black music month
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Chloe x Halle Cover Teen Vogue and Take Us through the Playlist of Their Lives (and Ours)
It’s fun proving people wrong. Even with our music, early on when we were even much younger, people sometimes said our music should be more simple, more digestible, but my sister and I, we just pushed through together and we’re like, “Bam. We’re gonna do what we want to do.” — Chloe Bailey Chloe and…
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The Pop Up: Sol Development’s ‘Helicopter’ Is a Haunting Tale of Police Brutality in America
The Root is celebrating Black Music Month with stories that dig into the soul of black artistry and with The Pop Up, our new video series featuring in-office performances from black artists we adore. Sol Development are our first performing artists for The Pop Up, and they do not disappoint. The hip-hop/jazz/soul ensemble, based out…
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The Glow Up Anthem of the Week: Tierra Whack Invites Us Into Her ‘Whack World’
Any video that starts with elaborate nail art is likely a good fit for The Glow Up, so we have to thank commenter “Monkeypox0104” for suggesting this week’s Anthem of the Week, Tierra Whack’s 15-minute audiovisual medley “Whack World.” Born from the rapper-singer’s series of one-minute Instagram shorts directed by Thibaut Duverneix and Mathieu Léger,…
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Spell It Out: Rico Nasty Debuts a New Mixtape With ‘Nasty’ Edges
Rico Nasty announced that she’s releasing her new project, Nasty, on the ’gram. The mixtape is set to release June 15, and when fans saw the cover, they were shook. Rico, whose style is ever changing, was rocking nasty edges—literally. Her edges spelled out “Nasty”; check it: Aside from saying it with her edges—which was…
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An Ode to My Big Sister, Who Might Not Know That She Put Me On to Hip-Hop
Since June is Black Music Month (or, more formally, African-American Music Appreciation Month), I figure that one of the best ways to celebrate is to talk about my own love for black music. There’s no talking about my love for black music without discussing hip-hop because it is now and has been the most prominent…
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Is Black Music the Well Many Other Artists Drink From and Profit From More Than Black Artists?
What is black music? For many, it’s soul, funk, R&B, hip-hop and essentially all genres of music that reflect roots in blackness. But the industry doesn’t hear us. Music is very much a culture of “We make it, they take it.” We’ve seen it throughout history in the theft of everything we exclusively create within…
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The Glow Up Anthem of the Week: The Internet Wants You to ‘Come Over’
It’s June, and you know what that means? It’s Black Music Month, y’all! The other day, I buzzed in on a friend who was feeling high on some new music. Needing a little pick-me-up of my own, I asked whom I should be listening to, and she let me in on some new, very-grown-folks’ music…
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Black Music Month Is a Celebration of What We All Know: We Created Music
June is Black Music Month, and as it comes a close, The Root has chosen to celebrate our month and our music with our musical geniuses’ interpretation of black music—what it means, who are its biggest influences and who are our favorites. Check out the above video, featuring Morris Day, Kelly Rowland and more black…
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Watch: Soul and Funk Icons Who Stood Tall for Black Empowerment
You could say that music usually reflects where we are as a society. The height of soul and funk music ran roughly parallel to the civil rights movement in America, from the 1950s to the ’70s, a period that was highly charged with political and social commentary. In today’s climate, it seems fitting to remember…
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Black Music Month Playlist No. 5: We Made America Great in the 1st Place
Editor’s note: Every Friday for the month of June, aka African-American Music Appreciation Month, aka Black Music Month, we created a Spotify playlist based on the news of the week. Check out the stories behind playlist No. 1, playlist No. 2, playlist No. 3 and playlist No. 4. How fortuitous that the end of Black…