Black History Month Playlist

This post was written by Emmanuel Carrillo.

I finally watched Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing yesterday. About a quarter of the soundtrack is Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” bumping out of a giant boombox carried by a Bed Stuy character called Radio Raheem. He literally only plays that one song over and over, pissing off everyone from the middle-aged trash talkers on the corner to the Puerto Ricans listening to salsa. When asked why, Radio Raheem says this is the only music he likes. Public Enemy is infamous for militant pro-Black lyrics, something which I originally wanted to emulate in this playlist. To be honest, though, I’ve been lacking on the female representation on these playlists, so I tried to change that this time. That meant going beyond the in-your-face lyrics of rappers like Eazy-E and Kendrick Lamar and into territory where the radical message has to wear a pretty ribbon so that the Powers-That-Be don’t get too scared. What I mean by all this is that the rules of success for Black women are different than for Black men, which should’ve been obvious at this point. Black female artists push the envelope just as much as their male counterparts, but they have to jump through more hoops and act with more discretion in order to do so. Even so, Black female artists have been integral to the legacies of music we all enjoy on the regular today, from early greats like Blanche Calloway--sister and inspiration to the infamous Cab Calloway (HIDEE-HIDEE-HIDEE-HO)--and Sister Rosetta Tharpe--a queer Black guitarist who inspired the likes of Chuck Berry--to contemporary legends Queen Bey and the non-binary trailblazer Janelle Monae. And man, Missy Elliot? Her afro-futurist aesthetic is not only legendary, but integral to the way music in the 21st-century sounds. Let’s not forget MC Lyte, who had the most sales of any female MC until a Queens native by the name of Nicki Minaj took that title, and of course, the whole new wave of women-empowering artists like Lizzo and Jamila Woods. All in all, I hope that this playlist helps show off some of the incredibly talented Black artists who have defined what music across the spectrum sounds like; happy Black History Month.