensed a nation?

Red-faced and outraged Americans protested the group, police officers refused to provide security for its shows, and the FBI got involved, but that didn't stop "Straight Outta Compton," N.W.A's debut album, from selling three million records without a radio single.

With "Straight Outta Compton," N.W.A didn't just manage to put its hood on the map, the group forced the world to pay attention to the rap sounds coming out of the West Coast. It's an album that provided the soundtrack for agitated and restless black youth across America with its rough and raunchy tales of violent life in the inner city, expressed through razor-sharp lyrics.

"It was good music," LA rap-radio pioneer Greg Mack said. "And the lyrics, they meant something."

Everything in the world came after this group. ... We changed pop culture on all levels. Not just music. We changed it on TV. In movies. On radio. Everything.

- Ice Cube on N.W.A's influence

The emergence of N.W.A - who billed itself as the World's Most Dangerous Group - in the late eighties provided a jolt to the rap industry. Public Enemy had already helped redefine the genre by ushering in aggressively pro-Black raps that were intelligent, socially aware and politically charged. But N.W.A opted for an angrier approach.

The group celebrated the hedonism and violence of gangs and drugs that turned neighborhoods into war zones, capturing it in brazen language soaked in explicitness. "Street reporters" is what they called themselves, and their dispatches were raw and unhinged - no matter how ugly the stories were.

Like the Beatles, N.W.A's lineup was stacked with all-stars: Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and MC Ren would become platinum-selling solo rappers, while DJ Yella helped Dre break ground on a new sound in hip-hop.

They were the living embodiment of the streets where they were raised, and there was zero pretense about it. And when it came to subject matter, with N.W.A, politics took a backseat. Instead, frustrations about growing up young and black on the streets of South Central Los Angeles became the driving force behind their music.

Gangs, violence, poverty, and the ravishing eighties crack epidemic swept through black neighborhoods like F5 tornadoes. People were angry and restless, and without a flinch N.W.A documented its dark and grim realities like urban newsmen.

"Straight Outta Compton" was a flash point that spoke for a disenfranchised community and disrupted the order of those who were confronted with the voices and images of a community they'd much rather ignore. Black teens and young adults immersed in street life, yet looking for something to hold on to, flocked to the album. And so did white, suburban, middle-class teens who knew nothing about the "hood" or a life inside it, but looked to rap as an outlet for rebellion in the same way their parents gravitated toward the angsty countercultural attitudes percolating in rock music during the 1960s.

As unapologetically violent, misogynist, and problematic as their lyrics often were, the group's harrowing depictions of urban nightmares provided a vital response to the growing disenfranchisement from the Reagan-era politics that had transformed the nation and created an economic catastrophe for metropolitan Los Angeles. N.W.A introduced an antihero. The way Melvin Van Peebles's groundbreaking 1971 film "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" used America's longstanding perception of black men as seething, violent hunks to politicize the image, N.W.A brought it to life by mixing reality with fantasy through its music - and the result was as terrifying as it was successful.

At its peak, Eazy's Ruthless Records - a label he started strictly as a means to get off the streets - was the number-one independent label in the industry and the largest black-owned indie since Berry Gordy's legendary Motown empire. Without Eazy laying down the foundation for hustlers-turned-record-executives, who knows if Death Row, Bad Boy, No Limit, or Cash Money could have existed. How would Jay-Z ever have known he could go from slinging crack cocaine to creating Roc-A- Fella had Eazy not done it less than a decade before?

Ice Cube once said the music took off because it was a moment in time bottled up and shaken until it burst. It's no surprise then that the group's most insidious track, "... tha Police," became a rallying cry in L.A. after a group of white police officers were acquitted in the savage beating of unarmed black motorist Rodney King. Those three words became a mantra, shouted and painted on walls by those who pilfered and torched the city in the days after the acquittal, in what remains one of the deadliest, most destructive uprisings in American history.

More than a quarter of a century before the Black Lives Matter movement and a new generation of youth turned to social-media activism as a means of protest against police brutality, N.W.A were screaming "... tha police." Their lyrics were purposely confrontational. They shouted furiously to push back against racial profiling and offered insight into the daily turmoil of inner-city youth through visceral storytelling, but they just as well promoted misogyny, homophobia, and sexual violence without abandon.

"We had lyrics. That's what we used to combat all the forces that were pushing us from all angles: Whether it was money, gang-banging, crack, LAPD," Cube said. "Everything in the world came after this group.

