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.
Happy Monday, you all. It’s your friend and selector, Marlon West, back with another dose of fine music.
Earlier this month we lost jazz legend, Ramsey Lewis. He can be credited with extending the life of jazz on the pop charts with his cover of Dobie Gray’s “The ‘In’ Crowd.”
It spent 16 weeks on the Billboard Top 100 and rose as high as No. 5. The album spent 12 weeks in the top spot among best-selling R&B albums.
Throughout his decades-long career, Lewis was the maestro of jazz crossover. Ramsey Lewis’ trio included bassist Eldee Young and drummer Red Holt.
They received not only chart success with “The ‘In’ Crowd” but also cultural acclamation: the cut earned him the Grammy award for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance.
“Improvisation that should swing, have some forward motion to it, even if it’s a ballad, to have some movement about it. Where are you going to find that spontaneous improvisation in the moment except in jazz?” Lewis told Molly Murphy in a 2006 interview for the National Endowment For the Arts.
Lewis was born in Chicago on May 27, 1935 and grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project. He started taking piano lessons at a young age and played at church, where his father was choir director.
Throughout his life he always returned to his hometown and as a teacher and mentor. Here’s some of the best of Ramsey Lewis. Enjoy!
“See” ya next month! Just in time for a soulful and funky Halloween offering.
According to the New York Times, just after noon today, Ketanji Brown Jackson took the judicial oath, becoming the first Black woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.
Justice Jackson, 51, was confirmed in April, when the Senate voted 53 to 47 on her nomination. She has replaced Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, who she once clerked for. Breyer stepped down at the conclusion of the court’s current term.To quote nytimes.com:
Justice Jackson took both a constitutional oath, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts, and a judicial oath, administered by Justice Breyer. The brief swearing in ceremony took place in the West Conference Room at the Supreme Court, before a small gathering of Judge Jackson’s family. Her husband, Patrick G. Jackson, held the Bible.
“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Judge Jackson said in April at a White House celebration following her confirmation. “But we’ve made it. We’ve made it. All of us.”
[To listen to GBN’s recent bonus podcast about Jackson’s life and career on our site and read the transcript, click here.To go to Apple Podcasts, click below:]
Today on #MusicMonday, we’re celebrating the beginning of Summer 2022, which officially kicks off tomorrow.
One of our most popular playlists of the last couple years was our Summer Breeze: Soulful Summer Songs playlist, which we created two years ago in the midst of the pandemic.
So this year, we’ve taken that original playlist and created the ‘new and improved’ version with about 50 more tracks (!) added to the lineup.
Our playlist is slightly different than the typical summer mixtape – these are not just summer hits, or summer favorites. To qualify for our list, a song literally had to feature the word “summer” in its title. It had to be literally “about” summer – the moods and feelings it evokes.
Fortunately, the season of BBQs, island vacations, swimming in the pool has provided inspiration to virtually every genre and generation of Black musicians, so we’ve got all the “summer”-titled popular hits spanning the ’30s to today from DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Kool & The Gang, Carl Thomas, War, Sly & The Family Stone, Childish Gambino, Chic, Megan Thee Stallion and The Isley Brothers, mixed in with jazz, hip hop, dance, reggae, and plenty of vocal standards.
Nat “King” Cole is not only one of our top singers of Christmas standards, but also the leader in “summer” tunes, with five songs on our playlist.
And throughout, we’ve sprinkled multiple versions of the Porgy & Bess standard “Summertime,” performed here by everyone from Anita Baker to James Brown.
Among the new songs we’ve added are everything from Jhene Aiko to Joan Armatrading, Anderson.Paak to Prince, Jim Jones to Johnny Mathis, Leon Bridges to Labi Siffre to St. Lunatics.
So, fire up the grill, break out the water slide for the kids, and perhaps grab a mai-tai or piña colada. Then relax to the sounds of Summer. Happy Summer everyone!
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.
