The holiday season fast approaches, and I’m back with a collection to gather around the table with family and friends.
Here’s a Thanksgiving playlist that includes new music by Rihanna from the BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER soundtrack, and food-centered classics like Cab Calloway’s “Everybody Eats When They Come To My House” from way back in the day.
This musical journey features soul, jazz, reggae, and gospel, all good music to cook, eat, and clean that kitchen to.
Here’s Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole singing songs about autumn, and several artists like Sly Stone, Massive Attack, and Otis Redding offering songs of thanks.
Plus Little Eva, Fantasia, Louis Jordan and others praising grits, stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, greens, cornbread, and collards to name a few. Hungry yet?
Happy Early Thanksgiving, y’all. I’ll see you soon with a funky holiday season offering next month.
Soul, Reggae, Funk, Jazz, and movie soundtracks make up this collection. There are midcentury classics, plus brand new and previously unreleased tracks.
Michael Abels’ music from Jordan Peele’s neo-Western science fiction horror film, NOPE, serves as a through line for this mix.
It features Beyoncé, The Weekend, Ella Fitzgerald, Little Simz, Exuma, King Tubby, and long-lost collaborations with the late Ranking Roger and The Clash.
I freely admit to casting a very wide net for this playlist. It won’t scare kids off your porch on the 31st, but it might have you shaking a tail feather from now until then.
Please enjoy this collection that offers, witches, ghost, werewolves, and monsters both real and imagined.
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done a #Juneteenth playlist for GBN. This year it shares a Sunday with Father’s Day.
While I didn’t grow up with the holiday, it’s believed to be the oldest African-American holiday, with annual celebrations on June 19th in some parts of the country dating back to 1866. Well.
Since becoming aware of it, I’ve been all-in for years. As a father and son, I am thrilled with the one-two holiday punch.
I’ve tried to gather a set of tunes that can be enjoyed while the grill is full of food, with folk sitting around the table, or when you’re chilling around the crib.
From its Galveston, Texas roots, is now one of five date-specific federal holidays along with New Year’s Day (January 1), Independence Day (July 4), Veterans Day (November 11), and Christmas Day (December 25).
Juneteenth will coincide with Father’s Day not only this year, but also in 2033, 2039, 2044, and 2050. It’s the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986.
Do enjoy another free-wheeling and eclectic collection celebrating this uniquely American holiday by your friend and selector.
[Photo: GBN Contributor Joyce Lakin (l) and GBN Editor-in-Chief Lori Lakin Hutcherson (r) in Maui, 2005]
Good Black News wants to take a moment on this day to honor and remember the women who gave us life, who nurtured and raised us, and also offered us solace, counsel, wisdom, humility and humor.
To all the mothers out there – be they Aunties, Grandmothers, Cousins or Friends – thank you for all you do!
And to one mom out there in particular — Joyce Lakin — we want to thank you for all of the above and also for agreeing to put together a playlist of some of your all-time favorite songs to share with all the other moms and children out there who grew up on their mom’s music!
On this list there’s clearly songs you grew up on (Johnny Mathis, Etta James, Sammy Davis, Jr.), songs that were your jams that became our jams (Teddy Pendergrass, Marvin Gaye, Prince) and songs that are refreshing surprises — Jay Z and J. Lo — who knew?!
If anyone out there is still lucky enough to have their mom, we encourage you to ask them for their playlist — and you’ll learn more about your mom and yourself than you’d imagine!
Today we drop in on lauded rapper and artist Kendrick Lamar, who five years ago #onthisday dropped his last full studio album project on us — the highly-acclaimed, award-winning DAMN.
To read about Lamar, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 14th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Five years ago, on April 14, 2017, hip hop artist and Compton, California native Kendrick Lamarreleased his fourth studio album DAMN. The following year, it became the first work outside of the jazz or classical genre to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. DAMN. also won the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2018 and was a nominee for Album of the Year.
