
Shine Bright
A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop
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Narrated by:
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Danyel Smith
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By:
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Danyel Smith
2022 Porchlight Business Book Awards - Big Ideas and New Perspectives, Long-listed
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. This is their surprising, heartbreaking, soaring story—from “one of the generation’s greatest, most insightful, most nuanced writers in pop culture” (Shea Serrano)
“Sparkling . . . the overdue singing of a Black girl’s song, with perfect pitch . . . delicious to read.”—Oprah Daily
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, The Root, Variety, Esquire, The Guardian, Newsweek, Pitchfork, She Reads, Publishers Weekly
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD
A 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. Smith has been writing this history for more than five years. 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’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.
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.
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Critic reviews
“Memoir, criticism, and cultural history meet in this masterful study of the brilliant Black women who shaped American pop music.... In this soulful, enriching portrait of these extraordinary artists’ struggles and triumphs, Smith widens the canon to usher in new luminaries.”—Esquire, “The Best Books of Spring 2022
“From Phyllis Wheatley to Mahalia Jackson to Dionne Warwick, this captivating examination of Black women in music doesn’t miss a beat. Endlessly readable, Shine Bright calls overdue attention to the groundbreaking women who made American music.”—Ms. Magazine, “April 2022 Reads for the Rest of Us”
“An enriching and entertaining book about the Black women geniuses who shaped pop music.”—Business Insider
Musical Love Affair Shinning Bright
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Brilliantly written; I needed to know this part of HERstory for history’s sake!
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The True Herstory of American Music
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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. Danyel gives these ladies their flowers. 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.
Smith masterfully intertwines her personal life into the lives of the many female artist she admires so seamlessly you lose who’s story you’re more intrigued by, hers or the artist. This book is talent on display, in its writing, it’s history, and it’s spirit, it does indeed Shine Bright.
A verbal quilt of black music history
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Love Letter to Black Women
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Brilliant
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SO BRIGHT!
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Shines a Bright Light
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Fabulous acknowledgement of the soul of music
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Amazing and beautiful
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