Tupac Shakur’s murder is unsolved…for the time being. Nearly thirty years since the multi-platinum MC was slain by gunfire in Las Vegas, a suspect, Duane "Keffe D" Davis, for said murder is finally facing a judge and jury. For years, Shakur’s death, along with the subsequent death of his friend-turned-rival Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., remained a mystery and a conundrum. Not just because no one paid for taking their lives, but because their respective demises came from a rap beef.

Concurrenly, hitmaking rapper Lil Durk is currently on trial for allegedly ordering a hit job. In 2024, he was arrested on a federal charge for alleged murder-for-hire. He is being accused of arranging the murder of a rival rapper, Quandro Rondo, in 2022. As an alleged revenge plot over the 2020 Durk’s close friend, rapper King Von, the feds allege that Durk is one of five co-conspirators who arranged to stalk, target, and kill Quandro. The attempt on Quandro’s life led to the death of his cousin.

Rap rivalries turning deadly is a grim byproduct of a culture shift initiated by a feud that exploded nearly three decades ago, with Sean “Diddy” Combs at the center of it.

(Mugshot of rapper Lil Durk, arrested for alleged murder-for-hire. Photo from Broward County Sheriff’s Office)

Combs is facing a reckoning that’s been coming for a long time. With a criminal conviction and civil lawsuits against him, the disgraced entertainment mogul faced numerous accusations of sexually motivated crimes. He is the latest entertainment heavyweight to face legal action for abuse, like Russell Simmons, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby before him.

While Combs’ case paralleled other male moguls and celebrities, there are other far-reaching ways that he has negatively impacted music culture, whether directly or indirectly.

One thing to consider is what Combs’ arrest means for hip-hop’s complex and polarizing legacy. As he serves a 50-month prison sentence at Fort Dix for transporting women for prostitution, other legal cases similar to Lil Dirk are happening adjacent to his, signaling residual results of the infamous East Coast/West Coast hip-hop feud he was engulfed in during the 1990s. As Combs and his crew amassed hits for Bad Boy Records, he, Death Row Records CEO Marion “Suge” Knight, and others tarnished the reputation of hip-hop music and culture that they also helped expand to popular culture.

(Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, photographed together before their feud. Photo courtesy: Mary Evans/FILMFOUR/LAFAYETTE FILMS/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection)

Rap feuds before the mid-1990s were contentious but never went beyond wax. Battles like KRS-One vs. MC Shan, LL Cool J vs. Kool Moe Dee, and others excited rap fans and inspired rappers to sharpen their pens in the spirit of competition. Despite any rising contentions between camps, most rap battles and beef between camps remained within the music and the music only. All that changed after two label CEOS began feuding with each other.

By 1995, hip-hop music and pop culture became consumed by a contentious rivalry between Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records. This beef morphed into the nation’s two coasts of respective hip-hop communities feuding at large. To be fair, the tension between East rappers and West rappers began years before, exemplified by Tim Dog’s 1991 single, “F**k Compton.” However, the feud reached a tipping point when Combs and Knight’s flagship artists - The Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac - began beefing with each other the year before.

The feud enhanced the critique against hip-hop that much of the music glorified criminal behavior. There’s an adage of living a life of crime that the perpetrator can look forward to only two possible outcomes: you either end up dead or in jail. This ideal became a reality for the key players in the feud.

(Former Death Row Records CEO Marion “Suge” Knight. Photo courtesy: Getty Images)

In 1996, 2Pac was murdered. In 1997, The Notorious B.I.G. was murdered. In 2018, Knight was given a 28-year prison sentence for voluntary manslaughter. Lastly, Combs’ 2024 arrest illustrates that the feud accounted for a legacy of death and crime just as much as hit records.

Combs and Knight built their empires on the backs of their artists, allegedly fanning the flames of their feud behind the scenes to boost record sales. It was bad enough that record executives and program directors were saturating the airwaves with violent and oversexualized lyrics, propelling them to top the pop charts, but Combs and Knight both also caused the stigma against hip-hop to grow due to their influx of criminality into the culture and their respective businesses.

Both Combs, as well as Knight, have been implicated as alleged masterminds behind the deaths of the two rap superstars. Although no charges against them have been made as of now, the specter of suspicion has lingered for decades, due in large part to how they conduct business, like a ruthless gang or mafia boss.

(Rapper Young Dolph. Photo courtesy: Getty Images)

The ultimate consequence of the 1990s East/West feud is the loss of life it caused. Many rap artists died young before this feud for various reasons, from Boogie Down Productions’ Scott La Rock and Trouble T-Roy of Heavy D and The Boyz. But the fatal shootings of 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. initiated a ripple effect that is still seen today.

Over the past decade, the phenomenon of rap sub-genre and culture, Drill music - this includes men rapping about recently killing someone - has hastened music-related bloodshed. Although Combs and Knight are not directly connected to the Drill culture that Von and Dirk derived from, they should still be implicated as proponents and godfathers of rapper-on-rapper crime. Dirk is only the latest example.

Memphis rapper Young Dolph was gunned down in 2021. Before the conviction of his killer earlier last month, the prosecution asserted his murder, a contracted hit job, was over a beef with a rival rapper and record label. The prosecution alleges that Big Jook, the brother of rapper and Dolph rival, Yo Gotti, helped mastermind a $100,000 bounty on Young Dolph’s killing.

(Courtroom rendering of Sean “Diddy” Combs with lawyer Marc Agnifilo and Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky in court on September 17, regarding his criminal case. Photo: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)

That same year, Los Angeles rapper Drakeo The Ruler was stabbed to death backstage before a concert. A 2022 lawsuit against the concert promoter, Live Nation, stated that members of the Bloods gang targeted Drakeo and that the killing stemmed from a feud with another West Coast rapper, YG.

As Combs awaits Combs’ his 2028 release, his contribution to the culture of killings spawning from rap feuds also deserves indictment in the court of public opinion. He may not be the only one who is allegedly responsible or complicit in the murders of 2Pac or Biggie, but there is blood on his shiny suit.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

Michael Jackson was a master at synthesizing the best aspects of the art and art makers in his purview. This is particularly true when it comes to his dancing. He fused the feverish bombast of James Brown, the slick, subtle flair of Jackie Wilson, the acrobatics of the Nicholas Brothers, the grace of Fred Astaire, and the innovation of Don Campbell and the New York City Breakers. And yet, with all those influences, Jackson crafted an idiosyncratic style to his artistry.

Jackson showcased his prodigious penchant for movement best during his short films - music videos to us mortals. His collection of visuals has given viewers a litany of iconic moves that billions have tried to copy, no different than when fans feverishly quote famous one-liners from motion pictures like The Godfather.

From the innocent spontaneity of movement in his first video, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” to the unbridled rage in the polarizing panther dance of “Black or White,” Jackson’s dance moves elicit a visceral reaction from all who witness it. His choreographed line dances in short films like “Beat It,” “Bad,” “Smooth Criminal,” and “Remember the Time” illustrate Jackson’s uncanny flair for the intricate and the dramatic.

While debates can be made about which of Jackson’s short films is his best, what isn’t up for debate is that one dance routine stands head-and-shoulders above the rest. That routine was unleashed to the public on Dec. 2, 1983, nearly 43 years ago.

The “Thriller” dance is the most iconic piece of choreography in modern American music history. Since its release, the routine has been copied, recreated, and lampooned to this very day. With so many incredible dance numbers in his canon, what makes the “Thriller” dance endure for so many years?

The concept was simple. “He wanted to change into a monster.” Filmmaker John Landis said that’s what Michael Jackson told him when he approached him to direct the short film. After seeing Landis’ film “An American Werewolf in London,” Jackson phoned Landis to help him make “the best” music short of all time.

Jackson’s plan to bookend his musical performance with scripted conversation at each end was carefully and masterfully crafted by he and Landis. The transformation into a werewolf (technically a werecat, according to make-up artist Rick Baker) and the undead escaping from casket and crypt, all made for a frightening storyline that would keep the audience engaged.

The real challenge of the video, aside from dealing with a $500,000 budget without the aid of Jackson’s record label, Epic Records, was the choreography. Jackson recruited Michael Peters to collaborate on the assignment. Peters and Jackson had worked together to co-choreograph the dance routine for the “Beat It” short film just months prior, so their chemistry was established. However, the idea of corpses rising from their respective graves to engage in a line dance seemed strange, at best, on paper.

“It was a delicate thing to work on. My whole approach was, ‘How do you make zombies and monsters dance without making it comical,’” Jackson said in a 1999 MTV interview. “We had to come up with just the right kind of movement that wouldn’t become something that you laugh at.”

