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Black Music Sunday<\/a> is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over<\/em> 295 stories<\/a> covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you\u2019ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.<\/em><\/p>\n Music helped us get through<\/a>\u00a0the coronavirus pandemic, which\u00a0is one of the main reasons that I started this series. We are faced now with democracy crumbling around us, a mad orange racist with goon squads called ICE running our country, and many of us are swamped in both despair and disbelief.\u00a0<\/p>\n It seems discordant to even wish someone a happy New Year.\u00a0But a new year it is, so I thought about songs to play today that make me happy\u00a0and lift me up, and hopefully they will do the same for you.\u00a0<\/p>\n First, we have\u00a0Nina Simone<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Simone\u2019s\u00a0\u201cFeeling Good,\u201d<\/a> she sings:<\/p>\n Birds flying high, you know how I feel<\/p>\n Sun in the sky, you know how I feel<\/p>\n Breeze driftin’ on by, you know how I feel<\/p>\n [Chorus] Interestingly, her song was used by a commercial DEI campaign. As a Black woman who has worn her hair natural<\/a>\u00a0for more than half a century,\u00a0I was delighted to see this.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nina Simone’s Feeling Good: Celebrating Black Natural Hair<\/a><\/p>\n Everyone deserves to feel good\u2014and feel confident in their beauty. But sadly, this isn\u2019t the case for everyone. Black women are 80% more likely to change their natural hair to meet social norms. This has to stop. To expand our work toward\u00a0eradicating race-based hair discrimination with the CROWN Coalition and the CROWN Act, we\u2019ve joined forces with Verve Records, the Estate of Nina Simone, and 2020 BET Award-winning music video director Sara Lacombe. Our shared vision was to create the first-ever music video for Nina Simone\u2019s iconic 1965 anthem \u201cFeeling Good,\u201d\u00a0to celebrate Black joy, empowerment, and boundless self-expression.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Nina challenged boundaries and, throughout her career, encouraged empowered expressions of Black culture and beauty. Created in partnership with Dove, the new music video for \u201cFeeling Good\u201d aims to continue Simone\u2019s important legacy by telling a story of Black female empowerment and rejecting imposed expectations. The video follows four generations of Black women living their truths, loving each other, and feeling good.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n When I need a \u201chappy\u201d pick-me-up, I replay this Pharrell Williams<\/a>\u00a0video:<\/p>\n We are all well aware that we have to double and triple our efforts to get out the vote.\u00a0If we do that, there might be blue skies ahead\u2014specifically blue states and cities.<\/p>\n \u201cBlue Skies\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Irving Berlin (1888\u20131989) is considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. He was born in Russia and came to the U.S. when he was five. Berlin wrote more than 1,500 songs, including hundreds of hits. \u201cBlue Skies\u201d \u00a0was composed as part of a musical called Betsy. Audiences loved the song so much they demanded 24 encores of it on the show\u2019s opening night!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n When I look out my window and skies are cloudy and gray, I play this tune to chase the gray away. And I get a double bonus because it\u2019s Ella Fitzgerald<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Nat King Cole <\/a>and Patti Page <\/a>double the uplift.<\/p>\n I play this oldie from Jenifer Lewis <\/a>to keep my mind on priorities.<\/p>\n For those of you who will be celebrating\u00a0Epiphany or Three Kings Day,\u00a0take a look at these archival posts:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Black Music Sunday: Celebrating Epiphany and Three Kings Day<\/a><\/p>\n\n
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day
It’s a new life for me, yeah
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day
It’s a new life for me, ooh
And I’m feeling good<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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