Hey Meteor friends,

Happy Easter and Passover to those celebrating this weekend!

Easter was a huge deal when I was a kid, and as a teen, I attended a church that took it so seriously, we cast a live snake as Satan in the Easter play one year. She was a real diva.

But most of all, Easter reminds me of my mother.  My mom’s voice is exceptional, and the weeks leading up to Easter were always marked by sitting in my mom’s show rehearsals listening to her belt out, harmonize, and perfect various gospel songs. Listening to her sing always made me feel like I was a part of something special.

I’d almost forgotten that sensation until earlier this week when I listened to the most recent episode of UNDISTRACTED. Brittany Packnett Cunningham and her husband, Reginald, talk about their son, Baby M, who came into the world after only 24 weeks of gestation and spent the start of his life in the NICU. While they were unable to make physical contact with their newborn, Brittany found another way to connect—she sang to her baby.

“I just wanted him to feel safe,” she said. “And I wanted him to know that he was held, and I wanted him to know that he is loved.”

I was beside myself. Brittany’s singing brought me back to all the times my mom’s voice gave me a sense of certainty and even a sense of identity. Before I was anyone, I was lucky enough to be Cindy’s daughter.

And congratulations to the Packnett Cunninghams. We’re so happy Baby M is home safe and sound for his first Easter season.

Today’s newsletter is a musical lovefest: Culture writer Shamira Ibrahim talks to prolific music critic, journalist, and podcast host Danyel Smith about her latest book Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop.

Sing on,

Shannon Melero

IT’S MS. ROSS TO YOU 

The Real Story of Black Women in Pop

Author Danyel Smith is on a mission to give these legends their roses

BY SHAMIRA IBRAHIM

DANYEL SMITH (PHOTO BY DREW ALLYN)

It’s impossible to discuss the last 25 years of  Black popular music criticism without invoking the name Danyel Smith—the first woman to serve as Vibe magazine’s editor in chief. Between her career as a writer, helping capture and document the musical soundscapes that reflect different facets of Black life, to her personal journey, anchored by the ebbs and flows of Black popular culture—Smith’s frame of reference is deeply informed by an innate understanding of the transformative power of music history and its integral role in the definition of cultural identity and belonging. Now, with Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop,  Smith expertly places herself in the canon of Black writers and de facto archivists such as Greg Tate, Cheryl Wall, and Saidiya Hartman. It’s part history, part memoir, and along the way, it also reclaims Black women’s rightful place in pop music.

Shamira Ibrahim: One thing I’ve always liked about your writing is the way you make these intricate connections. You start with connecting “Queen of Disco” Donna Summer to the 18th-century poet Phyllis Wheatley. How have you honed the ability to draw these connections for people who may not immediately see the through-lines that go from antebellum slavery through generations of pop music?

Danyel Smith: I appreciate the close attention to the text—that always matters to me very much. At this point in my career, it’s just the way I think, and frankly, I decided to stop fighting it. I have training as a journalist – years of on-the-job training, some training from school, some me training myself, and a lot of that has to do with getting things right. Getting the dates right, getting the moments right, getting the details right. For me, a big part of my work is resisting summary; I feel like so often, Black women’s lives are written about in summary. It is a privilege to have the time, honestly, to just actually think.

I really do adore and admire and often engage with Phyllis Wheatley and her work; the same for Donna Summer. I don’t know that I thought about them both being Boston girls until I was getting close to maybe the midpoint of this book. You’re just writing Boston a million times, and you’re checking your spelling of Massachusetts a million times, and something shakes out; you hear the Boston inflection again in Donna Summers’ voice. It came to me because I had time to think and then had the confidence to stop fighting that negative voice in my head that says, “does that really matter?”

Not only do you interrogate commonly held narratives in white contemporary thought around Black pop culture, you also work to reconcile narratives within Black cultural thought. Particularly, the section around Elvis, where you tease out that it might be a little bit more complicated than people realize; there were Black fans of Elvis. What prompted you to want to interrogate it in that way?

I didn’t think it was truthful of me to write a whole book about Black women in pop and not write about my mother’s love for Elvis, my enjoyment of Elvis, and my great grandmother’s enjoyment. And [of] Johnny Cash, who comes from the Black gospel tradition. How was I going to write a book about myself and Black women in pop without addressing that? [Or] the way that Elvis slipped into Blackness to save himself after falling upon hard professional times.