"N.W.A was the World's Most Dangerous Group. We changed pop culture on all levels. Not just music.We changed it on TV. In movies. On radio. Everything. Everybody could be themselves. Before N.W.A . . . you had to pretend to be a good guy."

N.W.A shocked middle America, scared the government, and sparked conflict with law enforcement. Although their run together was short, N.W.A's music encouraged a generation of young, black emcees to explore their rawest thoughts, no matter how obscene or radical. Today, hip-hop is seen far differently than it was during N.W.A's rise. Hip-hop is credited as the single most influential genre in American pop music over the last half century, as its artists have long gone from persona non grata to pop stars, corporate pitchmen, actors, fashion designers, tech moguls, and executives - and it wouldn't have happened if a group of men from Compton and South Central didn't light the fire.
From "Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap" by Gerrick D. Kennedy. Copyright © 2017 by Kennedy. Reprinted by permission of Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. gerrick.kennedy@latimes.com ALSO Chronicling the ascent and downfall of N.W.A - iconic, contradictory - in 'Parental Discretion Is Advised' Allen Hughes got Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine to open up - and now he's up for his first Grammy Mariah Carey, N.W.A, Tom Waits nominated for Songwriters Hall of Fame

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The moment N.W.A changed the music world

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Part of the ongoing L.A. Times series The age of hip-hop: From the streets to cultural dominance. In this exclusive excerpt from "Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap," Gerrick D. Kennedy details the birth of the first major disruption of hip-hop.

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In Poetic Justice, Black women are showcased differently than they have previously in previous films. Justice is a poet and an artist who has just witnessed the death of her previous boyfriend. She left on a journey with her friend and her friend's boyfriend, and another guy who seems to like her. In this film, Justice is a young woman trying to find herself, and it's enlightening to see in films a black woman paving the way. Despite her challenges, she's still trying to find a way to make it in the real world.

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Women from the Black Male Perspective in 90s Films: Reviewing John Singleton’s Poetic Justice

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There is an ancient proverb that goes like this: “Make right what you have done wrong.” Or as His Royal Badness, Prince once stated in a…

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In the aftermath of the reconstruction, black women were most likely reliant on their previous slave owners. This is because women back then didn't have any status unless they were with a man. Black women are at the bottom of the status automatically, because their partner would likely be a black man(they barely had power themselves). Some black women would stay and work things out to the best of their ability with the white man. But when things went bad, some would leave for a better life.

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During the Reconstruction Era, which followed the American Civil War, women faced many new challenges. Freedwomen struggled to find their place in society due to separated families, mistreatment from…

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After the reconstruction, many black women had the opportunity to become house maids or nannies, or otherwise called "mammys". This stereotype of women would always work with white children and take care of them as if they were their own. This was created to make black women submit to whiteness, they can't thrive without the white man. In most cases, the black woman is dealt with a lot of hatred from the white mothers because they aren't as close to their children. But they also solely rely on these women to take care of their children.

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Black Cultural Heritage and the Subversion of the Stereotypical Images of the Black Woman in Toni Morrison’s Sula | Spectra

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One consequence of American slavery was the de-gendering of female slaves, divesting them of a traditional feminine gender identity that their White mistresses were encouraged to assume, thus rendering female slaves sexed yet genderless females. The female slaves are constructed as “breeder” rather than “mother” and promiscuous rather than chaste. While Angela Davis states in Women, Race & Class that, from the perspective of slaveholders, female slaves were no more than “breeders”, Eugene D. Genovese records in Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made that Europeans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were appalled by the sexual traditions of West Africans and were persuaded that West Africans lacked morals and sexual restraints. The slavery system also fostered the later constructions of Black women as “mammies”, “matriarchs”, and the most recent stereotypes of “welfare mothers”, and “hoochies”. Such constructions revealed the dominant group’s concern that Black women maintain a subordinate position. In this paper, I argue that Morrison in Sula draws on the tradition of other-mothering and community other-mothering, notions adapted from West African societies, as well as the practice of biological mothering in ways that successfully disrupt negative stereotypes about Black womanhood originating from slavery.

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Mae Jemison was the first African-American woman to be in space. She thrived in science and dance in her early years, She would then go on to university, where she would earn 2 bachelor's degrees. She also went on to medical school, graduated, and started practicing Medicine in a hospital. She applied to a NASA program that would send her and a couple of other people into space for experiments, and was one of 15 applicants accepted. Mae Jemison is a reminder that black girls can be able to excel at education no matter the challenges that they may face.

