“Music fans and historians have had a collective realization over the last couple of decades that the anti-disco sentiment was all spin. Not really about the music, but who the music represented: Black, Hispanic, Latinx and LGBTQ+ people and women – basically everybody except the bros holding onto classic rock for dear life.” READ DISCO’S
My dear friend Jovian Irvin is the founder of International Day of Purpose, a day created to inspire people to celebrate and activate the power of purpose through a focused day of reflection, living with positive intention and sharing stories with the world of how you live on purpose by using the hashtag, #DayofPurpose. DoP is celebrated every year on the Summer
A Collection of the Most Iconic and Impactful Albums by African American Women I was a contributor to Zora Mag’s list of the 100 most iconic albums by African American women, a thoughtful and exhaustive work that spans seven decades and multiple genres, and I’m so proud to have been part of this work, and
The night Andre Harrell died, I DM’d my editor at Billboard to tell him that whatever they were going to do for Dre, I was raising my hand. I knew a slew of outlets’ headers would read “… who discovered Sean Combs,” and Dre’s impact was so much bigger than that; larger and farther reaching
As we’ve collectively watched Swizz Beats and Timbaland’s producer battle series grow, there’ve been several teaching moments for how not to kill the vibe and energy that attracts everyone to what has become prime quarantine programming. But the thee-day (really three-week), two-part Teddy Riley vs Babyface battle was a whole dissertation on putting too much
As part of Billboard‘s celebration for all things 2000 last week, I wrote about Neo Soul’s mainstream breakthrough, and why it didn’t last long. If you chart modern R&B’s course on a map, you’ll notice a giant fork in the path around the year 2000. Actually, it was more of a massive roundabout, leading to
You’ve likely peeped that there’s a call-out moment happening with artists and their first contracts. Kelis and Mase are addressing false promises, low earnings, and jacked publishing with Pharrell and Puffy, respectively. But how much of this is just business and how much of it is, indeed, sheisty? I wrote about complicated contracts and the
Both in #MusicSermon and in my writing, I like to stay in a certain pocket: pre-2000 Black music and culture. Untold or undertold stories. We move into more current music and things get a little sticky for me as someone whose been working in the music industry since 1998, and I never want to cross
I (humbly) wrote for Billboard about the power and significance in Beyoncé’s musical choices for Homecoming, and how she used them to weave Black history and culture throughout the live albums 40 tracks. This is your song by song guide to the intentionally Black Homecoming experience. Last April, Beyoncé staged a headlining set at Coachella unlike
Naima Cochrane 