But I’m on a constant mission to try to find a way to get Black women in music the credit that they are due. I think the Sweet Inspirations, led by Cissy Houston–Whitney  Houston’s mother–have had more impact on rock, pop, soul, and R&B than they’re ever going to be given credit for. I really tried to back that up with example upon example, especially with “Brown Eyed Girl” [the Van Morrison track on which the Sweet Inspirations sang the famed chorus]. 

And I want Cissy and her cohorts to be known—I don’t like it when Black women are called upon to save white men and not receive the credit for it. It had to be spoken upon, though, because it’s not enough for me to just say, ‘I don’t like it, I think it’s a mess, Elvis is so racist, etc.’ I refuse to participate in making our work and our fanship, and our music simple.

A question I have is about contemporary times—you make a cogent argument that “there’s a laziness” in positing that crossover success is somehow devaluing Black work as cheesy or selling out. Now that we’re seeing more women in rap, there’s been increased attention to the ability for women to crossover into pop success. Do you still see that judgment today? 

Do I think that people are saying that  Black girls’ rap is less than good rap because it’s popular amongst the whites? Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it? Pop is the people’s choice. [In the 1980s and ’90s] Pop became a bad word when Black artists like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and Lionel Richie began to take it over. If we have people like Nicki Minaj and Cardi B winning and owning the top of the charts and then all of a sudden pop is again being referred to as less than, I would ask where that energy was when people like The Weeknd–who does beautiful work–was sitting at the top of the charts. Was there a lot of talk then? What about Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak? Is there talk there about how they’re selling out, or is it just that they’re making great, popular, and critically acclaimed music? I don’t know why that same grace isn’t extended to Nicki Minaj and Cardi B and their cohort.

A section that stuck out was about Diana Ross and the rumors of her being a “diva,” in part because she asked to be called Ms. Ross. That also persisted with Lauryn Hill for a very long time when she broke out solo from the Fugees–“she must only be addressed by Ms. Hill.” Now it’s part of [Ross’s] Instagram bio, and the idea of a diva is something that is embraced as part of the formation of a pop icon.

It’s so difficult for people to just hold Black women in esteem. Black women are on a continuous journey of trying to make it clear – I am who I am, and I said what I said – and the naming thing is a big part of it. I hate to take everything back to slavery and reconstruction, but Black women were rarely, if ever, called by their true honorific. They were called whatever anybody felt like calling them. My grandmother’s name is Lottie. A lot of times, people just called somebody Lottie, and they would call the next Black woman Lottie again. A lot of times, people just call people Auntie. White people just called every Black woman over a certain age Auntie. Hey, Auntie, bring me a lemonade. 

So pardon me If Diana Ross wants to be called Ms. Ross. Pardon me if Lauryn Hill wants to be called Ms. Hill.  I understand why people are resistant to it. But it’s time to stop. Hip-hop is problematic in a lot of ways, but it is wonderful in that it was a big huge renaming. I’m Dana Owens, but I am Queen Latifah. I am Nicki Minaj, I am Cardi B, I am Yo-Yo, I am J.J. Fad, I am Doja, I am whomever.

I find it preposterous that people are offended by that, but I know what it is. It’s because it’s a Black woman claiming herself.

Do you have any guidance for people who have a passion for music but want to also have a more studied perspective on it? 

Listen without fear, and listen widely. Don’t try to listen to it with your whole intellect but with your body and soul. Ask your older relatives–because they have them, believe me–for their back issues of Vibe, Ebony, Essence. Get your fingers dirty and read. Read about what was said about the music in the time that the music was actually being listened to.

In my early days of writing about rap, I literally would stop talking to people about it because I always felt like it was some kind of knowledge contest. I like to know obscure things; I think Shine Bright is a collection of obscure things. [But] I’m not into it for like the contest of I know that Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia” came out in 1973 on Buddha records, and not, in fact, Motown like people think. I just want to talk about music, and I want to see other people talking about music. When you’re with your friends at brunch or whatever, and you’re talking about music, just treasure that. That, to me, is the thing that makes life wonderful.

In the mood to jam? Well then check out this playlist curated by Danyel Smith and don’t forget to pass along the good grooves (and this newsletter) to a friend!  

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