Black Music Sunday: Celebrating International Women’s Day
Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 300 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
Happy International Women’s Day! In honor of the day and the month, which I’ve done here, and here in the past, I want to salute sisters whose voices have been key in the global struggle for women. I have far too many singers and songs to fit into one story, so will be posting many to the comments section below.
When I was teaching Women’s Studies, I introduced my students to Nina Simone. A key song in my syllabus was her “Four Women.” None of my students at the time, in the ‘90s, knew who she was, or had ever heard her music. I vowed to change that.
The feminist reproductive rights Uterish blog described her this way:
Nina Simone (born in 1933 as Eunice Kathleen Waymon), was a prolific songwriter, singer, pianist, and civil rights activist. As a musician, she was known for her distinctive, remarkable voice and immense prowess as a pianist. Her renowned oeuvre spanned genres from R&B to classical to folk. Raised in the Jim Crow South, Simone developed an early political consciousness that only grew as she rose to notoriety. She was an outspoken part activist both in her music and personal life, at significant risk to her person and career.
At She Should Run, Neisa Brito Barbosa wrote:
After the tragic 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963, her protest anthem “Mississippi Goddamn” galvanized the movement for racial equality. It was a bold and unflinching response to the horrors of racism and injustice. However, the song’s impact came at a cost: it was one of the first to face heavy censorship during the 1960s. Simone’s identity as a Black woman and her unapologetic lyrics made her a target, putting her career at risk (Symposium, 2021).
In contrast, songs like Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me,” released in 1963–debuting in the same era– were celebrated as feminist anthems and have been widely promoted in media, featured in films like Suicide Squad and Dirty Dancing. The disparity in reception reflects a persistent pattern: Black women’s art is more likely to be censored, undervalued, or misattributed.
Zachary Hoskins, wrote for his Andresmusictalk blog about the significance of “Four Women”:
Her 1966 song “Four Women,” an emotional portrait of the manifold ways African American women have been oppressed throughout history. Over an ominous blues piano line, Simone lends subjectivity to four archetypal figures: the dark-skinned slave “Aunt Sarah,” the mulatto “Safronia,” the Jezebel/prostitute “Sweet Thing,” and finally the embittered militant “Peaches.” With her last verse, she declares that the rage at the heart of the Black Civil Rights movement is both inevitable and justified by the indignities of the past; “I’m awfully bitter these days,” she admits, “because my parents were slaves.” And in inhabiting these figures–widely perceived as negative, racist stereotypes–she gives them a sense of humanity and empathy that could not be found in the women’s movement of the time.
The place of Black women in feminism has of course been contested since the days of Sojourner Truth; it remains, unfortunately, an ongoing struggle, seen most recently in debates leading up to this January’s Women’s March on Washington. But with songs like “Four Women,” Nina Simone ensured that the uniqueness of Black women’s experiences were expressed, whether “mainstream” feminism chose to acknowledge them or not. And her music continues to resonate–as evidenced by the above cover version, performed by the Berklee College of Music chapter of Black Lives Matter. It is, as ever, sad that a song written about the plight of Black women in 1966 could remain so necessary over 50 years later; things being as they are, however, at least now we can be glad it exists.
Too soon departed from us in 2012 was pop, R&B, soul, gospel, and jazz vocalist Whitney Houston, who reprised Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” 1978 hit in 1993.
Emily Lordi wrote for The New York Times about Houston’s legacy:
There are, strangely, a lot of other women in Whitney Houston’s 1993 video for the song “I’m Every Woman,” that can-do anthem powered by Houston’s unparalleled midrange pipes. “It’s all in me,” she sings of a spellbinding force that would seem to make others unnecessary. Yet there alongside her we find the funk powerhouse Chaka Khan, who first recorded the song in 1978; the song’s co-composer Valerie Simpson; Houston’s mother and mentor, Cissy Houston; a dance team of young Black girls; and the trio TLC. Houston recorded “I’m Every Woman” for the soundtrack of “The Bodyguard” (1992), which she co-executive produced, and which secured her megastardom such that “the wonderment of her talent and her career impacted everyone,” as her sister-in-law and estate executor, Pat Houston, puts it. The open secret of this video is that Houston had a hand in that influence: She deliberately used her status as an icon to light up a whole network of Black female forebears and creative descendants. […]
In a shift signaled by the “I’m Every Woman” video, she began trading in her America’s sweetheart card in the mid-90s for that of Black culture worker, emerging not only as the Voice but as a multimedia strategist with a discerning ear for new talent. In 1994, she performed a series of concerts in Nelson Mandela’s South Africa. In 1995, she co-executive produced and appeared on an all-Black-female soundtrack for the film adaptation of Terry McMillan’s 1992 novel, “Waiting to Exhale,” in which she co-starred; the album featured everyone from Aretha Franklin to the R&B vocalist Faith Evans to the wunderkind Brandy — who later starred in the 1997 multicultural version of “Cinderella” that Houston co-produced (she herself played the Fairy Godmother).
Folks who know me are aware I’m a super fan of “Sweet Honey in the Rock” and their founder Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, who joined the ancestors July 16, 2024. My email signature for years has been a quote from her: “If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition” from her address to the West Coast Women's Music Festival in 1981.
Give a listen to “Every Woman”:
Moving into the international realm, a must feature is Miriam Makeba, known as “Mama Africa.” Capire’s blog posted:
We look back on the work of women artists engaged in the struggle for emancipation on the continent. Through Lydia Dola’s music, we learn the language of women from Kenya, Sudan, and Tanzania; in Linda Kouamé’s spoken word poetry, we denounce the violence and marginalization women from Ivory Coast are subjected to; in Noémia de Souza’s written words, we learn about the resistance and Black sisterhood between women from Mozambique and Black peoples around the world.
These women are part of the history and culture of their countries and territories, and they join the voices of so many other women who struggle. An artist who inspired many others on the continent and marked the struggle for women’s rights in several African countries was Zenzi Miriam Makeba. […]
About the ways Miriam Makeba inspires African militants, Sefu says, “when it comes to the issues of land ownership, women in political leadership, sexual and reproductive rights of women, and, of course, women as artists, she represented these voices. For the African women, she represents freedom, emancipation, the rights of women to own land, to be part of decision making, to get a seat at the table, to be leaders, to take care of their children, for domestic work to be part of the economic system. She represents the totality of the liberation.”
I wrote an obituary for her when she passed in 2024. Watch the BBC documentary “Queen of Africa: The Miriam Makeba Story”:
Also from the African continent is Angélique Kidjo, whose four-decade career spans continents, musical styles, and languages, making her one of Africa’s most recognizable and beloved artists working today:
Kidjo is the founder of the Batonga Foundation:
Batonga was founded by Angélique Kidjo in 2006 with the purpose of transforming the most vulnerable adolescent girls in Africa into powerful women. Angélique’s message is unique – she celebrates Africa as a land of hope and talent and sees its youth, particularly its young women, as an investment for the future.
Determined that all girls and young women must choose their own destiny, Angélique works tirelessly with the Batonga team to develop best practices. The girls she meets see that she is a force for good; that she leads by example – dignified, ambitious, and fearless.
Please join me in the comments section below for lots more music and post your favorites. Happy International Women’s Day!
Saint James Talarico (he/him)
David Harsanyi, Washington Examinerمصدر …
