She tells their stories the way they deserve to be told in a way that informs you but also makes you to want to be sure if at all you can never create those same roadblocks for the women in your own life. It wasn’t until becoming a huge fan of Danyel’s husband, Elliot Wilson through social media and their now defunct podcast “Relationship Goals” in which they discussed so much of their past work that I learned “Oh she wrote that article that I read before!” It was that same feeling that I found myself having while reading this book and learning how so many black female artist got their way in the door, or their recognition as “oh she wrote that song, or she sang that hook,” so many times it was accolades after the fact. An avid music nerd growing up I had nearly every issue of XXL, The Source, & Vibe. I’ve been reading Danyel Smith longer than I’ve know.

Shine Bright is an overdue paean to musical masters whose true stories and genius have been hidden in plain sight-and the book Danyel Smith was born to write. Smith’s detailed narrative begins with Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved woman who sang her poems, and continues through the stories of Mahalia Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Mariah Carey, as well as the under-considered careers of Marilyn McCoo, Deniece Williams, and Jody Watley. But as a music fan, and then as an essayist, editor ( Vibe, Billboard), and podcast host ( Black Girl Songbook), she has been living this history since she was a latchkey kid listening to “Midnight Train to Georgia” on the family stereo.

Smith has been writing this history for more than five years. SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARDĪ weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, The Root, Variety, Esquire, The Guardian, Newsweek, Pitchfork, She Reads, Publishers Weekly the overdue singing of a Black girl’s song, with perfect pitch. This is their surprising, heartbreaking, soaring story-from “one of the generation’s greatest, most insightful, most nuanced writers in pop culture” (Shea Serrano)

American pop music is arguably this country’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, and its singular voice and virtuosity were created by a shining thread of Black women geniuses stretching back to the country’s founding.

Shine bright book danyel smith