black music
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30 Days of Iconic Music Video Blackness With VSB, Day 4: Jade, 'Don't Walk Away'
Jade’s video for “Don’t Walk Away” is one of those joints that you could toss into a 90s time capsule, open it 50 years from now and have a very clear, if not confused, understanding of what the early 90s in young black America looked like. Everything about this video is awesome and remarkably of…
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30 Days of Iconic Music Video Blackness With VSB, Day 3: The Whispers, 'Keep On Lovin' Me'
This video perfectly reflects black cool…and I love it. It is hands down one of the best videos of Black Men Walking of all time. There’s even the rogue brotha in the back who clearly didn’t get the memo about wearing neutral colors and since he didn’t get that memo, he didn’t get the memo…
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30 Days of Iconic Music Video Blackness With VSB, Day 2: Janet Jackson, 'Rhythm Nation'
When I think of iconic music videos, several come to mind. Janet Jackson is responsible for several of them. While this series will probably get real loose with the definition of “iconic,” there is no need to qualify it with the video for the title track from Janet’s 1989 game-changing album, Rhythm Nation, officially titled…
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10 Thoughts About the Jagged Edge x 112 Verzuz With the Struggle Sound
1. Coming off of the high that was the Bounty Killer versus Beenie Man Verzuz Dance Party Jam Session No Social Distance In Sight, I personally thought the Jagged Edge (JE) versus 112 joint was going to end up being somewhat underwhelming. That Saturday night Verzuz was so lit and so live, it was the…
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A Line-by-Line (ish) Defense of Jagged Edge's 'Let's Get Married'
Ever since the first Verzuz “battle” popped off, the social medias have been aflutter with discussions of which artists would make for a good head-to-head battle. Suggestions, both good and terrible, seem to be what social media was built to amplify. Well, after the last “battle” between Ludacris, Nelly and Nelly’s WiFi connection, Swizz Beatz…
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Eryn Allen Kane's Song 'Fragile' Is One of The Most Beautifullest Things In This World
I don’t know what I was doing awake on the Saturday before Easter (April 12), at midnight, but whatever it was, I Shazam’d a song at 12:05 A.M. My best guess is that, per usual, I was watching a movie, or some television show and heard a snippet of a song that tickled my fancy.…
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Ice Cube's AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted Is 30 and I Pretty Much Had No Business Listening to This as an 11-Year-Old in 1990
According to historical records, Wikipedia and Instagram, Ice Cube’s debut, solo album, the indisputable classic, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, turns 30-years-old on May 16, 2020. For those of us (you) less mathematically inclined individuals, that means that the album was released on May 16, 1990. On the heels of his departure from N.W.A. and without the…
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If Snoop Dogg Gets His Way, the Next Verzuz Battle We'll See Will Involve Him vs. Jay-Z
With all of us trapped in the house, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland’s Instagram series, Verzuz, has become a full-fledged, whole-ass pop culture phenomenon with millions of viewers and billions of impressions to its credit. Yet for all of the love that it’s rained down on some of our favorite hip-hop and R&B artists, it has…
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Yo, 2000 Was a Really Good Year for Soul Music
If you are reading this, there’s probably a better than 50 percent chance—and probably closer to 75 or 80 percent, really—that you were one of the, apparently, 8 trillion (Swizz’s math might be a little hyperbolic) people who tuned into the Jill Scott versus Erykah Badu Verzuz on Instagram Live on Saturday evening. Topping out…
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We've Lost Another Icon: No Pain (No Gain) Singer Betty Wright Has Died at 66
Betty Wright, the R&B and soul singer known for classics like “Clean Up Woman” and “Tonight is the Night,” has died at 66 years old. Her family confirmed the news to Essence on Sunday. The cause of death has not yet been revealed, though Chaka Khan put out a call on Twitter earlier in the…