I found that, in “Shine Bright,” Smith creates an innovative form of music writing in which long passages of memoir, reportage, and history are deftly interlinked and shown to be co-constitutive. (Her 2016 oral history of Whitney Houston’s 1991 Super Bowl performance of the national anthem is still, to my mind, the best thing ever written about the singer.) Upon seeing her book’s working title change over time, from “She’s Every Woman: The Power of Black Women in Pop Music” to “Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop,” I wondered how Smith was navigating the trend in music writing toward autobiographical accounts of listeners’ relationships with Black artists and away from historical (or, indeed, musical) appraisals of their work. These are artists who collectively created the sounds and styles of American pop.Īlthough I had not met Smith prior to our conversation, I had admired her writing and anticipated the publication of “Shine Bright” for many years. It is an experiment in intertwining her own stories of self-doubt, love, and ambition with those of the Black-women artists she profiles-from the nineteen-sixties hitmakers the Dixie Cups to icons such as Jody Watley and Mariah Carey. "I pray that this National Anthem will bring us all together in a way never before witnessed and we can move forward and untangle these truths which mean so much to all of us.If I tell you Danyel Smith is a writer and editor who grew up in Oakland, California, in the nineteen-seventies, and went on to become one of the nation’s most astute chroniclers of pop and hip-hop culture-especially through her leadership of Vibe magazine, in the nineties-how much am I actually telling you? How much am I leaving out? “To say I ‘became’ editor-in-chief of Vibe in 1994-and the first woman and the first Black person to have the job, and the first woman to run a national music magazine-is a criminal abbreviation,” Smith writes in her new book, “ Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop.” Although the book gives us her backstory, it is not primarily a memoir. “I have been in the forefront of this battle longer than most of those voicing their opinions to win the right to sing our country’s anthem on a stage as large as the Super Bowl,” Knight said. Knight said in a statement that she hopes to "give the Anthem back its voice" with her performance. And President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized players who have taken a knee during the national anthem.Ī number of performers like Rihanna, Jay Z, and Cardi B reportedly declined to perform at Super Bowl 2019 as a result. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who leads the "take a knee" movement, hasn't played professionally since 2017 and has claimed in a grievance that team owners have colluded to keep him out of it. The league has been the subject of criticism for years over its handling of players' protests against racism and police brutality against unarmed black men. Her performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" comes at a pivotal and controversial time in the NFL. Still, some may wonder why Gladys Knight is singing the national anthem at Super Bowl 2019 at all. The NFL did not respond when asked for further clarification, and representatives for Knight and SAG did not respond to requests for comment. It's unclear if Knight will receive that payment, and those minimums are far less hefty than the checks acclaimed artists receive for a typical performance. The NFL spokesperson says halftime performers - like 2019's Maroon 5, Travis Scott, and Big Boi - are paid on a "union scale," likely referring to minimums required by the Screen Actors Guild union. But, historically, Super Bowl national anthem singers and halftime performers aren't compensated much beyond that. The NFL covers "all costs," from travel and accommodations to production set-up, a NFL spokesperson tells Money. In front of tens of thousands of football fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, the iconic singer will sing the "Star Spangled Banner" in her hometown to more than 100 million viewers - the largest national stage there is each year.īut how much money will Knight be paid for the gig? Seven-time Grammy winner Gladys Knight will perform the national anthem at the Super Bowl before the New England Patriots vs.
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