Curated category
African-American songwriters
- Michael JacksonThe boy from Gary who was never allowed to be one. Listen to the craft beneath the spectacle, the making of Thriller, and the era he still shapes.
- Jay-ZJay-Z was born Shawn Corey Carter on the 4th of December 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in the Marcy Houses, a public housing project in the…
- Aretha FranklinAretha Franklin heard Otis Redding's reaction to her own version of his song "Respect": "That little girl done took my song away from me." She had added a…
- Little RichardIn October 1947, a fourteen-year-old boy was singing Sister Rosetta Tharpe's songs to himself before her performance at the Macon City Auditorium.
- James BrownJames Brown was supposed to be named Joseph James Brown. A clerk reversed his first and middle names on his birth certificate, and the mistake stuck.
- Miles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III was born on the 26th of May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, to a family that owned a 200-acre estate in Arkansas with a profitable pig farm.
- Ralph EllisonRalph Waldo Ellison was born on the 1st of March 1913 in Oklahoma City, named after the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson by a father who hoped his son would grow up…
- Dallas AustinDallas Austin was seven years old when he asked his mother to buy him a keyboard. She hesitated, convinced he would lose interest and move on.
- LL Cool JLL Cool J was four years old when he walked in on his father's act of violence. James Todd Smith found his mother and grandfather shot and bleeding inside…
- Donald GloverDonald McKinley Glover Jr. was voted "Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons" in his high school yearbook at Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
- Ice-TIce-T was born Tracy Lauren Marrow on the 16th of February 1958 in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Solomon and Alice Marrow.
- Sylvia RobinsonIn 2022, Sylvia Robinson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category, the first woman to receive that honor…
- DJ Jazzy JeffDJ Jazzy Jeff once described his childhood infatuation with DJing to author Paul Stenning. "At summer time block parties I wouldn't be the one dancing, I sat…