In 2009, Maxwell made a triumphant and long-awaited return to music with BLACKsummers’night, his first album in 8 years. The melancholic lead single “Pretty Wings” soared, proving that Maxwell just gets better with time. To the delight of fans, he announced that BLACKsummers’night was the first installment in a trilogy […]
What You See Is What You Sweat isn’t at the forefront of the Aretha Franklin canon. In fact, the 1991 album helps bring up the rear, and there’s been very little written on it since its release. It’s just not a solid representation of the tenacity of Aretha Franklin musically […]
“She was afraid she didn’t belong there,” Aretha Franklin’s producer Jerry Wexler told David Ritz in Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin. That was Aretha’s mentality about staging a show in the heart of the hippie revolution: San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. For all her hesitance, Aretha Franklin was sitting on […]
I woke up at the crack of dawn on May 3, 2011. I drove from my West Philly apartment down to South Philly’s Wal Mart and basically opened the place up. It took about 20 minutes for a staff member to retrieve a copy from the back because they weren’t […]
To say that the year 2020 has been a disaster would be an understatement. We’ve been living through a pandemic, fighting for our lives, our jobs, our safety, and our sanity. Though no one thing could fully distract us enough from the horrors of the time, it’s vital to cling […]
The year was 1995. Mariah Carey was only five years into her career, soaring off the success of her blockbuster selling album, Music Box (1993), and her very first holiday album, Merry Christmas (1994) – which would later go on to become the best-selling Christmas album of all time. Within […]
August 24, 2010 Rewind back to summer 2010 when Katy Perry was back with a new album, Teenage Dream, and once again on top of the charts ruling the world with another smash summer anthem “California Gurls.” Fitting to help rep the West Coast, Snoop Dogg joined Perry’s response to 2009’s […]
JULY 18, 1995 When Monica released her debut album in 1995, she was the last of the Teen R&B star trinity to release music. Both Aaliyah and Brandy had come out with their albums, Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number and Brandy respectively, in 1994. Monica was introduced to the […]
JULY 19, 2019 Beyoncé has recorded an extensive body of work over the course of her twenty plus year career in the music industry. She has sold millions of albums, singles, and concert tickets. She’s starred in blockbuster films, and created her own documentaries. However, if we’re speaking strictly about […]
JULY 18, 2000 Jill Scott’s debut album, entitled Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds, Vol. 1, opens with the song “Do You Remember.” She asks, “do you remember me?” before recounting a series of unforgettable memories. Surely, he remembered her. For the listener, though, this was an introduction. In retrospect, […]