Jackson described the movement he and Peters created as “jazzy” and “gruesome.” The neck-and-shoulder twitch starts things out, indicating the scary, unhinged movement of the undead. The over-the-shoulder hand clap and slide into shoulder shimmy also became an image that burned into your memory.

Then there’s the arched arm swing. The curved placement of the zombies’ lifeless limbs as they paced back and forth was traditionally an image that provoked fear of attack, death, or possession. Now, that arm swing is practiced by young and old. The movement throughout was stiff, yet fluid, not unlike the signature staccato and vibrato alchemy of Jackson’s singing voice.

Even with the innovative choreography, it’s Jackson’s and his dancers’ commitment to remaining in character that truly brought it all together. The wide-eyed look on everyone’s faces, the recurring quivering of their lips, and their facial expressions of anger and shock sold the entire performance.

From the premiere onward, the “Thriller” dance has reared its head in several places. It partially showed up in the film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” it was the inspiration behind the wedding dance in “Coming To America,” also directed by Landis, and even in cartoons like “South Park.”

The real legacy of the dance is beyond the big and small screens. It’s a staple at the annual Halloween Parade in New York City. The dance has shown up at schools in the form of teacher-led flash mobs. Even inmates of a Southeast Asian penitentiary recreated the routine.

Jackson’s innovation and stature as a musical and visual futurist began before “Thriller,” but the “Thriller” short film crystallized it. He is the first, and so far only, recording artist to get inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame, and the conception, execution, and legacy of the “Thriller” dance is a big part of why.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

(Credit: AP, Creator: Charles Rex Arbogast)

One of my favorite podcasts over the past couple of years has been the R&B Money podcast. Hosted by Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Tank and his manager, J. Valentine, the weekly pod finds the two interviewing singers, producers, and executives, discussing their careers and contributions to the entertainment industry.

Each episode ends with a set of questionnaires: name your Top 5 R&B singers and Top 5 R&B songs. I look forward to this part of the show the most. Not every guest is equally compelling for me in terms of their personal stories, but I’m always curious to see what everyone’s Top 5’s are. While each episode has a distinctive group of picks, there are several artists who get repeated, Michael Jackson, Prince, and Brandy, chief among them. But there’s another artist who periodically gets name-dropped from time to time; the man I call R&B Voldermort, he who shall not be named, Mr. Robert “R.” Kelly.

At the climax of a two-part episode of R&B Money featuring Tyrese Gibson as the guest, he proudly proclaimed R. Kelly to be his number one R&B singer. “Say what you want to say about his life, his choices, what he’s going through, he’s the greatest to ever do it,” Tyrese said. “He’s probably given away more hits than he’s got for himself. The greatest to ever do it: Robert Kelly.”

It’s understandable that Gibson, who collaborated with Kelly for the 2009 single, “Pregnant,” was compelled to be truthful about how he feels about Kelly’s music. His body of work was, if nothing else, impactful. Kelly was a consistent hit-maker from the early 1990s through to the 2010s, with songs like “Bump N Grind,” “I Wish,” and “I Believe I Can Fly,” while writing hits for other artists, such as Maxwell’s “Fortunate,” Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone,” and Whitney Houston’s “I Look to You.” I don’t necessarily object to Gibson or anyone else praising Kelly’s work, because that’s their business and their right. With that being said, it’s the caveat that Gibson interjected that gives me pause: “Say what you want to say about his life, his choices, what he’s going through.”

Gibson is not alone in this practice, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this. So, it’s imperative that you understand that I’m not singling him or even the R&B Money podcast out (although it is somewhat distressing and slightly cringey that both Tank and J. Valentine somewhat defiantly defend Kelly’s inclusion in many of the show’s interviews). What I am calling out is the way that people habitually feel the need to preface or justify talking about Kelly, more to the point, their admiration of his work, with the phrase “say what you will about his life” or any variation of that. I take great offense to this, particularly when people say things like, “when he was going through his drama” during podcasts, live streams, panels, etc. Such rhetoric implies that something happened to Kelly or that he has some habits that are simply polarizing or taboo.

The cancellation and muting of Kelly and his work on public platforms is not because disagreable political views or disappointing personal alignments. Robert Kelly willfully engaged in ongoing, habitual criminal activity as a serial sex predator of underage girls over the course of several decades. It’s not like he voted for George W. Bush, moves like a cornball oreo or cheated artists out of their royalties.

Such talk undermines the severity of the crimes that he committed. Crimes that hurt women. We cannot allow such heinous actions to be simply relegated to a footnote just for the sake of conversing about why “Feelin’ on Your Booty” sounds nice on a stereo. Let’s call it what it really is: covering your ass. People say this because they don’t want the social media brigade to drag them because they showed love to a convicted felon.

Unfortunately, this type of talk only adds salt to the wound.

I’m not here to criticize people who still listen to and love Kelly and his music. That’s your business. All I’m saying is that we need to really stop and think about how we contextualize the atrocities that Kelly is guilty of repeated committing. Phrases like “say what you will about his personal life,” or “separate the art from the artist,” carry the duality of diminishing the horrible and illegal things he’s done to other people, while also exposing the cowardice of the people who dare to use such rhetoric to justify why Kelly’s name is coming out of their mouths in a positive light. To me, it’s no different from people who still support Chris Brown. Breezy fans (and Chris himself) act like the criticism he receives stems solely from his domestic attack on Rihanna over a decade ago and is therefore unfair, ignoring the litany of harmful and abusive incidents that occurred after that.

Just so we’re clear: I don’t care if you still like Kelly’s music and want to talk publicly about how much you like his music. Just remember the victims whose stories and trials you’re trivializing to do so. Don’t get mad that YouTube, Spotify, and radio stations stopped playing or prioritizing his music. When you’ve done the crimes that Kelly was convicted of, you lose those privileges. Be mad at Kelly for doing what he did in the first place.

Yes, two things can be true: Kelly made a lot of hit records, and he also fostered an ecosystem that allowed him to prey on underage girls routinely. The latter isn’t something we can act like is just a phase or an affliction to overcome.

(Malcolm-Jamal Warner playing bass during a performance. Photo Credit: Bennett Raglin/Getty Images)

The world fell in love with a teenager named Malcolm-Jamal Warner because of The Cosby Show, the juggernaut TV sitcom. From 1984 to 1992, we watched Claire and Cliff Huxtable’s middle child Theo grow up before our eyes in a house that exemplified Black exceptionalism before it became something to side-eye in the 21st century.

Warner, who died last year due to drowning at age 54, turned Theo into a household name custom-built for him and him alone. For eight record-breaking seasons on NBC, as he piled up one legendary Cosby Show moment after the next:

• The time Theo used Monopoly money to prove to his father that he could survive without going to college.

• The time Theo lip-synced to Ray Charles’ “The Night is the Right Time” for his grandparents’ 49th wedding anniversary.

• The time Theo crashed out when his sister Denise made him his own “Gordon Gartrell” shirt.

• The time Theo sang the “Justine, Justine” blues when his girlfriend dumped him.

• The time Theo navigated his family’s simulation of “the real world” in his house.

Despite all Warner’s success (including an Emmy nomination), a harsh truth was hanging in the balance. Nearly every child actor who experiences great popularity ultimately succumbs to the perilous temptations and pitfalls of celebrity. Like Todd Bridges, Dana Plato, Gary Coleman, Mackenzie Phillips, Corey Haim, and so many others, there was a chance that Warner could’ve gone from a famous actor to an infamous parable.

Outside of the lingering fears of fame, Warner knew, artistically, that The Cosby Show could have pigeonhole him, like so many child actors from popular TV shows. He knew there was more to him than being Theo Huxtable from Brooklyn. He enjoyed acting success post-Cosby with shows like Malcolm & Eddie, The People vs. O.J. Simpson: An American Crime Story, and, most recently, The Resident. But it was his activities beyond acting that made him such a compelling artist.

Warner started making plans for his transition barely three years into his eight-year run. After appearing in music videos like Whodini’s “Funky Beat” and Michael Jackson’s “Liberian Girl,” he began his life as a director of music videos like Special Ed’s “I’m the Magnificent” and New Edition’s “N.E. Heartbreak.” His directing credits also included some episodes of The Cosby Show and Nickelodeon’s sketch comedy show, All That.