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As a doctor, engineer, and NASA astronaut, Mae Jemison has always reached for the stars. In 1992, Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space. She has also written several books and appeared on many television programs including an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In addition to her many awards, Jemison has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame.

Mae Carol Jemison was born on October 17, 1956 in Decatur, Alabama. The youngest of three children, her mother was an elementary school teacher and her father was a maintenance supervisor. A few years after she was born, Jemison and her family moved to Chicago, Illinois. In addition to her love for dance, Jemison knew that she wanted to study science at a very young age. Jemison grew up watching the Apollo airings on TV, but she was often upset that there were no female astronauts. However, Jemison was inspired by African American actress Nichelle Nichols who played Lieutenant Uhura on the Star Trek television show. Jemison was determined to one day travel in space. In 1973, she graduated from Morgan Park High School when she was 16 years old. Once she graduated, Jemison left Chicago to attend Stanford University in California.

As one of the only African American students in her class, Jemison experienced racial discrimination in school. She later served as president of the Black Student Union and choreographed a performing arts production called Out of the Shadows about the African American experience. Jemison graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts degree in African and African-American studies. After graduating from Stanford University, Jemison attended Cornell Medical School. While in medical school, she traveled to Cuba to lead a study for the American Medical Student Association. She also worked at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. Jemison graduated from Cornell with a Doctorate in Medicine in 1981. Shortly after her graduation, she became an intern at the Los Angeles County Medical Center, and then went on to practice general medicine. Fluent in Russian, Japanese and Swahili, Jemison joined the Peace Corps in 1983 and served as a medical officer for two years in Africa.

After working with the Peace Corps, Jemison opened a private practice as a doctor. However, once Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983, Jemison decided to apply to the astronaut program at NASA. She applied in 1985, but after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, NASA took a break from accepting new people. However, Jemison applied again in 1987 and was one of the 15 people chosen out of over 2,000 applications. She was selected for NASA Astronaut Group 12, which was the first group chosen after the Challenger explosion. After being selected, Jemison trained with NASA and worked on projects at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory. She received her first mission on September 28, 1989 when she was selected to join the STS-47 crew as a Mission Specialist. On September 12, 1992 Jemison and six other astronauts went into space on the space shuttle Endeavor. This voyage made Jemison the first African American woman in space. The team made 127 orbits around the Earth and returned to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 20, 1992.

Jemison left NASA in 1993 after serving as an astronaut for six years in total. She started The Jemison Group, a consulting company that encourages science, technology, and social change. She also began teaching environmental studies at Dartmouth College and directed the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries. After hearing that she was a fan of the Star Trek television show, actor LeVar Burton asked Jemison to appear in an episode. Jemison agreed and became the first real astronaut to be on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She played Lieutenant Palmer in the episode, "Second Chances." In 1994, Jemison created an international space camp for students 12-16 years old called The Earth We Share (TEWS). She also created a nonprofit organization called the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. Jemison later accepted a position as the Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University in 1999. She went on to write her first book in 2001, Find Where the Wind Goes, which was a children's book about her life.

Currently, Jemison is leading the 100 Year Starship project through the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This project works to make sure human space travel to another star is possible within the next 100 years. She also serves on the Board of Directors for many organizations including; the Kimberly-Clark Corp., Scholastic, Inc., Valspar Corp., Morehouse College, Texas Medical Center, Texas State Product Development and Small Business Incubator, Greater Houston Partnership Disaster Planning and Recovery Task Force, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Jemison is a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, National Medical Association Hall of Fame and Texas Science Hall of Fame. She has received multiple awards and honorary degrees including the National Organization for Women's Intrepid Award and the Kilby Science Award. She currently lives in Houston, Texas.

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Astronaut Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space. Discover more at womenshistory.org.

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Lauyrn Hill is a well-known phenomenal artist, who inspires many modern artists today. In her song I Gotta Find Peace of Mind she highlights loving herself unapologetically. In a world where black women are told they should change, Hill decides to flip that narrative and turn it into something powerful.

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Lauryn Hill - I Gotta Find Peace Of Mind (Unplugged)

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Lyda Newman was the creator of the first synthetic hairbrush. She was a hairdresser living in New York. The brushes she had previously been using weren't suitable for her hair type. So she decided to create a better hairbrush that would function a lot better, specifically with black hair. Lyda originally only created a product specific to black women, but now it's used by all types of people.