[Wilma Rudolph and her parents Ed and Blanche Rudolph as they rode in a parade after Olympic victory in Rome. Rudolph agreed to participate only if the event was desegregated. This was the first desegregated public event in Clarksville, Tennessee. Photo credit: Bob Ray via https://digital.library.nashville.org/digital/collection/nr/id/2227/]
On Mother’s Day 2022, we offer a quote from three-time Olympic gold medalist and international track star Wilma Rudolph, who rightfully and fatefully choose to believe her mother.
To read it and about her, read on. To hear it and more about Rudolph, 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 Sunday, May 8th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
US athlete Wilma Rudolph shows the gold medal she won at the Women’s 100 meters Summer Olympic Games sprint event on September 2, 1960 in Rome, Italy. (AP Photo)
Today, for Mother’s Day, we offer a quote from three-time Olympic Gold Medalist and National Track and Field Hall of Famer Wilma Rudolph, who had polio as a young child:
“My doctors told me I’d never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.”
Wilma Glodean Rudolph was born prematurely in June 1940 and after contracting Scarlet Fever, pneumonia, polio and infantile paralysis, Rudolph wore braces on her legs until she was nine years old.
Because there was so little medical care available to Black people in 1940s Clarksville, Tennessee, Wilma’s mother Blanche took her on weekly bus trips 50 miles away to Nashville to get Wilma treatment at Meharry Medical College.
Blanche and other family members also massaged Wilma’s weakened leg four times a week until Wilma had enough strength to no longer need braces, or the orthopedic shoe she wore until she was 11.
By the time she was 16, Wilma was running in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, bringing home a bronze medal in the 400-meter relay.
Rudolph earned a college scholarship to Tennessee State and in 1960, she headed to Rome with the goal of becoming the best woman runner in the world. She surpassed that goal, winning three gold medals and breaking world records in the 100 and 200 meters.
She was nicknamed “The Tornado” and became an international track star. Rudolph graduated college with a degree in elementary education, and taught for the majority of her life after she retired from athletics. Let’s hear a clip from Rudolph describing the last race she ever ran before she retired:
“It was Palo Alto, California, Stanford University, Russia versus the United States. I was running well, but the heart wasn’t there anymore. I mean, what do you dowhen you win all of it? To keep yourself motivated, you have to be a little bit hungry, to be there and stay there and to stay on top.
And this particular day, we were running a relay we were behind when we started off. And you always think on a staggered start and you know, on a staggered start that, okay, she’s gonna catch her in the turn. And by the time that baton is passed, we were going to be even. That didn’t happen. And then when they pass it the next time I said, well, by the time they get to the next person, we will be even, or be one step ahead.
And by the time it got to me, I saw that we were behind, and I made myself a promise that day I said, if you catch the Russian it’s history – retire. If you do not catch the Russian, you will have to run another four years for the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. I caught the Russian. I retired, it became history.
It was the fastest single race that I’ve ever ran in the history of my career. And to get a standing ovation in my home country, outdoors, which I’ve never had before, I think it was the grandest moment in my career. I retired that day, and I have never regretted it.”
Rudolph passed in 1994 of brain cancer, the same year her mother Blanche passed. Rudolph has been honored with a U.S. postage stamp, induction into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame and National Women’s Hall of Fame, and in 2012 her hometown built the Wilma Rudolph Event Center. A life-sized bronze statue of Rudolph stands near the entrance of the building.
To learn more about Wilma Rudolph, watch videos of her Olympic races on YouTube, read her 1977 autobiographyWilma: The Story of Wilma Rudolph, Wilma Rudolph: A Biographyfrom 2006 by Maureen Margaret Smith and the children’s book Wilma Rudolph: Athlete and Educatorby Alice K. Flanagan and check out the 1977 movie Wilma starring Cicely Tyson, Shirley Jo Finney and Denzel Washington, available on Vudu.
Links to these sources and more are 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, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow 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.
[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!
A few days ago, Karine Jean-Pierre made history when she was announced as the next White House Press Secretary, taking over from current Press Secretary Jen Psaki on May 13. Jean-Pierre will be the first Black woman and openly LGBTQ+ person to hold the high-profile position.