During the final years of his life, Warner was respected as much for his affiliations with music as he was with TV. An accomplished bassist, he played in several jazz and funk bands, even leading an A Tribe Called Quest tribute. But it was his spoken word and poetry chops that got him the most acclaim. He released five albums of his spoken word, earning a Grammy nomination for his 2023 album, Hiding in Plain View. Warner won a Grammy for his 2015 collaboration with The Robert Glasper Experiment and Lalah Hathaway’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Jesus Children of America,” which included a poem Warner wrote about the Sandy Hook children killings.

Warner wasn’t an actor/director/poet/musician. He was a communicator. He utilized several artistic mediums to connect with the public. Certainly, most mourn him for his youthful brilliance as Theo Huxtable. However, the greatest lesson we can learn from him is his flexibility and his willingness to pivot. In a time when so many of us have to switch careers and/or wear many hats to keep afloat, Warner is a shining example of how we can do it when the world sees you as one thing.

To craft a character as memorable, affable, and enduring as Theo Huxtable is a great accomplishment for Warner, and many will reference this as they grieve him. But an understated but no less important reason that his legacy will truly live on is that he saw the bigger picture, and that will help just as many people beyond their grief.

Thank you, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, for leaving the world better than how you found it. We’ll be jammin’ on the one in your memory.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Help support the page by becoming a Paid Subscriber or donate to my Cashapp: $headphoneaddict. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

This past Sunday at the 2026 BET Awards, singer/songwriter SZA and rapper/singer Doechii took home the BET Her Award for their collaboration, “Girl, Get Up,” adding to the list of accolades for Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE). The auspicious occasion comes two years after the 67th Grammy Awards, when Kendrick Lamar, once the label’s biggest star, swept all five of his categories with his Drake diss track, “Not Like Us.” Although Lamar’s wins were his first since leaving TDE, SZA, and Doechii, the label’s current superstars, each took home a gramophone trophy for Best R&B Song and Best Rap Album.

The 2024 Grammys felt like the unofficial passing of a torch. Lamar’s win was a coronation of TDE’s slow but steady rise into a West Coast music empire. The wins for SZA and Doechii signaled that a new dynasty had dawned for the label. As that year’s Grammys indicated, women dominate contemporary music in nearly every genre, from Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter to Beyoncé and GloRilla. But for SZA and Doechii, two talented Black women with skin tones devoid of ambiguity with defined artistic identities, to be the faces of a label mostly associated with Black male rappers is inspiring and affirming, not just for TDE, but for the Black music community at large.

For nearly a decade, fans and critics marveled at the way TDE incubated and nurtured their team. Led by CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, and President Terrence “Punch” Henderson, TDE bolstered a roster of artists like Lamar, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, and Isaiah Rashad, allowing them to create at their own pace and establish their own identities.

(SZA accepting her award for Best R&B Song at the 2024 Grammy Awards. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

With an in-house crop of producers like Sounwave, MixedByAli, and Tae Beast, TDE was building a signature sound; something that used to be commonplace at record labels like Motown, Stax, and Def Jam. Lamar, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and Schoolboy Q put TDE on the map, with Lamar separating himself as the biggest star of the bunch thanks to classic albums like To Pimp a Butterfly and DAMN.

When Lamar was prepping his major label debut, 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city, a young New Jersey girl by way of St. Louis named Solána Rowe, aka SZA, dropped her first EP, See.SZA.Run, independently. She released a second independent EP, S, the following year, earning critical acclaim and a swelling fan base thanks to her quirky sense of songwriting. TDE made SZA its first female signee and released her Z EP in 2014, featuring guest appearances from Lamar, Rashad, and Chance The Rapper.

SZA’s coming-out party commenced with the 2017 release of her debut album, Ctrl. The LP touched a nerve with fellow 20-somethings (no pun intended), with narratives of self-consciousness, heartache, and sexual cynicism in songs like “Broken Clocks,” “Doves in the Wind,” and “The Weekend.” She separated herself from contemporaries like H.E.R., Jhene Aiko, and Kehlani with her sonic styling and malleable demeanor. SZA was as comfortable wearing a wet t-shirt as she was in a hockey jersey.

With a triple-platinum album and five Grammy nominations, SZA was a certified star. Over the next few years, she began working with big-name artists like Justin Timberlake, Summer Walker, Drake, and Doja Cat. These features led her from being in Lamar’s shadow to being his peer, exemplified by their Oscar-nominated collaboration, “All The Stars” from TDE’s Black Panther soundtrack.

August 10, 2021, was a turning point for TDE. On that day, Lamar announced via his website that his forthcoming album would be his final effort for the label where he’d spent his entire career at that point.

Following the release of Lamar’s 2022 double album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, many wondered how TDE would thrive without him. This is especially after the label’s once-reliable artist release schedule began to wane following long layoffs from Lamar, Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, Rashad, and Ab-Soul.

SZA was dealing with her issues with delayed releases, industry-inducing anxiety, and an erratic relationship with Punch, who was also her manager. Nevertheless, she was the best choice to step into Lamar’s shoes as the label’s main money maker. But she wouldn’t be alone.

(Doechii performing during her 2024 appearance on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. Screenshot from YouTube)

Just a few weeks before Lamar’s departure announcement, TDE released an EP by one of its newest signees, Jaylah Hickmon, aka Doechii. The Florida native had a similar career trajectory to SZA. She independently dropped projects in the form of two mixtapes (Coven Music Session, Vol. 1, and Oh The Places You’ll Go) and an EP, Bra-Less.

Doechii’s first TDE EP, She / Her / Black Bitch, featured the single, “Persuasive,” with a remix featuring SZA. The combination of Doechii’s eccentric blend of sexuality and Afrofuturism with SZA’s playful and earthy sensuality was a shock to the system for many people. Doechii’s music came off as abrasively danceable, with a voice that, on its surface, seemed to mimic Nicki Minaj’s penchant for vocal contortion. In actuality, Doechii’s versatile rapping and singing contained an emotional nuance that Minaj’s doesn’t employ.

“Persuasive,” which could be described as ballroom-ready hip-hop, became a soft relaunch for TDE’s rebranding. From that point on, SZA and Doechii would be the new focal points of the label. With Lamar gone (despite continuing to collaborate with TDE artists and producers), many expected the label to anoint one of their roster’s MCs, like Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, or Rashad, to be the label’s north star. Instead, they put the ladies up front, proving their most savvy decision yet.

SZA’s late 2022 album, SOS, would put her in the forefront of music’s elite. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, where it remained for 12 total weeks - more than any Black female artist since Whitney Houston. The album became another triple-platinum success, earning SZA five top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. What’s more impressive is that songs like “Kill Bill,” “Good Days,” “Shirt,” and “I Hate U” achieved crossover success without pandering to crossover audiences. SZA built on the emotions from Ctrl’s lyrics for SOS, increasing some anger, indignation, and loneliness. Her ability to fantasize about killing her ex-boyfriend with such a wry wit and clever wordplay has influenced a slew of up-and-coming female artists.

If 2023 was the year of SZA, 2024 was Doechii season. Her latest mixtape with TDE, Alligator Bites Never Heal, was a slow-burning project that encapsulated her life up to this point. The mixtape, along with looseys from her YouTube Swamp Sessions, found Doechii putting her Florida roots on her sleeve more heavily than ever.

Songs like “Nissan Altima” and “Catfish” illustrated Doechii as an infectious musical chameleon. She could flaunt her sexuality with the best of them on stage while being armed with a slew of rap cadences that fit equally into house records like “Alter-Ego” or over soul samples like “Boom Bap,” all while being transparent about heartbreak and addiction on songs like “Denial is a River.” Doechii can blend in with the litany of twerk-happy rappers like Ice Spice and Latto, but rap with a commanding diction and expert lyricism and messaging that inspires thought and empathy.

Speaking of Latto and Ice Spice, let’s address the elephant in the studio. The industry favored Black women with fairer skin over the years, and it’s become more and more rare to see women with dark complexion as music superstars. This isn’t to disparage the talent of female rappers and singers of light skin tones. To simply imply that someone like Beyoncé is a bigger star than Kelly Rowland is because Rowland has darker skin is a gross oversimplification. However, to completely ignore the implicit biases that come with colorism within the music industry would be just plain naive. For Doechii and SZA to be firmly in their Blackness, but to do so in an organic way, is impressive in and of itself, and their expanding crossover success may be the recalibration the landscape needs.

Doechii’s best attribute is her performance ability. Her appearances on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert were masterclasses in Afrofuturism and female-forward thinking. Her unapologetic Blackness borrows from the lineage of Missy Elliott and Grace Jones with equal measure. Her performance of “Catfish” and “Denial is a River” was a highlight of the night.