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Lyda Newman was a remarkable Black female inventor who patented the first hairbrush with synthetic bristles. She is the third Black woman to ever receive a patent. She is also known for her activism in the women's voting rights movement of the early 20th century.

Lyda Newman was born in Ohio sometime between 1865 and 1885. Little is known of Newman's personal life because women, especially Black women, were treated with disregard at that time. However, census records show that she spent most of her life living in New York City, working as a hairdresser.

Newman's decision to improve the design of the hairbrush derived from her own experience as a Black woman and as a hairdresser. She wanted the process of brushing hair to be more hygienic and efficient. Most hairbrushes at the time were made using animal hair, but the material was too soft to effectively treat the thicker texture of African American hair. Newman used synthetic fibers which were more durable and easier to clean. The brush contained evenly spaced rows of bristles with open slots to clear debris away from the hair into a recessed compartment. The back could be opened with a button for cleaning out the compartment. Newman received a patent for her invention on November 15, 1898.

Lyda Newman's invention changed the hair-care industry by making hairbrushes less expensive and easier to manufacture. She paved the way for two other Black inventors to revolutionize hair-care and create an industry. These women were Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker, known as " Madam C.J. Walker," and Marjorie Joyner.

Beyond inventing, Newman was also recognized for her involvement in the women's suffrage movement of the early 20th century. She was a key organizer of a Black branch of the Woman Suffrage Party, which was trying to give women the legal right to vote.

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Lyda Newman was a remarkable Black female inventor who patented the first hairbrush with synthetic bristles. She is the third Black woman to ever receive a patent. She is also known for her activism in the women's voting rights movement of the early 20th century.

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Nina Simone was a civil rights activist and singer. She has been vocal about the Vietnam War and the injustice of black people in America. In this song, she mentions how she frequently talks about wanting to be free as if she's being held back. She feels trapped in her life, and knows that there are people out there living her dream. This is especially relevant to the 1960s, with white people being able to do anything they want. Back then, if you were black, you were segregated from white people because of racism. Simone knew one day that she would be able to be in society without being judged for her skin color.

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Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Official Audio)

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week 8: Black  Aesthetic Theory/ Practice

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week 8: Black  Aesthetic Theory/ Practice

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In the music video This Is America by Childish Gambino, it highlights the harsh realities of being a black person in America. In one of the scenes, it has a church choir singing a gospel part, where only a couple of seconds later they are all shot dead. This refers to the Charleston Church Massacre, which shows the reality that black people aren't allowed to exist even in their own spaces.

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Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video)

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In 2024, Beyoncé does her take on creating a country album named Cowboy Carter. She drew inspiration from various country-themed movies and experiences. She faced controversy over the music not being country enough. But those critics are most likely referring to "white" country music. This album includes the intersectionality of being black and also being "country". After all, country music wouldn't exist without Black people who were the originators. This album has not only showcased her ability to be so versatile in her music, but also shows that she's here to tell a story.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/29/1241672819/beyonce-cowboy-carter-10-takeaways

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How long have fans been speculating over the details of Beyoncé's new album? It depends when you start counting: Some began buzzing over it the second her previous record, the dance-centric Renaissance, was released in 2022 and touted as "act one" of a trilogy. But the chatter has been especially fervent in the past two months, as singles, visuals and other teases popped up during the Grammys, Super Bowl and on the artist's own social media. The Beyhive's busiest bees analyzed clues that pointed toward a country music-inspired sound; they dissected the history of that genre, and how Black musicians have often been written out of it.

After months of anticipation, Cowboy Carter has finally arrived. Is it a country album? In many ways, yes - but it's also a sprawling work filled with disparate influences and references, while remaining a Beyoncé album at its heart. Two NPR Music staffers, reporter Sidney Madden and editor Sheldon Pearce, have been listening since the stroke of midnight. They come to you now with the 10 most important things to know about exactly what Cowboy Carter is, and is not.
1. It's a sprawling Western epic ...
Just as Beyonce's 2022 album, act i: RENAISSANCE, served as a world-building homage to the unsung Black queer youth who created house music, Cowboy Carter continues the lesson plan. In a statement soon after the album's worldwide release, the artist's Parkwood Entertainment shared that each song on the 27-track project is its own version of a reimagined Western film: "She took inspiration from films like Five Fingers For Marseilles, Urban Cowboy, The Hateful Eight, Space Cowboys, The Harder They Fall and Killers of the Flower Moon, often having the films playing on a screen during the recording process."

