Happy springtime from your friend and selector, Marlon!
Here’s a freewheeling playlist, and a seemingly random collection of tunes. Though what they all have in common is famous folks, sometimes uncredited, singing backup.
In some cases it is an established artist leading a hand, like Stevie Wonder contributing to Jermaine Jackson’s “Let’s Get Serious,” or a then-unknown protege like Lou Rawls singing behind his childhood pal Sam Cooke on “Bring It On Home To Me.”
In some tracks, you won’t be able to pick them out. Though in others you will never be able to hear the same again without recognizing them. Here is a breakdown of each song and who’s helping out in the background. Enjoy!
Activist and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas Nicole Avant on Friday helped open the Jacqueline Avant Children and Family Center at the MLK Medical Campus in the Watts-Willowbrook community of Los Angeles, CA in memory of her mother.
“My family and I are thrilled and honored to celebrate the unveiling of the Jacqueline Avant Children and Family Center,” Nicole Avant said. “For over 50 years, my mom was dedicated to the mental and physical and spiritual health of the children and families in South Los Angeles and was on a mission to improve the quality of life for those less fortunate.”
Philanthropist and community leader Jacqueline Avant, spouse to legendary music industry executive Clarence Avant, was 81 years old when she was fatally shot during a home invasion in December 2021.
The three-story children and family center is a 50,000-square-foot facility that employs variety of programs to address the needs of at-risk children struggling with trauma, health and mental health problems. The first two floors of the center will be open to the community this summer, and the remaining floor is slated for completion by the end of the year.To quote from Marc Malkin’s Variety.com article:
The center opening and dedication attracted giants of the music industry, including Jerry Moss, Jimmy Jam, Phil Quartararo, L.A. Reid, Hollywood management powerhouse Benny Medina, real estate tycoon and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, actor Holly Robinson Peete and Nicole’s husband, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos.
Los Angles Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell opened the ceremony before handing the mic to Dr. Janet Arnold-Clark, who detailed the lifesaving and affirming work being done at the center.
With the opening of the center, Nicole and her family have turned their focus from tragedy to helping others. “My friend Dionne said to me, ‘The greatest way you can honor your mom’s life is to live to the fullest. That is what you have to do,’” she says. “Your job is to live to the fullest because you don’t know how long you have on this earth, no one does. Sometimes you have three months, sometimes you have three years, you just don’t know. People remember you by your good works. That’s what people remember.”
It was an honor to celebrate the legacy of Jacqueline Avant at the unveiling and dedication ceremony for the Jacqueline Avant Children and Family Center in the Watts-Willowbrook community. Mrs. Avant was a devout philanthropist and a long-time supporter of children and (1/3) pic.twitter.com/gwRkOgrl6s
Jacqueline Avant’s assailant, Aariel Maynor, was sentenced to life in state prison with a minimum of 150 years, after pleading guilty to Avant’s murder.
When De La Soul member David Jude Jolicoeur (aka Trugoy the Dove) unexpectedly passed away in February, anyone seeking to revisit the group’s best-known works would have come away baffled and empty-handed.
The scores of uncleared samples that defined De La Soul’s classic records made for a legal minefield when it came to making them available for streaming, until this March:
One of the giants of hip-hop’s “golden era” of the late ’80s through mid-’90s, De La’s penchant for playful creativity would fly in the face of the “gangsta rap” that dominated hip-hop at the time.
While most rapped about slinging drugs, they dedicated a track to telling the story of a drug-addicted family member and told the dangers of ignoring sexual abuse victims.
They would influence everyone from OutKast to The Pharcyde, Jungle Brothers to Childish Gambino.
For several years, the band’s catalog rights were tangled up in major label red tape from their time at Warner Bros. Records and Tommy Boy.
“Me Myself and I: The Best of De La Soul” is a collection of some of their classic, their many collaborations (Beastie Boys, Busta Rhymes, MF DOOM and others), and guest appearances (Gorillaz, Ibrahim Maalouf, Potatohead People and others.)
Enjoy this deep dive into the influential work of De La Soul.
Every year on March 18, Good Black News celebrates the day of its founding. We continue that tradition today, thirteen years after GBN’s inception.