The two albums Kendrick Lamar released before DAMN., 2012’sgood kid, m.A.A.d city and 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly were already revered within and beyond hip hop circles as sonic and lyrical works of art. DAMN. was the culmination of a magnum opus in three parts, a tapestry of arresting themes explored in songs with one-word titles such as “DNA.”:
[Excerpt of “DNA.”]
“LOYALTY. FEAT. RIHANNA.”:
[Excerpt of “LOYALTY. FEAT. RIHANNA.”]
“LOVE. FEAT. ZACARI.”:
[Excerpt of “LOVE. FEAT. ZACARI.”]
And the song that has over a billion streams on Spotify, “HUMBLE.”:
[Excerpt of “HUMBLE.”]
Side projects and collaborations aside, like “Family Ties,” Lamar’s recent Grammy-winning collaboration with Baby Keem, we can’t wait to hear what Kendrick Lamar drops next. Until then, this June Kendrick Lamar will be headlining one evening of the Glastonbury Festival in the United Kingdom and is currently scheduled to do the same at Miami’s Rolling Loud Festival in July.To learn more about Kendrick Lamar, follow him @kendricklamar on Twitter, read 2020’s The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America by Marcus J. Moore, 2021’s Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamarby Miles Marshall Lewis, and 2021’s Kendrick Lamar and the Making of Black Meaning edited by Lehigh University professors Christopher M. Driscoll, Monica R. Miller and Rice University professor Anthony B. Pinn.
You can also read Lamar’s in-depth Rolling Stone interview from 2017, watch his interview with Zane Lowe about DAMN. on AppleMusic’s YouTube channel, catch his videos and incredible live performances on Lamar’s YouTube channel, listen to the entire 5th season of the Dissect Podcast, which is a track-by-track analysis of DAMN., and, of course, buy or stream his entire catalog of music.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
All excerpts of Kendrick Lamar’s music are included under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
As Pharrell Williams takes his 49th orbit around the sun today, GBN celebrates the music and contributions to the culture and community made by this prolific and inventive force of nature.
To read about him, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
(You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website.) Full transcript below:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 5th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Born April 5, 1973 in Virginia Beach, VA, prolific music producer, composer and artist Pharrell Williams (“Drop It Like It’s Hot,” “Get Lucky,” “Hollaback Girl”) has also excelled as a fashion designer (Billionaire Boys Club, G Star Raw, Adidas) as a film and television producer (Dope, Hidden Figures, the Amazon Prime series Harlem) …and, importantly, as a philanthropist.
In 2019 Williams offered “A-List internships” to 114 college-bound high school students to help set them on their career paths.
More recently, Williams co-founded the Black Ambition Initiativeto fund Black and Latinx entrepreneurs in tech, design, healthcare and consumer products and services start-ups. So, let’s wish a “Happy” birthday to this “Beautiful” Neptune on his 49th trip around the sun.
And, it goes without saying, stream or buy any and/or all of the innovative, industry-changing music he’s produced and performed over the decades.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
Excerpts from “Frontin’”, “Happy,” “Beautiful” and “Brand New” by Pharrell Williams permitted under fair use.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday, March 9 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 celebrating the groundbreaking 1990 feature film House Party, directed and produced by Reginald Hudlin and Warrington Hudlin, and starring Kid ‘N Play, Full Force, Tisha Campbell, AJ Johnson, Martin Lawrence, Robin Harris and John Witherspoon:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, March 9th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Shape up your high-top fade because Reginald Hudlin and Warrington Hudlin’s groundbreaking comedy film House Party was released 32 years ago today!
House Party exploded on the scene and ignited the careers of rappers Kid ‘N Play; actors Tisha Campbell, AJ Johnson, and John Witherspoon; comedians Martin Lawrence and Robin Harris; and R&B producers and performers Full Force.
A surprise success at the box office, House Party spawned several sequels and reboots, most recently one produced by LeBron James that will debut on HBO Max this July. Still, the original teen comedy remains a beloved 1990s classic that still manages to kick-step itself across the generations.
