Tag: Women in Music

When Will Chris Brown’s Reckoning Come?

Musician Chris Brown recently announced he will be headlining a residency in Las Vegas starting on June 11. A residency on the Vegas Strip is a mark of honor shared by music icons Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, Britney Spears and others.

For over a decade, Brown has been dodging accusations of physical and sexual violence against women. This timeline of Chris Brown’s mistreatment of women will leave you wondering: In the age of #MeToo and #SurvivingRKelly, where is Chris Brown’s reckoning?

The Sound World of Harriet Tubman

In spring 2019, I went on a trip to the birthplace of Harriet Tubman. The experience of learning Tubman’s story set me on the trajectory to be able to explore the songs she sang, and the sound world in which she lived, so that we can better understand her life.

This essay is a sound collage and discussion of the early African American music culture that molded one of our most prolific ancestors. 

A Conversation with Music Composer Nkeiru Okoye of "Harriet Tubman" Opera Fame

A Conversation with Music Composer Nkeiru Okoye of “Harriet Tubman” Opera Fame

Dr. Nkeiru Okoye, whose first name means “the future is great,” has already dazzled the world as an internationally recognized music composer of opera, symphonic, choral, chamber, solo piano and vocal works. A 2021 Guggenheim fellow, Okoye is best known for her opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom, which premiered with The American Opera Project in 2014.

The Gender and Racial Politics of the Super Bowl Halftime Show: “Men With Power and Fame Are Seldom Held Accountable for Sexist Behavior”

NFL Sends Mixed Messages About Gender Violence With Super Bowl Halftime Lineup

During the Super Bowl on Sunday, most of the rappers featured on the biggest stage in the world are known not only for their great talent, wealth and power, but for their misogynous attitudes—and in some cases abusive behavior—toward women, and some of the most gratuitously anti-woman lyrics ever.

“Dr. Dre, Snoop and Em have reached such an elevated status that it’s important to take a step back and think about their body of work. Read or recite their lyrics out loud and you will hear just how anti-woman their music has been over the past 20 years—and not just their music.”

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Kids Learn About Sex From Porn. Comprehensive Sex Ed Could Help Change That.

For decades, Howard Stern has used his celebrity status to normalize porn and misogyny. Last month, Billie Eilish, only 20, made a shocking revelation on Stern’s show: “I used to watch a lot of porn. I think it really destroyed my brain.”

Eilish is right—research shows conclusively that pornography is harmful for young people and, indeed, all brains. But kids take to porn because they find the sexual education offered by their schools and parents to be unhelpful and unreal.