Like Lamar, the success of SZA and Doechii trickles down to the rest of TDE. Although Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and Schoolboy Q are the most senior members of the roster, the influx of capital the ladies provide gives the MCs less pressure to produce content before they’re ready. Since 2022, Ab-Soul dropped two stellar projects, Herbert and Soul Burger. Meanwhile, Schoolboy Q’s Blue Lips was among the most critically acclaimed hip-hop projects of 2024.

The future couldn’t be brighter for TDE. Last year, SZA starred in her first film, One of Them Days, with Keke Palmer, opening at No. 2 at the box office and as the nation’s No. 1 comedy. She and Lamar made history with their joint North American stadium trek, The Grand National Tour. Meanwhile, Doechii is poised to release her official debut album in 2026. Riding the momentum of her acclaimed mixtape and TV performances, the still-untitled LP is sure to open to big numbers. We are lucky to watch these Black women who took over TDE take over the world.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

Some of the best memories I have are riding in the car with my dad.

The sight of my dad driving down the highway, using his knees to steer the car while he was playing air drums once the groove got good during a song on the tape deck, always made me smile (if not a little nervous). Much of the music that I hold so dear to my soul today was introduced to me while in the car with my dad; Black Ivory, Slave, Stevie Wonder, and on and on. One of the groups that was introduced to me was Earth, Wind & Fire (EWF).

When my dad popped in a Maxell XL II 100 cassette of his favorite EWF tracks, I had no idea what to expect, but once I heard the opening horns from “Time Is On Your Side,” nothing would be the same. I found myself singing it to my then-infant nephew Lamar at the kitchen table. From there, I moved on to Gratitude and wore out “Can’t Hide Love (it permanently skips on that CD now. Sorry, Mom).” After hearing “Fantasy” in that same car, there was really no going back. They were my favorite band ever, and remain so to this day. Maurice White, the master of the band, instantly became a hero to me for the way he sang, the way he played the kalimba, the way he led that massive band, and got them all to fall in line.

From that point on, I became an EWF connoisseur. I bought all their albums and listened to them profusely. I analyzed lyrics, instruments, themes, album art, liner notes, and member changes. Nobody knew more about EWF than me, not even my dear Dad. Maurice became a hero in the same tier as Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder were to me. That level of genius, discipline, and commitment to excellence and exploration had me endlessly inspired, especially considering how alone I felt in the world.

Feb. 4, 2016. I was sitting on the L train in Brooklyn on my way home from work when I got a text message right before I went underground. It was from my then editor at EBONY, Miles Marshall Lewis. Usually, when I got texts from him, it was because he had a time-sensitive writing gig for me. Being the money-starved man that I was/am, I lit up…until I noticed the content of the text: “matt, can you write a maurice white obit by 7, 8pm?”

What?

WHAT????

Granted, I knew Maurice was old and sick, nearly unable to speak, but I was nowhere near prepared to hear that news, especially the way I received it. My gut instinct was to say no, but soon, I knew it was meant to come to my lap, as I knew NO ONE at EBONY.com, no matter how much older than I, would write an obituary on Maurice White better than me. I started writing on the train on loose papers, the quick memo app on my phone, so I could get a head start once I got in front of my computer. It took me an extra hour and 40 minutes to complete it, but I was shocked, angry, and determined to get it right. Maurice White deserved my best.

Two weeks later, I’m on my lunch break at BRIC Arts Media. Leading up to this moment, I’d been listening to EWF extensively, watching concert footage and documentaries to reminisce and give a private tribute to Maurice. I even listened to an old interview with Philip Bailey and Ralph Johnson I did for a piece I wrote in Elmore Magazine about Black bands in 2013. One of the last things I told them was please tell Maurice I’m praying for him and I hope he’s well. It seemed I was handling his passing well, just as I had when my biggest musical hero, Michael Jackson, passed away.

So, back to the lunch break. I’m sitting in the studio green room in front of a vanity mirror after devouring contents from McDonald’s Dollar Menu. With my iPod and headphones in tow, I played “Be Ever Wonderful,” the last track on what I believe to be EWF’s finest album, All ‘N All. I remember the first time I heard it; the opening horns were so fast I thought it was going to be a bombastic funk ending, but it slowed down and became a slow-flowing, do-wop-inspired ballad.

“Be Ever…Wonderful! Stay as you are.”

Those words to a kid like me, who didn’t fit in with anyone, were so poignant and important. Don’t change; embrace who you are, no matter what. I was alone in the green room, which was good, seeing as I like singing along with my iPod. Everything was fine, until I got to the bridge of the song and Maurice let out his OOOOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOaaaaaaHHHH! A lump in my throat formed, a tightness in my chest, and my chin was getting heavy. Something was about to happen that I thought I’d luckily avoided. Once the ending came, and that hulking baritone sang, “What I want to do, and what I’d like to tell you may not be as you see; as we live today, what I wanna say is be ever wonderful in your own sweet way.” That counterbalanced with Ralph’s strikes on the crash cymbals and Philip’s syrupy sweet background vocals, I knew it was too late…I was going to cry.

I looked in the mirror, unable to sing along anymore, watching the tears drip down my cheeks, my face contorted to this wretched sight, and goosebumps stinging every pore in my limbs. “Don’t let the world change your mind,” he sang, and I put my head in my hands, let the sadness extract from my soul. This voice, this power, this heart that eased me, inspired me, saved me, was forever silent. I always feel that as long as any artist is alive, no matter how past their prime they are, they still have a chance to give you that feeling you got as a kid when you heard something beautiful and different; a feeling you chase whenever you turn your radio on. Now that the chance was gone, I couldn’t take it.

Fast forward to June 2026. I returned to writing after giving up in December 2025, erasing damn near all the evidence that I was ever a media professional. I’m freelancing again, this time for Amsterdam News. I’d already gotten a couple of pieces published with them before I had my little breakdown. After not pitching a story in nearly eight months, I went crawling back, so to speak, pitching to cover the opening night of the Tribeca Film Festival. Questlove, who dropped two award-winning documentaries on the Harlem Cultural Fest and Sly Stone, was premiering his latest jawn, a documentary about Earth, Wind and Fire. Not only was the film making its public debut at the Beacon Theater, but the band was going to play with The Roots. Sadly, another writer beat me to the punch.

I knew I didn’t have an extra $120 lying around to buy a ticket outright - I didn’t even have $30 to buy a regular ticket to screen it during the rest of the festival. I couldn’t believe I was going to miss this opportunity, this occasion. I saw so many people on social media posting photos of themselves at this premiere, knowing that they didn’t love and understand EWF the way that I did. Plus, I’d also returned to social media after not wanting to see my peers and contemporaries continuing to thrive while I’ve been writhing in debt, desperation, and depression.

To be honest, I felt cheated. I spent my whole life loving, dissecting, and connecting to Maurice and his music in ways no one could understand for someone as young as I was. I felt like I was destined to attend that premiere. I felt I deserved to be there, even more than people like Miles, who was there as well. What made matters worse is when it was announced that the documentary, Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World), would air on HBO Max just four days later. Damn it! I got mad at people who posted reviews on TikTok, who had NO REAL IDEA just how important and influential EWF is/was, outside of knowing how good a song “September” is. They don’t know anything about “This World is a Masquerade.” They wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the guitar tones of Al McKay and Roland Bautista. I KNOW THAT STUFF. IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME! Or at least that’s what played in my head over and over again.

Isn’t that awful? Isn’t that entitled? It took a while, but I had to catch myself. I’ve been out of practice, out of work, and when I was getting some gigs, I willfully threw them away because mentally and psychologically, I didn’t have it in me. I got to work my way back to loving the work for its own sake, instead of being jealous that my peers are galivanting on social media with legends I felt I should’ve been around and documenting. They earned the right to be there, and the people who were able to watch on HBO Max days later paid for it. It’s not their fault I can’t afford HBO Max. I have to push through and rediscover myself as a professional. I’ve got to put the anger, resentment, and envy down.

There will be other opportunities. I admit that when I was the one going to shows, after-parties, and hotels, I felt like I belonged for the first time in years of imposter syndrome. That syndrome returned with a vengeance the days I lost my jobs, and it’s kicking my ass as I type this. The only difference is now, I’m starting to fight back. Because Maurice White would fight back. I have to find a way to honor him and the music EWF left for us because that’s the exciting part. That’s what I need to look forward to, not to be able to hobnob with celebrities and eat free food (although that’s gonna be sweet when I get back).