Each track, whether an interlude, collaboration or poignant solo, rides out like a full-length film full of scenic grandeur, character and conflicts that any Chitlin' Circuit aficionado or spaghetti Western cinephile or can obsess over. As a whole, Cowboy Carter serves as a well of discovery, full of samples, sonic Easter eggs, Knowles family callbacks and, most importantly, an appreciation for pioneers in the country world.
2. ... with a searing image of its titular central character.
In the cowboy, Beyoncé finds her ideal figure of the American West and South. She cites the rodeo as the first place where anyone who loved country music and culture could gather and mingle and feel welcome. It's an image that runs counter to the experience that inspired the album: performing her song "Daddy Lessons" at the CMA Awards in 2016, where she has said she "did not feel welcomed ... and it was very clear that I wasn't." The Cowboy Carter character exists in conversation with the history of Black cowboys, the loaded meaning behind the term and its function in the American imagination.
3. It's a country album ...
There are plenty of categorically country sounds on Cowboy Carter. String instruments are its sonic heartbeat, and the do-si-do of the slide guitar on "DESERT EAGLE" and "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" feel perfectly matched with Bey's feathery vocals. The jovial wiggle of the accordions on "RIIVERDANCE" tip a hat to zydeco music and the artist's Creole heritage. "PROTECTOR" (featuring Beyonce's youngest daughter, Rumi) is anchored by acoustic guitar. "SWEET HONEY BUCKIN" interpolates "I Fall to Pieces," the shuffling standard made famous by Patsy Cline. Compared to Bey's past work in an R&B world full of glitz and glamor, many moments on the album, even with their layered arrangements, feel like intimate jam sessions straight out of a Nashville writing camp.
4. ... and it's also not.
Across the tracklist, elements of hip-hop, bluegrass and Chicano rock, with pop, rock, Jersey club music and operatic runs. "YA YA" conjures the charisma of Tina Turner and Chuck Berry, while winking in the direction of Nancy Sinatra the Beach Boys. "BODYGUARD" is a breezy surf-rock romp with Latin percussion and a little whiskey on its breath. "AMEN" rings to the rafters in true gospel splendor. "SWEET HONEY BUCKIN" stacks genre upon genre and yet never overwhelms, instead connecting the dots between them with dusty horse gallops. The production credits stretch far beyond the scope of country stalwarts, making the album a treasure hunt for fans and issuing a challenge to the ways country music has come to be defined.
5. It's got country and Americana icons to set the tone ...
Voices from country lore appear throughout the tracklist, signposts for the album's deconstructions of genre. The outlaw country pioneer Willie Nelson, who once bucked the Nashville sound himself, stands in as the host of KNTRY Radio Texas, Beyoncé's fictional pirate station. Dolly Parton draws a line from Becky with the good hair to Jolene, and turns up again before "TYRANT," encouraging Beyoncé to light up a juke joint. In a prelude to one of the album's most adventurous cuts, "SPAGHETTII," Linda Martell, an undersung, trailblazing Black country star of the '70s, lays out a sort of mission statement: "Genres are a funny little concept, aren't they? Yes, they are. In theory, they have a simple definition that's easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined."
6. ... and it's flipping some old tropes.
There are covers of country classics here that stand out for how stealthily they're reimagined. Parton's 1973 hit "Jolene" shows up early in the album, but Beyonce adds her own sauce to flip its storied narrative. A vigilant Bey (flip-flopping between being upset and unbothered) clocks the "bird" chirping round her man; unlike Dolly, who responds to a similar threat with a plea for mercy, she puts her rival on notice: " I'm warnin' you, woman, find you your own man / Jolene, I know I'm a queen, Jolene / I'm still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne." This twist renegotiates the common push and pull of rolling-stone / damsel-in-distress infidelity that's historically been a hallmark in country standards, and has only recently started to shift (see also: Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats.")
7. It gives flowers to unsung pioneers.
When Linda Martell shows up in the opening moments of "SPAGHETTII" to pose her question about genres, the slick rhetorical framing cuts to the main conceit of Cowboy Carter and centers Martell herself as a case in point. As a pioneer in the country space, Martell made history with her 1970 album Color Me Country and was the first Black woman to perform on the storied Grand Ole Opry. But because of the racist aggression she endured when moving from pop to country, Martell soon left the business. Now, at 82 years old, Martell's getting her due. Her voice is immortalized on both "SPAGHETTII" and "THE LINDA MARTELL SHOW," both tracks that play hopscotch with a range of genres. "I am proud that Beyoncé is exploring her country music roots," the veteran posted on Instagram. "What she is doing is beautiful, and I'm honored to be a part of it. It's Beyoncé, after all!"
8. It shines a light on the stars of country's new age.
A recent study tracking country music programming from 2000 through 2020 revealed that only 29% of country songs played on format radio were by women artists, and of that 29%, 0.01 % were Black women. And so along with honoring pioneers, Cowboy Carter platforms new stars in the field who are still working their way through its entrenched gatekeeping and redlining.