Even though this past year has been particularly challenging (details here), and led to way fewer postings on the main goodblacknews.org site as well as the cessation of the GBN Daily Drop Podcast, we are still exceedingly proud of all we’ve offered and accomplished over the years, even as we continue to search for our new footing as we forge ahead into the future.
And although it’s no longer weekly, every month we are happy to offer new and/or updated Music Monday playlists from our incredible music contributors Marlon West and Jeff Meier.
I also want to acknowledge 2022’s other volunteer contributors in alphabetical order: Julie Bibb, Gina Fattore, Julie Fishman, Michael Giltz, Warren Hutcherson, Fred Johnson, Epiphany Jordan, Brenda Lakin,Joyce Lakin, John Levinson, Dena Loverde, Catherine Metcalf,Flynn Richardson,Maeve Richardson, Becky Schonbrun, and Teddy Tenenbaum.
You are all deeply, greatly appreciated.
But what truly keeps me, my co-editor Lesa Lakin and all of GBN’s wonderful volunteer contributors going is the appreciation you’ve shown us over the years and still show via follows, likes, comments, shares, reblogs, DMs and e-mails (even when we are overwhelmed and can’t respond to them all).
Your support means the world, and inspires me as Editor-in-Chief to keep working to find ways to improve GBN on the main page as well as on Pinterest,Tumblr,YouTube, RSS feed, LinkedIn and Flipboard, and yeah, our sometime-y GBN newsletter you can get via email.
Please continue to help us spread GBN by sharing, liking, re-tweeting and commenting, and consider following GBN on the main page, as well as wherever you are on social media.
Please also consider joining our e-mail list via our “Contact Us” tab on goodblacknews.org. We will only use this list to keep you updated on GBN and send you our e-newsletter from time to time. And, of course, you may opt out whenever you like.
Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to providing you with more Good Black News in the coming months and beyond!
Happy Music Monday, you all. This collection celebrates another recently departed great, Wayne Shorter. He was a giant of jazz for six decades. He was a well-regarded improviser, bandleader, composer, and thinker.
From his teen years with Art Blakey and Miles Davis to his work as a founder of Weather Report, to leading his own landmark quintet Shorter was among the greatest.
A well-known figure on the jazz circuit since the late 1950s, Shorter would go on to take a strong hand in shaping much of 20th Century jazz music.
The 12-time Grammy award winner played alongside several greats, including Carlos Santana, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, and Herbie Hancock.
In 1964 he was swooped away after several attempts by jazz legend Miles Davis to become part of Davis’ “Second Great Quintet.”
Wayne Shorter would also release solo albums by 1959, including the acclaimed Speak No Evil, Night Dreamer, and JuJu.
Among the dozen Grammy awards he won, Shorter received a Lifetime Achievement award in 2015
In 2018, Shorter received the Kennedy Center Honors Award from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for his lifetime of contributions to the arts.
Hope you enjoy the collection. As usual, stay safe, sane, and kind. See ya next month!
Congratulations to Glenn McHarg! Glenn, we will be contacting you shortly via email to arrange delivery of your free bundle pack directly from Sony.
Directed by Kasi Lemmons (Harriet, Eve’s Bayou, Candyman) and written by Academy Award® nominee Anthony McCarten (Best Adapted Screenplay, The Two Popes, 2019), produced by legendary music executive Clive Davis and starring BAFTA Award® winner Naomi Ackie, the film — which is currently available on all digital platforms as well as DVD/Blu-Ray — is a no-holds-barred portrait of the complex and multifaceted woman behind The Voice.
From New Jersey choir girl to one of the best-selling and most awarded recording artists of all time, audiences are taken on a journey through Whitney Houston’s trailblazing life and career, with show-stopping performances and a soundtrack of the icon’s most beloved hits as you’ve never heard them before.
Thank you so much to all who entered the giveaway. GBN is always in the sharing spirit, so keep an eye out for other giveaway announcements in the near future.
In conjunction with the 2/28 release of Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody on DVD/Blu-Ray, Good Black News is giving away one bundled prize pack, courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
The items in the prize pack include:
Blu-ray
Vinyl album
Karaoke mic
Kodak Printomatic Instant Camera – with package of photo paper
Movie night popcorn set
Box of conversation hearts
To enter for a chance to win, send your first and last name and an email address with the subject heading “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Giveaway” to goodblacknewsgiveaways@yahoo.com from now until 11:59PM PST on Tuesday, February 28.