The year was 1986. Quincy Jones had contacted Run-DMC to come to record an anti-drug song with none other than Michael Jackson, the enigmatic megastar singer/songwriter, who passed away eight years ago today. After the Rap trio stepped on a white sequin glove in their 1984 video “King of Rock,” one would think this would be a tense meeting of artists. The feeling was mutual. According to Jones, MJ stated to him that “rap is dead.” Although by all accounts, their interaction was cordial (the song failed to make the Bad album), the singer’s statement proved ironic.

When you put Jackson under the microscope, he is an archetypal Hip-Hop artist. With the hyper-masculine subtext surrounding the culture juxtaposed to the soft-spoken, child-like, androgynous personality of Jackson, it’s easy to overlook that the guy embodied all that hip-hop has to offer.

For Hip-Hop artists, it starts with the come-up; that rags-to-riches grind that rappers and producers go through to get put on by a crew and/or a label. Jackson’s come-up came through Gary, Indiana. He and his brothers performed at seedy bars and strip clubs as minors in the bleak steel town before getting Berry Gordy to sign them to Motown in 1968. MJ’s ambition to be a star can be likened to the killer instinct of 2Pac, LL Cool J, and especially Kanye West.

Wanna talk about street cred? Decades before Chris Brown wore red bandannas on stage and was throwing up hand signs in club V.I.P. sections, Jackson enlisted real-life street gangs for his music videos. He aimed to achieve an authentic grit and grime for the viewer, and he did it before EVERYONE. He put members of the Los Angeles Bloods in the 1983 “Beat It” short film, wearing that iconic red zipper jacket. He had members of the Crips in 1987’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” short film, and wore a blue button-up. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.

Whenever Jackson aligned himself with Hip-Hop practitioners, he made sure to do it with the best. From enlisting Heavy D on “Jam” for 1991’s Dangerous album, having Notorious B.I.G. drop a rapid fire 16 of paranoia in 1995 on HIStory’s “This Time Around,” to pleasantly surprising fans at Hot 97’s 2001 Summer Jam with Jay-Z (leading to him singing background vocals on Hov’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” remix), Jackson as much as anyone proved game recognizes game. His main post-Quincy Jones producers, Teddy Riley and Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, were perfect fits for his futurist musical mind. Jackson was consumed by rhythm from day one, the essence that shoots through the veins of Hip-Hop’s music culture.

The Hip-Hop artist’s story is often fraught with narratives of being the underdog, being overlooked, and overcoming haters and doubters. Jackson’s achievements and drive were born not only out of his God-given talent, but with ambition ignited by naysayers at every turn throughout his life. We often hear DJ Khaled say things like, “‘They’ don’t wanna see me win.” Well, here are some of the things “they” thought about Jackson:

The Jacksons will never get out of Gary.
The Jackson 5 will never have a hit record.
The Jackson 5 will never write their own music.
The Jackson 5 is nothing without Motown.
Michael is nothing with his brothers.
Michael can never top Off The Wall.
Michael can never top Thriller.
Michael has alienated his Black audience.
Michael will never have another number one record.

Jackson continued to win because no matter how popular he became, he retained what makes many rappers great: a chip on his shoulder. If you still don’t make the connection, here’s how Michael Jackson embodies the five elements of Hip-Hop:

B-Boy/Breakdancing

Bottom line, Jackson was arguably the best dancer this globe has ever seen. The virtuosity and charisma with which he moved on stage and in short films are unmatched. The essence of his movement is rooted in Hip-Hop, dating back to before the term was even invented. His influences drew just as much from the Rock Steady Crew as they did from James Brown and Fred Astaire.

MJ always appreciated contemporary street movement. When he broke out the Robot during The Jackson 5’s performance of “Dancing Machine” on Soul Train, it was clear he was paying attention to the Soul Train dancers every week. His mastery of ticking and pop-locking demonstrated from The Jacksons’ short lived variety show in 1977 all the way to his HIStory concerts, came from tutelage from The New York City Breakers and Shalamar’s Jeffrey Daniel.

It was Daniel who taught Jackson a breakdance move called the Back Slide in 1980. When MJ unleashed it before an unsuspecting crowd at Motown 25 three years later, it was forever dubbed the Moonwalk. But for those in the streets who knew better, they felt vindicated and celebrated by the world’s biggest superstar. In 1995, during a performance of “Dangerous” at the MTV Video Music Awards, Jackson broke out a Bank Head Bounce, once again letting us know Neverland ain’t as far from the hood as you might think.

Graffiti-Writing

No, Jackson never was out in the streets of Gary, tagging up his pop’s steel mill or Roosevelt High School. However, he was quite the illustrator. Since his Motown days, MJ was notorious for doodling and drawing pictures. Turns out it was a bit more than just doodles. When you see his self-portraits and drawings of Charlie Chaplin or Liz Taylor, Jackson’s talent for illustration was pretty tight; a revelation of his many talents beyond music. Just look at the liner notes of Thriller.

Each side of the lyric sleeve had an illustrated depiction of a song from the album. Side A featured a drawing of him and Paul McCartney playing tug-of-war with a female on “The Girl Is Mine.” On Side B was his depiction of “Thriller”: a scene of Jackson and his date watching a movie, surrounded by night creatures lurking about them. The details of the faces and hairdos melded with the nuance of a caricature artist lead us to wonder what could have happened if MJ ever got a hold of a few spray cans on that sequin glove of his. After viewing his brooding, articulate 1995 drawing of himself as a child, sitting in a corner holding a mic for the song “Childhood,” there’s no telling what kind of paintings and murals he might’ve been able to conquer.

MCing

If the job of an MC is to move the crowd, as Rakim once said, then Michael Joseph Jackson was the real GOD MC. If you weren’t lucky enough to be at one of his concerts, go to YouTube after this and revel in the uncanny mind and body control he had over his fans. If you didn’t just completely pass out from utter shock, you were crying, jumping, dancing, or all of the above. Gauging MCing from an aural standpoint, you could never mistake Jackson for a rapper, but he had all the attributes that make an A1 spit game.

First, there’s Jackson’s flow. MJ helped revolutionize how R&B and Pop singers ride a beat on a track, and his cadence was as seamless and majestic as Jay-Z, Biggie, or Busta Rhymes. Listen to “Off The Wall,” the rare “Buttercup,” and “Jam,” as examples. He took the James Brown approach to rhythm-driven vocal delivery and enhanced it to sinuous and gorgeous effect. Going back to “Jam” and also “Smooth Criminal,” he predated today’s current style of rhyming, fusing melody and percussive atonal vocals prominently practiced by artists like Ja Rule, Nelly, Drake, and Rihanna.

Then there’s Jackson’s wordplay. Low-key, Mike’s pen game was ill. Catch this rhyme pattern on “Heartbreak Hotel” and his clever use of couplets:

“Someone’s evil to hurt my soul/Every smile’s a trial, caught in beguile to hurt me/Then the man next door had told/He’s been here, in tears, for 15 years/This is scaring me.”

Or see him on his Chuck D, KRS-One tip on “They Don’t Care About Us:”

“Tell me what has become of my rights/Am I invisible ’cause you ignore me?/Your proclamation promised me free li-ber-ty/I’m tired of being a victim of shame/You’re throwing me a class with a bad name/I can’t believe this is the land from which I came!”

Lastly, Jackson was never scared to address his haters on wax. On “Bad,” he declares, “and the whole world has to answer right now, just to tell you once again/Who’s Bad?” During “Unbreakable,” he calls out his detractors, “Seems like you know by now, when and how, I get down/And with all that I’ve been through, I’m still around.” He even engaged in an on-wax beef with none other than his own brother, Jermaine Jackson! In 1991, Jermaine dropped “Word to the Badd,” a scathing diss to Mike about him stealing his thunder. Mike responded, subliminally at that, in “Jam:” “I told my brother, don’t you ask me for now favors/I’m conditioned by the system/don’t you talk to me, don’t scream and shout.”

DJing

Now, the closest Jackson may have ever been to a DJ booth was when he was vibing in one at Studio 54 in the late 1970s, observing the patrons. However, he didn’t need two turntables and a mic to be able to personify and relate with the mind of a DJ.

Pioneers like Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and countless others after them rocked the crowd by isolating the breakdown in a record (i.e., the “Apache” drumbeat or the bridge to “Sex Machine”). Jackson’s most exuberant compositions were driven by a single, repetitive line with minimal chord changes. Tracks like “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” “Workin’ Day & Night,” “Leave Me Alone,” “Jam,” and “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground),” all songs with soul penetrating bass lines, scratching rhythm guitars and thumping, complex drums with dense kicks, were tailor made for basement parties and night clubs, and he knew it.

