Happy Music Monday, you all. And welcome to this second week of Black Music Month. Back in April, PBS dropped Independent Lens: We Want the Funk! Director Stanley Nelson and producer Nicole ...

This “Great Moments in Funk aka Funk 101” playlist offers the classic funk songs featured in the film and includes many hip hop tracks that sample them. I’ve also added modern funk disciples like Silk ...

Born 100 years ago today as Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska and known primarily as Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz‎ was an African-American minister for the Nation of Islam and a ...

Yesterday I was tagged in a post by an old high school friend, asking me and a few others a very public, direct question about white privilege and racism. I feel compelled not only to publish his ...

We talk about how African Americans invented rock and roll. We talk about the great musicians Scott Joplin and W.C. Handy, the giant of ragtime and the “Father of the Blues.” Before rock and roll was ...

On October 31, 1965, Louis “Pops” (or “Satchmo”) Armstrong gave his first performance in New Orleans, his home town, in nine years. As a boy, he had busked on street corners. At twelve, he marched in ...

According to headcount.org, here is the list of voter registration deadlines in all 50 states. If you haven’t signed up already, sign up!

First off, this is going to be a long one, so if you are inclined to read my more serious posts, circle back when you have a good 5-to-7 minutes. Secondly, thank you to everyone who took a moment to ...

Every year, the MacArthur Fellows Program awards its recipients a $625,000 “no strings attached” grant, an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential so they may continue to ...

After working for over 30 years in several different positions within the Chicago Fire Department, Annette Nance-Holt recently became the first woman to lead the CFD. Her appointment to the top ...

With the passing of two Civil Rights Movement titans, the Reverend C.T. Vivian and Rep. John Lewis, I was inclined to honor them with a playlist. After some poking around, I read that Rep. Lewis was a ...

On this week’s Music Monday playlist, “Sarah Dash: Nightbird, Fly,” we take a closer look at the musical career of the late Sarah Dash, most known as one third of the pioneering rock/soul trio LaBelle ...