One entry per email, and GBN will announce the name of the winner in a post on March 1st, then contact them for a mailing address to receive their prize pack bundle.
Directed by Kasi Lemmons (Harriet, Eve’s Bayou, Candyman) and written by Academy Award® nominee Anthony McCarten (Best Adapted Screenplay, The Two Popes, 2019), produced by legendary music executive Clive Davis and starring BAFTA Award® winner Naomi Ackie, the film — which is currently available on all digital platforms — is a no-holds-barred portrait of the complex and multifaceted woman behind The Voice.
From New Jersey choir girl to one of the best-selling and most awarded recording artists of all time, audiences are taken on a journey through Whitney Houston’s trailblazing life and career, with show-stopping performances and a soundtrack of the icon’s most beloved hits as you’ve never heard them before.
As it’s still Black History Month, GBN is taking the opportunity of this giveaway to highlight some Whitney Houston history that, unlike her timeless music, is not as well known.
Happy Black History Month, you all. Now it might seem counterintuitive to use my February offering to feature and honor Burt Bacharach, who died on February 8 at age 94.
The prolific composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music. He was a six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach’s songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists.
However, no one would disagree that Bacharach’s (and his lyricist partner Hal David‘s) most popular success was with Dionne Warwick. They created a string of 39 consecutive chart hits including “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Walk On By,” and “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again.” Their collaboration would continue for decades including his production of “That’s What Friends Are For.”
This “Close To You: Soulful Burt Bacharach Covers” collection features generations of Black artists who have collaborated directly with Bacharach (Ronald Isley), covered beautifully (Aretha Franklin, Love), and sampled (Mos Def, Masta Ace, Floetry) the work of Burt Bacharach.
Stevie Wonder‘s live performance in 1972, of “Close To You” and the Jackson 5′s “Never Can Say Goodbye utilizing the ‘talkbox,’ inspired Frank Ocean’s cover on his 2016 album, Blonde.
Bobby Womack and Isaac Hayes each spent ample time covering Bacharach while pushing against what they saw as limits of what was acceptable for Black artists.
The 5th Dimension, who were stung by being called “the Black group, with the white sound,” are present with “One Less Bell To Answer.”Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. perform it twice in this collection.
There are ample examples of hip-hop artists using Warwick and Bacharach’s work on “Recognize,” “Hold U,” “Must Be Bobby,” “Know That” and other tracks.
So please enjoy this Black History Month celebration of Burt Bacharach’s impactful work through the creation of these great Black artists.
by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN founder and Editor-in-Chief
Well, here we are, once again. Forty seven years after February was officially recognized by the U.S. government as Black History Month, and ninety seven years after Negro History Weekwas founded by Carter G. Woodson, “The Father of Black History.”
We are also, once again, deeply distressed by the murder of a young Black person (Tyre Nichols) at the hands of police officers. The fact that the officers and the police chief are Black this time around doesn’t complicate but instead amplifies the grotesque, stark, ironically colorblind reality of systemic racism — it is a pernicious construct of power and oppression that can be upheld or enforced by anyone of any color or gender or creed.
So, how do we reconcile the two — the celebration of Black people and their achievements while constantly experiencing injustice, inequity and increasingly, erasure?
As Editor-in-Chief of Good Black News, a site which for over a decade has literally been dedicated year-round to the celebration of Black people and their achievements, I have been wrestling with this question for a while, particularly in the last eight months.
After the murder of 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, NY by a white supremacist in May 2022 and the continued downplaying of racially-based domestic terrorism, I felt depleted and bereft. Of hope, of faith, of purpose. It didn’t seem to matter how much Black people achieved or prospered or protested or suffered in America — we couldn’t even buy our groceries in peace.
And once again, the narrative of the “lone, mentally unstable shooter” was trotted out. One person was (rightfully) punished, but the racist political and economic system he embraced in its most violent extreme? It remained (and remains) steadfastly in place. As did the onus remain on the shoulders of Black people to be seen as worthy of basic human rights.