Let’s talk about beatboxing for a moment. It seems crazy, but Jackson very well may have invented beatboxing as we know it today. Don’t believe it? Go to his composition “Blues Away” on The Jacksons’ 1976 self-titled album. Right before the outro, Jackson imitated a drum pattern and revving electric guitar riff that was a template for Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, and The Fat Boys’ Buffy. In fact, he beat boxed all of his demos, beat boxed the rhythm tracks years before Timbaland did (See “Can’t Let Her Get Away,” “Tabloid Junkie,” and “Stranger in Moscow“). He gave an undeniable beatboxing exhibition before the world live during “Who Is It” in his 1993 interview with Oprah. Can you imagine Jackson and Slick Rick doing “La-Di-Da-Di” together?

Jackson was also a sample trailblazer. He paid Jazz/Funk saxophonist Manu Dibango to interpolate his Swahili refrain for “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” Thirty-Five years later, the world is still singing “Mama Se Mama Sa, Mama Coo Sa!” He and Quincy Jones even sampled a Synclavier II preset for the intro to “Beat It.”

The Knowledge

If nothing else can be said of Michael Jackson, he was a student of the game, bigging up his mentors and educating the young’ns with the real. Don’t be fooled by all the “Heal The World,” “We Are The World,” and “Man in the Mirror” idealism. Sure, Jackson certainly saw the good in humanity and strived for peace, but he was as woke as a 5 Percenter. Jackson’s low-key militant Blackness and esoteric ancestral knowledge were not only evident in his wardrobe and in songs like “Earth Song” and “They Don’t Care About Us,” but also in his imagery.

Jackson’s treatment for The Jacksons’ “Can You Feel It” short film illustrated a celestial melding of fire and water, signifying the reconciliation of human and divine. “Black or White’s” infamous dance sequence in which MJ transformed from a Black Panther certainly couldn’t have been simply for aesthetic reasons, especially given the sociopolitical messaging of the lyrics and destruction of property during the dance. The magnum opus of Jackson’s knowledge of self came in the form of his 1992 “Remember The Time” short film. With an all-Black cast and Black director (John Singleton), Jackson attempted to negate the century-long rhetoric of whites as Egyptians. He reminded the world what the hard truth was, as if to say, remember the time when we were kings and queens? The real truth is the lighter his skin got from his vitiligo, the Blacker his music got…and Hip-Hop’s core is its Blackness.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

It all begins with descending distortion. The opening song on Michael Jackson’s 1995 double album, HIStory: Past, Present, and Future Book 1, starts with skittering distortion and sonic specters, until…you hear a scream. That scream is a harbinger of a man with a message; a musical legend here to exercise his demons while bringing bad tidings to his native country. HIStory is Jackson’s think piece on the world around him.

On its surface, the title HIStory: Past, Present, and Future Book 1 seemed to be a description of the music in and of itself. Disc 1, a collection of his 15 greatest hits, was the representation of Jackson’s past. Disc 2 seemingly represents the present with 15 brand new songs, as well as the future, indicating that he wasn’t done making music.

While there is truth to this, after 30 years, it’s apparent that the “future” portion of the title was a prophecy of issues that would befall the nation after the album’s release. With a team of producers like Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Dallas Austin, David Foster, and, most importantly, himself, Jackson’s thesis on how the powers-that-be manipulate the masses with fake news and celebrity obsession to render the society apathetic and numb to the unapologetic greed, historical erasure, and moral bankruptcy of so-called public servants and false prophets makes more sense in 2025.

(Michael Jackson performing “You Are Not Alone” at the 1995 MTV VMAs at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Photo credit: Getty Images)

At the same time, we gain insight into Jackson’s innermost fear, fury, and weariness, which helps us, as consumers, sympathize with other famous singers whose spirits are broken by fame.

I Was Disgusted by All The Injustice

Black musicians infusing socio-political commentary is a time-honored tradition. From Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” and Queen Latifah’s “U.N.I.T.Y.,” it is all but essential for any transcendent, transformative artist to speak on the times.

Jackson continued the tradition of Black artists commenting on social issues, but at first in his own way. Ever the optimist, Jackson penned idealistic songs of hope and unity, such as The Jacksons’ “Can You Feel It,” “Heal The World,” USA For Africa’s “We Are The World,” and “Another Part of Me.” As he grew older, Jackson made more realistic and pragmatic observations about social issues in “Scream,” featuring Janet Jackson, “They Don’t Care About Us,” “Earth Song,” and “HIStory.”

Jackson began to dabble with righteous indignation on his previous album, 1991’s Dangerous, with songs like “Jam” and “Why You Wanna Trip on Me.” But it was the album’s lead single, “Black or White,” that kicked off a new side of Jackson as a social commentator. Misinterpreted as a racial unity anthem, “Black or White” was actually a condemnation of white supremacy and their objectification of race mixing.

Songs on HIStory left zero room for allegory. “I’m tired of injustice, I’m tired of the schemes,” are the first lines on “Scream.” On “They Don’t Care About Us,” Jackson sings “I’m tired of being a victim of hate/You’re raping me of my pride, for God’s sake” over thunderous drums. The aurally ambitious title track asks, “How many victims must there be slaughtered in vain across the land?” Jackson was weary of pleading for peace, and he was calling out all who meant harm to society.

It’s no accident that “They Don’t Care About Us” is one of the five Michael Jackson short films to have reached over one billion YouTube views. Its message has become an anthem of protest all over the world in the 21st century. Meanwhile, “Earth Song” is one of the definitive musical statements regarding the planet’s environment since Jackson’s death, with the Grammys honoring the song with an all-star performance in 2010.

A Hounding Media In Hysteria

Jackson’s relationship with the media was always complex and tumultuous. Since the mid-1980s, the media have written scathing rhetoric about Jackson, his life, and his music. While he tried to use the press to his advantage, à la P.T. Barnum, the press was relentless and unforgiving.

Jackson alluded to his disdain as far back as 1982’s Thriller. The first verse of the opener, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” Jackson belts out, “I took my baby to the doctor, with a fever, but nothing he found/By the time this hit the street, they said she had a breakdown!”

The rumor-mongering that fueled Jackson’s paranoia started its documentation there. On his 1987 album, Bad, the closer, “Leave Me Alone,” was a veiled swipe at the news, while the Grammy-winning short film was a not-so-veiled swipe. Even on the Bad outtake, “Price of Fame,” he spoke candidly of the fishbowl in which he was living, as he sang on the pre-chorus, “Father always told me, ‘You won’t live a quiet life.’”

(Michael Jackson during his “HIStory Teaser” video. Photo credit: screenshot)

Once Jackson got to Dangerous in 1991, he felt he could be a little more direct. On “Why You Wanna Trip on Me,” Jackson exposed the media for spending too much time on his eccentricities and not enough time covering “world hunger,” “gang violence,” “homeless people,” and “street walkers.”

Following the 1993 accusations against him from Evan and Jordan Chandler, Jackson’s anger at the media reached its peak. Songs like “Scream,” “2Bad,” and “Money” were his unveiled commentary on how the media was a corrupt enterprise. “Money” finds Jackson rapping about the media (and possibly Evan Chandler) will go to great deceitful lengths for the almighty dollar: “If you show me the cash, then I will take it/If you ask me to lie, then I will fake it.”

“Tabloid Junkie” was his most viscerally fury-fueled track. Producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis incorporated his beatboxing as the main foundation of the track’s rhythm arrangement, indicating Jackson’s full commitment and dedication to the subject. While his singing on the verses sounds nearly unintelligible on first listen, the lyrics are dangerous and damning.

“Who’s the next for you to resurrect?
JFK exposed the CIA,
Truth be told, the grassy knoll,
Is a blackmail story, All your glory.”

The second verse exposes the media’s practices of forming narratives on both celebrities and the Black community:

“In the hood
Frame him if you could
Shoot to kill
To blame him if you will
If he dies, sympathize
Such false witnesses
Damn self-righteousness
In the black
Stab me in the back
In the face
To lie and shame the race
Heroine and Marilyn
As the headline stories of
All your glory.”

Jackson’s indictment of how celebrity headlines (i.e., Marilyn Monroe’s drug overdose) work to distract the public from more important issues as well as garner power for themselves, exemplified by lines like “To buy it is to feed it” and “To read it sanctifies it.”