Rhiannon Giddens strums her banjo on the album's lead single, "TEXAS HOLD 'EM." Virginia's Shaboozey, whose 2022 release Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die offered songs for a post-"Old Town Road" country-rap world, cuts through two tracks with his unforgettable tone. "BLACKBIIRD" features the vocals of four Black women - Tanner Addell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts. This soulful cover of the Beatles classic about Black women's plights and resilience during the American Civil Rights movement puts its subjects in a spotlight that country radio rarely does, bringing home the reality that opportunities for artists like these have scarcely grown in the years since Martell broke ground.
9. It saddles up over the pop-country middle ground.
On Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé is a pop star actively in conversation with the idea of country music, and traversing the distance between those genres seems to have made her consider the existing relationship between them. In two moments on the album, she enlists singers who have been blurring that binary for quite some time, Miley Cyrus and Post Malone. Miley, of course, is the daughter of "Achy Breaky Heart" sensation Billy Ray Cyrus, and in her own pursuit of a pop identity fiddled with Mike WiLL trap, Flaming Lips psychedelia, glam rock and country pop before settling on the centering sounds of last year's Endless Summer Vacation, which earned her a record of the year Grammy for "Flowers." For his part, Post broke out as a watercolor trap rockstar and has since shifted toward a sound more in line with his Texas roots. Both seem to resonate with the ambiguity Bey sees running through the music.
10. There's more beneath the rhinestone jewel case.
Beyond the many featured guests, other behind-the-scenes contributors help tell the story. The-Dream, Pharrell, No I.D., Raphael Saadiq, Ryan Tedder, Ryan Beatty and Swizz Beatz all helped produce the record. It also boasts an incredibly accomplished cast of supporting players: Pulitzer-winning folk revivalist Giddens, Grammy-winning soul man Jon Batiste, session luminary Nile Rodgers, gospel pedal steelist Robert Randolph, blues rocker Gary Clark, Jr., hip-hop banjoist Willie Jones and the incomparable Stevie Wonder. The incredible variety of names and skills is the secret sauce behind Cowboy Carter's sprawling vision.

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10 takeaways from Beyoncé's new album, 'Cowboy Carter'

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Is the much-hyped sequel to Renaissance a country album? In many ways, yes - but it's also a sprawling collage of disparate references, while remaining a Beyoncé album at its heart.

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Assata Shakur was a political activist and was involved in the Black Liberation party. The BLP was against capitalism and white supremacy, because of this, they would be targeted by the US Government. Shakur was also involved in the Black Panther Party alongside Angela Davis, but left due to different political beliefs. Shakur was heavily criminalized in the media, so people would think that she's dangerous. But in reality, she believed that the US government was deeply rooted in white supremacy, and she wanted a change in that, so she decided to join the BLP

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Afros were used as a form of resistance during the civil rights era. Black women's hair has always been heavily criticized for looking "undone" in its natural state. That led to many women straightening their hair to be considered proper. However, women started wearing their afros out in public more often to show the beauty in the curls. Afros are just as presentable as someone with pin straight hair.

https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/-black-is-beautiful-/the-afro

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week 9: afrosurrealism and afro futurism

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week 9: afrosurrealism and afro futurism

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This book, titled "The Deep" by River Solomon, is about the history of black women who were thrown overboard during the Middle Passage. It shows the journey that they've adapted to life underwater. This book holds a similar concept to Ayana Jackson's art titled " From the Deep" because they both showcase the afterlife of these women. They both use the word deep which could also signify that they're talking about the stories from when slavery started.

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This video highlights Missy Elliott's music videos and how they have shaped Afrofuturism today. In Missy Elliot's videos, she creates a world where black people are thriving in an alternate universe. Similarly to the concept of Drexicya, Elliot shows that black people can be versatile and exists heavily in their culture