America quickly got back to the business of forgetting and moving on, even after experiencing only two years before what seemed like a watershed moment of racial reckoning after the police murder of George Floyd.
But here were are again today, literally TODAY, with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump saying during his call to action during Tyre Nichols’ funeral: “Why couldn’t they see the humanity in Tyre?… We have to make sure they see us as human beings worthy of respect and justice!”
We do?
I’ll admit in many ways, I understand where Crump is coming from. “Show the humanity” has essentially been the GBN operating philosophy since 2010 — to create a site and space where we can see and celebrate our humanity, while offering access to anyone else who wants to take a gander.
But now, in 2023, I must push myself to dig deeper and firmly challenge why it should it ever be the responsibility of any human being to convince any other human being of their humanity. To state the obvious, once, and for all:
BLACK PEOPLE ARE HUMAN BEINGS.
If the words above are not inherently understood to be true, why is that? Why does this have to be shown? Proven? Over and over and over again?
My answer, also obvious, is that they don’t. Not ever.
So, while I absolutely respect and still intend to celebrate the legacies of people such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poitier and the like, going forward I also need for GBN’s Black History Month and GBN in general to engage more actively in the interrogation and disempowering any systems, institutions or public policies that do not recognize or uphold this truth and all the basic rights that should flow from it (e.g. respect, freedom, safety, equality).
Maybe I’m not giving enough credit to GBN in its past and present form — I acknowledge that GBN has been helpful and appreciated by many for the way we offer information via the lens of celebration and positivity.
What I’m aiming to add to our existing ethos is more critical thinking and opinion about cultural topics and cultural content, boosting political, economic and social policies that are truly about protecting, serving and uplifting Black people, and working to upend those that don’t.
The College Board creates and administers the AP program. Join us in demanding that they:
Reject the narrow interpretation of Florida law that contradicts principles of academic freedom and autonomy in determining what to teach in classrooms.
Take swift action to make sure Florida does not modify the curriculum of the proposed AP African-American Studies course designed with the help of respected Black scholars, but rather, maintains the integrity of the proposed curriculum.
Florida’s current agenda of political interference in the AP African American studies curriculum directly conflicts with the values of equity, fairness, and justice. Our students deserve better.
Additionally, I want to highlight Nikole Hannah-Jones’ The 1619 Projectseries now streaming on Hulu as well as promote the excellent “Intersectionality Matters” podcast by law professor Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw whose name is among the writers expunged from the AP African American studies curriculum.
I also want to give props to Beyoncéfor officially announcing her 2023 Renaissance World Tour! A definite bright spot on this first day of Black History Month, the efforts Beyoncé and her team are making via the Verified Fan system and its tiers of engagement (first priority given to the BeyHive!) to ensure real fans get access to tickets over usurious resale entities is for sure worth a shout out.
Frankly, I am tired of us being caught out there, and I want GBN to do more, offer more, share more and speak out more. In our tweets, reels, stories, posts, playlists, comments — however.
Maybe I’ll get it wrong sometimes, but with deep love for this community as my true north, may my faith, purpose and hope never again be broken.
The first track by Little Simz dropped in the last weeks of December. And this British Nigerian artist kicks off the truly international musical journey.
Nigeria’s Burna Boy sets up a string of American artists including Compton’s own Steve Lacy and Kendrick Lamar. The playlist features big names like Beyoncé, Lizzo, Drake,Black Thought & Danger Mouse, though this collection is also heavy on comparative newcomers including Yaya Bey, Amber Mark, Koffee, and Jensen McRae.
Here is the best of hip-hop, R&B, Jazz, Afrobeat, Reggae and much more in over five freewheeling hours of music that features established favorites and certainly a few new surprises.
Hope you enjoy this collection of good music. See ya next month. And until such time, stay safe, sane, and kind.
by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)
To quote from Marc Malkin’s 
Directed by Kasi Lemmons (Harriet, Eve’s Bayou, Candyman) and written by Academy Award® nominee Anthony McCarten (Best Adapted Screenplay, The Two Popes, 2019), produced by legendary music executive Clive Davis and starring BAFTA Award® winner Naomi Ackie, the film — which is currently available on all digital platforms as well as DVD/Blu-Ray — is a no-holds-barred portrait of the complex and multifaceted woman behind The Voice.