“Tabloid Junkie” warned of the blurring lines between legitimate journalism and yellow journalism. Sadly, as social media, egotistical politicians spouting “alternative facts,” and AI technology dominate life, Jackson’s warnings came to pass.

Am I Invisible Because You Ignore Me

What made HIStory a tricky listen for some people is the messenger. This album, full of indictments on poor people and disenfranchised Blacks, came from a millionaire celebrity whose once dark skin tone was all but gone.

It may be easy for some to dismiss HIStory, particularly tracks like “D.S.” and “This Time Around,” as self-indulgent and self-serving victimhood, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure, Jackson was addressing the elephant in the room - the child molestation accusations from Evan and Jordan Chandler against him. But Jackson was, indeed, a victim. A victim of success, a victim of extortion, a victim of the shoddy justice system, a victim of physical and emotional abuse. Who better to deliver this message than someone who’s been through the fire?

HIStory is a canvas for Jackson to appeal to the people and his psyche about the invisibility he feels at this crucial point in his life. The line from “They Don’t Care About Us,” “Am I invisible because you ignore me,” not only speaks to the plight of Black men and women being treated as second-class citizens, but to Jackson’s personal invisibility.

“Stranger in Moscow” and “Childhood” embody Jackson’s unshakable sense of loneliness and judgment. The syncopated beatboxing that starts the former is an aural representation of the glaring eyes on him, but these eyes offer no empathy or connection. That frigid sensation that comes when everyone is paying attention to you but still not for any comforting objective is well-known by Jackson, who wrote, “How does it feel when you’re alone, and you’re cold inside?”

As musicians reach a level of fame and attention, many express feeling trapped, lonely, and mistreated. Songs like Justin Bieber’s “Lonely,” Kanye West’s “Pinocchio’s Story,” or Kendrick Lamar’s “Mortal Man” all illustrate how much fame has affected them and others. Jackson stated that “Childhood,” also the B-side to “Scream,” is his most autobiographical song. The song, featuring sweeping string arrangements from David Foster (who worked on “Earth Song” and “Smile”), features some of Jackson’s best vocals and is at his most unfiltered.

Jackson sings about how his love for childlike things stems from the loss of his childhood while training and achieving his dream as a music star since age five. “It’s been my fate to compensate for the childhood I’ve never known,” Jackson sang with powerful falsetto. He explained before and after the song’s release about how much of the world’s turmoil stems from the loss of innocence in children. As a result, we get emotionally stunted adults who are selfish, misguided, and angry, leading to war, crime, and corruption. Unfortunately, because “no one understands me” and viewed his connection with children as “strange eccentricities,” his words in the song, his 1993 Grammy speech, and his 2001 Oxford keynote address were ignored.

Despite the criticism and the allegations, HIStory would not be denied. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “You Are Not Alone” became the first single ever to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was nominated for Album of the Year at the 1996 Grammys, and it’s currently at 8x platinum in America.

Even with its commercial success, particularly overseas, HIStory serves a greater purpose today than it did in 1995. The state of politics and media proves that Jackson was right about many things. While it won’t be heralded as the great prophetic pieces of work like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, or Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, HIStory deserves recognition as a masterstroke of social commentary. In “Childhood,” Jackson sang, “Before you judge me, try hard to love me.” As it turns out, the world still loves Michael Jackson.

“I don’t care about having a legacy; I don’t care about being remembered. The most important thing for me is…what can we do for each other that can make life easier, make life doper for our kids as they grow.” – Kanye West, Time Magazine 2015

Call Kanye West whatever you like - a MAGA supporter, a father, an antisemite, a narcissist, a fashion mogul, a victim of mental illness, an innovator, a self-hating elitist - one thing he’ll always be is a recording artist.

Now, the moniker “recording artist” is often overused & misused, but for West, it’s a spot-on description. It’s a disservice to call him just a rapper, especially since his production skills are more potent. However, identifying him as a rapper/producer also misses the point.

West sees himself as an artist. After all, he was a visual artist as a youth. He was so serious and talented that he attended an art college before ultimately dropping out to work on music full-time. However, his passion for making music videos, shoes, fashion, and live staging speaks mostly to his roots as a visual artist.

“I am a pop artist, so my medium is public opinion, and the world is my canvas,” West said at the Art Institute of Chicago after being given a 2015 honorary doctorate (which has since been rescinded over his aforementioned antics). He considers himself a provocateur and futurist.

This is why West resents his fifth album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (MBDTF). If you ask fans and critics, this album is considered a masterpiece. Pitchfork gave the album a 10 out of 10 score, calling it “an instant greatest hits, the ultimate realization of his strongest talents.” If you ask West, that is what he was trying to do…and that was the problem.

West wants his music to reflect his progressive spirit, and not sound like the last record. More importantly, West needs to feel like the world is against him in order to do his best work.

“I’m not here to make easy listening, easy programmable music.” – Kanye West, BBC1 2013

(Kanye West at Yankee Stadium, Sept. 13, 2010, in New York. AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

When it comes to his music, West has never wanted to repeat himself as a solo artist. After establishing himself as a premier record producer for artists like Jay-Z, Twista, and Talib Kweli, his “Chipmunk Soul” soul sound, named after speeding up the vocals on R&B records from the 1960s and 1970s, reached its zenith on his 2004 debut, The College Dropout.

The following year, when fans expected more of the same, he enhanced his sound with symphonic orchestral arrangements, courtesy of co-producer Jon Brion. Late Registration was birthed and fans ate it up.

Then in 2007, West took the lessons he learned from opening for U2 on tour and crafted a stadium sound, with more electronic instrumentation, simpler hooks, and pop samples. With Graduation, West achieved his dream of being the biggest rapper in the world.

Unfortunately, the death of West’s mother, Dr. Donda West, shortly after Graduation’s release dampened what should have been a victorious time. Coupled with the end of his engagement, West abandoned all previous conventions for his next album, opting to sing instead of rap. He recruited Kid Cudi, mentor No ID, and Jeff Bhasker to match the somber lyrics of loss with synth pop and icy polyrhythms. The result was the polarizing, but insanely influential 808’s & Heartbreak.

West managed to reinvent himself at every turn. His first four albums pushed Hip-Hop to heights that few have tried or thought were possible. Then on September 29, 2009, everything changed.

At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), West infamously interrupted Taylor Swift after she won her award for Best Female Video of the Year. “Imma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the greatest videos of all time!”

(Kanye West performing “Runaway” at the 2010 MTV VMAs. AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

West was panned by every fan, critic, news outlet, and even U.S. President Barack Obama, for his disrespectful act. The backlash prompted him into a self-inflicted exile overseas. After stints in Japan and Rome, West headed to Hawaii’s Avex Studios, where he remained for six months.

Determined to win back the respect of this public, he crafted a “rap camp” of the best group of MCs, producers, beat makers, and singers he could muster:

Drake, Alicia Keys, Elton John, The RZA, Pete Rock, Rick Ross, John Legend, Jay-Z, Q-Tip, Pusha T, Raekwon the Chef, Kid Cudi, Fergie, Nicki Minaj, Teyana Taylor, Mike Dean, Bink!, No I.D., and more. West was on a mission to create an album guaranteed to get love and appreciation from fans. The result of course was My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Released in November 2010, MBDTF debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. It received universal critical praise and is certified triple platinum. Songs like “POWER,” “Runaway,” and “All of the Lights” became instant classics for West. The album received five Grammy nominations, winning three.

West’s plan worked. He was back in the public’s good graces. It kicked off the pinnacle of his popularity, extended by popular follow-up collaborative projects of 2011’s Watch The Throne with Jay-Z and 2012’s Cruel Summer with his G.O.O.D. Music label roster. But he wasn’t satisfied with merely being popular, because, to him, all it meant was that he did what he hadn’t before: compromised his artistic integrity.

Ever since 2013, West has tried to distance himself from MBDTF, stating that it’s an “apology” album, not a representation of his natural artistic progression.

“So many people rate Dark Fantasy as one of the best albums, and Yeezus and 808s are so much better and stronger. Dark Fantasy is almost like an apology record,” West would say in a 2015 interview, In Camera: SHOWstudio Live.

“‘POWER’ was the least progressive song that I ever had as a first single. It was me going back and spending six dedicated months and kind of piecing together what people liked about me to make an entire bouquet that they loved, that was the most listenable, that was the least challenging.”

