African Art History

A revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon “A book written as only one artist could view another, with insight and sincere compassion.” —Sandra Cisneros, best-selling author of Woman Without Shame In the first biography of Billie Holiday in more...

Longlisted for the National Book Award · A New York Times Notable Book of the Year · Winner of the New York City Book Award · Shortlisted for the Apollo Book of the Year Award · Shortlisted for the Plutarch Award for Best Biography · Finalist for the Gotham Book Prize · Finalist for the...

Nelson George's chronicle of Motown Records' rise and fall remains a classic account of an essential American music company and its dynamic founder, Berry Gordy Jr. Gordy's uncanny instinct for finding extraordinary talent - from performers and musicians to songwriters and producers - packed the label's roster with a who's who of historic artists and hitmakers.

A gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law—a prosecutor and a madam—who team up to bring down notorious mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the million-copy bestseller The Personal Librarian. Eunice Carter...

“Nabil traces the image of his father through song. With growing fascination and heartbreak, he draws out meaning from the shadow of absence, and ultimately redefines what it means to be a family.” - Michelle Zauner, New York Times bestselling author of Crying in H Mart and Grammy nominated...

From the storied ache of mbube harmonies of the ‘40s to the electronic boom of kwaito and the amapiano and house explosion of the ‘00s, this book explores vignettes taken from across South Africa’s popular music history. There are moments in time where music can be a mighty weapon in the fight for freedom. Disguised in a danceable hook or shouted for the world to hear, artists have used songs to deliver important truths and bring listeners together in the face of a segregated reality.

A provocative, revelatory history of British Romanticism that examines the impact of the transatlantic slave economy on the lives and times of some of our most beloved poets—with urgent lessons for today "[P]owerful, revelatory. . . . [A]s a writer Nabugodi is warm and witty, her prose both...

The First 60 Years: The History of Afro-American Musical Theater and Entertainment chronicles the contributions made by Black Americans to the entertainment industry in America from 1871 through 1930. This book describes, among other subjects, the types of traveling circuses performers worked on and the types of material performed there. This book also chronicles the history and the beginnings of Black Vaudeville in America, the creation of the blues, and the beginnings of Black theatrical entrepreneurship that took place in America during its most racist times.

A major poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was one of the first African American writers to garner international recognition in the wake of emancipation. In this definitive biography, the first full-scale life of Dunbar in half a century, Gene Andrew Jarrett offers a revelatory account of a writer whose Gilded Age celebrity as the "poet laureate of his race" hid the private struggles of a man who, in the words of his famous poem, felt like a "caged bird" that sings.

In the 1920s and 1930s, as radio took over the pop music business, record companies were forced to leave their studios in major cities in search of new styles and markets. Ranging the mountains, prairies, rural villages, and urban ghettos of America, they discovered a wealth of unexpected talent - farmers, laborers, and ethnic minorities playing styles that blended the intertwining strands of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Award-winning journalist Natasha S. Alford grew up between two worlds as the daughter of an African American father and Puerto Rican mother. In American Negra, a narrative that is part memoir, part cultural analysis, Alford reflects on growing up in a working-class family from the city of...

In 1964, Martha and the Vandellas recorded "Dancing in the Street." at Motown's Hitsville USA Studio. By the summer, the sixties were in full swing. As the country grew more radicalized in those few months, "Dancing in the Street" gained currency as an activist anthem. Told by the writer who is legendary for finding the big story in unlikely places, Ready for a Brand New Beat chronicles that extraordinary summer of 1964 and showcases the momentous role that a simple song about dancing played in history.

Winter 2018-2019 Kids’ Indie Next List In a palace of illusions, nothing is what it seems. Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace’s enchanted seasonal rooms. Conquer Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Marry the...

An archive of collective memory and exuberant testimony A luminous map to navigate an opaque and disorienting present An infinite geography of possible futures What does it mean to be Black and alive right now? Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of...

“Tamani masterfully bounces and slams two hearts up and down a shrouded court of first love and revelations.”—Rita Williams-Garcia, National Book Award Finalist and New York Times-bestselling author “A superb, complex romance full of heart, humor, and unforgettable characters...

Winner of the 2021 Academy of American Poets James Laughlin Award A blistering exploration of America’s legacy of anti-Black violence from an indispensable poet of our time American history got you down? Are you feeling alienated? Join poet James Cagney in his blistering second collection...

At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the US State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism.

Keith Hatschek tells the story of three determined artists: Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Iola Brubeck and the stand they took against segregation by writing and performing a jazz musical titled The Real Ambassadors. First conceived by the Brubecks in 1956, the musical's journey to the stage for its 1962 premiere tracks extraordinary twists and turns across the backdrop of the civil rights movement.

Compelling from cover to cover, this is the story of one of the most recorded and beloved jazz trumpeters of all time. With unsparing honesty and a superb eye for detail, Clark Terry, born in 1920, takes us from his impoverished childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, where jazz could be heard everywhere, to the smoke-filled small clubs and carnivals across the Jim Crow South where he got his start, and on to worldwide acclaim.

In this biography of Chester B. Himes (1909-1984), Lawrence P. Jackson depicts the improbable life of the controversial writer whose novels confront sexuality, racism, and social injustice. In absorbing detail, Jackson explores Chester Himes's middle-class origins, eight years in prison, painful odyssey as a Black World War II-era artist, and escape to Europe, where Himes became internationally famous for his Harlem detective series.