To read about her, 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]:
Karine Jean-Pierre (photo via Twitter)
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, May 7th, 2022, based on the format of the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Earlier this week, Karine Jean-Pierre was named the new White House Press Secretary after serving as the Principal Deputy Press Secretary for the Biden Administration. Jean-Pierre will be the first Black woman and openly LGBTQ-plus person to serve in this position.
Jean-Pierre, the daughter of Haitian parents, grew up in New York City from the age of five and attended the New York Institute of Technology before earning her Masters in Public Administration at Columbia University.
After working in a few different political positions and then the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign and in Obama’s administration, Jean-Pierre joined the faculty at her alma mater Columbia, where she was a lecturer in international and public affairs.
In 2016, Jean-Pierre became MoveOn.org’s national spokesperson and on June 1, 2019, Jean-Pierre famously intervened during a MoveOn Forum where then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris was rushed by an audience member who grabbed her microphone.
Jean-Pierre put herself between the man and Harris until security and Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff removed the man from the stage.
Jean-Pierre then worked as a senior advisor on the Joe Biden presidential campaign, and after the election, was appointed to serve as Principal Deputy Press Secretary. On May 13, 2022, Jean-Pierre will take over from Jen Psaki and officially begin her new duties.
Here’s a clip from Jean-Pierre speaking about her new appointment and its importance overall:
“Wow, I am still processing it. Because as Jen said, at the top, this is a historic moment, and it’s not lost on me.
I understand how important it is for so many people out there. So many different communities that I stand on their shoulders, and I have been throughout my career. And so, it is an honor and a privilege to be behind this podium in about a week or so when Jen is ready.
And that, that is something that I will honor and, and do my best to represent this President and the First Lady the best that I can, but also the American people. And so it is, you know, it’s a very emotional day.
That’s probably the best way that I can explain it a very emotional day. And I just appreciate this time in this moment, and I hope that I make people proud.”
This has been a bonus daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow 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.
[Image: Composite portrait of Bridget “Biddy” Mason and the First African Methodist Episcopalian Church at the intersection of 8th and Towne in Los Angeles, California, circa 1940. Photos courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library and California State University Dominguez Hills.]
Today, GBN highlights and celebrates 19th century entrepreneur and community builder Bridget “Biddy” Mason, who won her freedom in court and in her time became the wealthiest Black woman in Los Angeles.
To read about her, 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, May 5th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Ever hear the one about the enslaved mother of three who sued for her freedom, won… and became the richest Black woman in Los Angeles? It’s no joke.
Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born into slavery in 1818 in Mississippi and is reported to have been taken from her mother as a young child. She learned about herbs and midwifery from older enslaved women and when her owner Robert Smith converted to Mormonism, he decided to move to Utah and join the community there.
Mason and her three children were part of that trek – literally – she had to walk the 2,000 miles behind the wagon caravan, tending to the livestock, her owners and her children along the way. After a few years in Utah, Smith relocated to a Mormon enclave in San Bernadino, California.
History was made 42 years ago in May 1980 when the burgeoning Star Wars franchise added the character of Lando Calrissian to its universe played by 1970s heartthrob Billy Dee Williams.
To read about it and see links to sources, read on. To hear about it, 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 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 Wednesday, May 4th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
[Excerpt from “Star Wars Main Theme”]
The Force was in full effect in May 1980 when Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Backintroduced intergalactic charmer and scoundrel Lando Calrissian to the franchise.
Played by 1970s heartthrob Billy Dee Williams, Lando was the second Black character to have a significant and recurring role in popular science fiction television or film. (Nichelle Nichols’ Lieutenant Uhura on the original Star Trek TV show was the first.)
The Star Wars universe later added the featured characters of Jedi Master Mace Windu played by Samuel L. Jackson in its prequel trilogy, John Boyega as Finn in The Force Awakens and Forest Whitaker as Saw Gerrera in Rogue One.
And from the beginning, present in voice if not body, has been James Earl Jones as Darth Vader.
To learn about even more Black representation in Star Wars, 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, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
Excerpts from the Star Wars theme by John Williams included under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow 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.
To learn more about Wilma Rudolph, watch videos of her Olympic races on YouTube, read her 1977 autobiography 
To learn more about Karine Jean-Pierre, check out her 2019 book 