We celebrate House Party not only for the depth of talented actors, comedians and musicians it featured, but also because it was one of the first movies to portray Black teenagers as teenagers out to have a good time, which in 1990, was revolutionary.
It also literally contains one of the best dance battle scenes in movie history – that scene alone has almost eight million views on YouTube – and it also introduced the world to the iconic Kid ‘N Play kick step:
You can watch the movie in its entirety on HBO Max, but there is a content warning – homophobic language is used in one scene, that even when I saw it in the theatre in 1990 was bothersome and not at all humorous as intended.
For me, it doesn’t ruin the whole movie, but it does, in my opinion, hold it back from being as smart and as undeniably entertaining as it should be.
To learn more about House Party and its significance to cinematic history, check out the links to sources provided in today’s show notes, and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Additional music included under fair use was “Ain’t My Type of Hype” the House Party mix by Full Force.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
With all that’s going on in the world, we thought we’d offer some comfort this Music Monday in the form of a playlist of remakes and covers called “Cover Me Softly: Soul-Filled Remakes and Covers.”
Sometimes the songs are reimagined, elevated and fully remade, and other times they are faithful covers by the right artist, offering just the right notes and voicing.
We’ve got “Killing Me Softly,” originally by Robert Flack and reimagined by Fugees, Maxwell’s soul stirring take on Kate Bush‘s “This Woman’s Work,”Rihanna’s hauntingly similar yet very much her own gorgeous version of Tame Impala’s “Same Ole Mistakes,”Luther Vandross’ famous redo of Dionne Warwick’s “A House Is Not a Home,”Mariah Carey’s version of Prince’s “Beautiful Ones” with Dru Hill and more.
One song on our list poses the question: Can you successfully remake/cover your own song? In the case of Lionel Richie, that’s exactly what happened with “Lady.” “Lady” was written and produced by Richie and first recorded by American country music artist Kenny Rogersin 1980.
“Lady” is the first record of the 1980s to chart on all four of Billboard magazine’s singles charts – country, Hot 100, adult contemporary and Top Soul Singles. Almost two decades later, Richie revisited the hit by recording the song himself in 1998.
In it we talk about legendary duo Eric B. & Rakim and the song that became their industry calling card and helped up the game in hip hop – 1986’s “Eric B. Is President.”
You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
With the 1986 release of their first single, “Eric. B is President,”Eric. B & Rakim shook up the proverbial hip-hop tree. Deploying complex rhymes, internal musings, and visual storytelling, Rakim revolutionized the MC game, referencing Greek mythology in one bar and Janet Jackson songs in the next.
Eric B., meanwhile, as the DJ scratched, mixed, and sampled the bassline from Fonda Rae’s 1982 single “Over Like a Fat Rat,” added in drums from James Brown’s “Funky President (People It’s Bad),” threw in bits of “The Champ” by the Mohawks, along with the Honey Drippers’ “Impeach the President,” a few more samples, and one of the all-time classic punch lines ever rapped, “Eric B. Is President” was just the ticket to land them a major record deal at RCA and solidify their place in hip hop history.
To learn more about “Eric B. Is President,” check out the links to sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, February 17th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
In the wake of New York Fashion Week, today we take a look at designer Daniel Day, best known as “Dapper Dan.”
Daniel “Dapper Dan” Day made his mark in the 1980s by reworking luxury label products with a hip-hop aesthetic and a signature style.
Known first for his jackets and coats, the self-taught tailor dressed artists such as LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Eric B. & Rakim and Salt-N-Pepa and athletes such as boxing champions Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather.
After legal trouble with several designer brands, Dan made a comeback in 2017 by partnering with Gucci to create a new menswear line. Dan and Gucci built on that success and in 2018 opened the first luxury fashion house in his home neighborhood called Dapper Dan’s of Harlem.
Links to these and other sources on Dapper Dan are provided in today’s show notes and also in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
To learn more about Kendrick Lamar, follow him @kendricklamar on Twitter, read 2020’s 
You can also check out the 2020 Netflix series 