(Kanye West performing “POWER” at the 2010 BET Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on June 27, 2010, in Los Angeles. Michael Caulfield/WireImage)

When analyzed, MBDTF indeed is an amalgamation of his preceding solo efforts, as well as foreshadowing future releases:

“Devil in a New Dress” was the soul sound of The College Dropout.
“Runaway” is carried by the orchestral arrangements reminiscent of Late Registration. “POWER” has Graduation’s anthemic stadium bombast.
“Lost in the World” blends melody and worldly drumming heard on 808s & Heartbreak.
“Hell of a Life” informs what Yeezus will be later.

Yeezus carries more favor in West’s mind because it was the anti-MBDTF album. It was a defiant album, a direct reaction to MBDTF’s premeditated approach and the incorporation of contemporary Hip-Hop trends on Watch the Throne and Cruel Summer. West no longer wanted “to speak with textures of the time,” such as the trap drum programming heard on his hit songs “Mercy,” “Clique,” and “Cold.”

“I showed people that I understand how to make ‘perfect.’ Dark Fantasy can be considered to be perfect,” West told Zane Lowe during a 2013 BBC One interview. “I know how to make perfect, but that’s not what I’m here to do. I’m here to crack the pavement and make new grounds sonically and in society, culturally.”

Like 808’s, Yeezus was polarizing to fans. Its blend of abrasive, industrial production with dancehall vocal samples was either loved or loathed by listeners. To West, he enjoyed both opinions, as long as the reaction was strong and obvious.

“Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it; I guess every superhero needs his theme music.” – Kanye West, “POWER”

The entirety of West’s success is predicated on an endless throng of people telling him he can’t do something. Early in his career, West’s desire to rap was cresting as he began to ascend as a go-to producer for acts like Jay-Z, Beenie Siegel, Scarface, Talib Kweli, and Twista. He’d been in a rap group in his younger days, but after hitting pay dirt with beats like “Izzo (H.O.V.A),” “Overnight Celebrity,” and “Get By,” everyone was telling him to leave rap alone.

When West went to record companies in search of a deal, executives either laughed or, as illustrated in the Netflix documentary Jeen-Yus, straight-up ignored him. On one occasion, executives laughed at West behind closed doors mere moments after he performed an early version of “Jesus Walks” before them.

(Kanye West performing “Runaway” at the 2011 Coachella festival. Getty Images/Jeff Kravitz)

Even his own label boss, Dame Dash, admitted he only signed him to a contract to secure his infectious beat-making exclusively for Rocafella Records artists. After West self-financed his debut music video, “Through The Wire,” a song that embodied West’s incomparable spirit to overcome adversity, Dash finally put more energy into promoting what would later become The College Dropout.

Right from the get-go, West let everyone know how much the naysayers fueled his drive to succeed. In public, fans were taken aback by West’s bravado and arrogance when it came to his artistry and rap acumen. What seems like egocentrism on the surface is just the byproduct of a man converting negative energy into positive movement. He explains in The College Dropout’s closer, “Last Call:”

“Last year shoppin’ my demo, I was tryin’ to shine,
Every motherfucker told me that I couldn’t rhyme,
Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem,
Or us my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams,
I use it as my gas, so they say that I’m gassed,
But without it, I’d be last, so I ought to laugh.”

Fast forward to 2009. Up until the VMAs incident, West had risen to superstar status as a rapper, producer, and live performer. Once he interrupted Swift, his good cache with the public and press all but completely went out the window.

Ironically, it gave West the type of motivation to create his best work. On “POWER,” he says, “Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it/I guess every superhero needs his theme music.” West once again was feeding on the racist comments and death threats he’d been repeatedly receiving on social media, and it led to MBDTF’s overall sheen of sophistication and sonic maximalist production and arrangements.

However, once again, West resented the success of MBDTF, not only because of the motivation behind creating it but because it turned him into the biggest music star on the face of the earth. So, he was now ready to get back to being an icon of polarization with 2013’s Yeezus.

On the track “I Am a God,” West explained his rationale behind creating an album that alienated himself from what most fans had grown to love about him.

“As soon as they like you, make ’em unlike you/’cause kissin’ people’s ass is so unlike you.”

From that point on, West has been on a mission to create strictly from a stream-of-consciousness point of view. The approach of recording 2016 The Life of Pablo live in the open - constantly making tweaks and adjustments, even after the album was released - speaks to his need to be in the moment at all times.

The impulsive choice of re-recording 2018’s Ye album after his so-called “slavery is a choice” fiasco with TMZ is the latest example of West defiantly surrendering to the muse; with little concern for the fans’ ability to digest the music.

Another factor for West’s resentment of an album that everyone loves is that it causes fans to ask for more of the same. When you do something so radical that it becomes law, fans expect you to obey the law.

West is not alone in this sentiment.

Trumpeter Miles Davis resented the public’s perception of 1959’s Kind of Blue. “Well, my main thing is to create and not to compare. You understand that? I don’t wanna be like I used to be years ago, you know what I mean,” the trumpeter said in a 1983 Jazz Forum interview. “I hope I’ve advanced through all the years in the sound and composition. Stravinsky never wrote anything the same way.”

Rapper Nas expressed that he was fed up with the deification of his 1994 debut album, Illmatic. Like Davis, Nas said that there’s more to him than that one body of work.

“I’m tired of celebrating it,” Nas admitted during a 2019 interview with Haute Living Magazine. “I’m very grateful—it’s so crazy—but to celebrate one album when I’ve made over 10, all the things I’ve worked on—and I’ve been working for so long—to celebrate one album over all else is corny to me. I don’t want to celebrate another Illmatic anything. I’m done. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for appreciating that record, but it’s over.”

Then there’s Michael Jackson, the late superstar who influenced West the most (West dedicated MBDTF to Jackson in the album’s liner notes). The King of Pop was forever judged by Thriller, the biggest-selling album in music history. He spent the second half of his life trying to live up to the public’s and critics’ expectations that the 1982 blockbuster established.

“Invincible is just as good, if not better than Thriller, in my true, humble opinion. It has more to offer,” Jackson told USA Today in 2001.

Jackson said in his 1988 autobiography, Moon Walk, that Thriller’s conception was the result of his anger due to not receiving enough recognition from his 1979 multi-platinum album, Off The Wall. After only receiving two Grammy nominations, including Best R&B Vocal Performance for “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jackson vowed not to be relegated to being just a Black artist. “They won’t be able to ignore the next album,” he wrote.

(Kanye West performing at the 2011 Coachella festival.)

No one could ignore MBDTF when it dropped either. West had succeeded in his plan to regain the public’s respect, but he wasn’t interested in spoon-feeding music listeners with relics of the past. Why? Because West couldn’t evolve by doing so. The process of staying true to his first reaction while making his post-Yeezus solo projects is just as responsible for destroying the public’s good faith in him as a recording artist as his public antics, rants, breakdowns, and rhetoric.

But then again, the man did tell us, after all, that he didn’t care about having a legacy. And as he moves past music into growing his billion-dollar shoe and fashion empire, he continues to seek evolution.

“I have to define who I am. All of my aspirations are things that currently only 60-year-old white people do. So, I have to redefine and let people know exactly who I am.”

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

(Stevie Wonder portrait. Illustrated by Quincy Ray. Following him on Instagram @quincyray_)

If you ask Stevie Wonder fans what his prime was, ten times out of ten, they’ll tell you the 1970s. Who can blame them?

During the 1970s, Wonder released eight albums, had 12 top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and earned 12 of his 25 Grammys, including three consecutive Album of the Year wins. His fabled “classic period” from 1972 - 1976, including albums like Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life, is unrivaled in the annals of American music history.

Adversely, Wonder’s 1980s output isn’t looked at as favorably. Much of his catalog during the “Me Decade,” including songs like “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” “Part-Time Lover,” and his participation in star-curated charity hit singles “We Are The World” and “That’s What Friends Are For,” are dismissed as schmaltzy, over-produced songs not worthy of praise like his earlier material.

Ironically, Wonder saw the success he had amassed in the 1970s increase in the 1980s. Despite only dropping four studio albums in that decade, all of them reached platinum certifications. Wonder earned 15 top ten Billboard R&B singles (six reached number one), accumulating 22 Grammy nominations (two wins) and winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”

Was this a result of him selling out and dumbing down his songwriting to reach a wider audience?

Not actually. Here’s why.

(Back cover of Stevie Wonder’s The Woman in Red motion picture soundtrack album, released in 1984.)

Wonder was a victim of his innovation. He was one of the first Black artists to embrace electronic technology to record his music, after linking with engineers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff - creators of the massive multi-timbral synthesizer TONTO - in late 1971.

One of the biggest differences between the sound of Wonder’s 1970s catalog and his 1980s catalog was that the latter saw a full-on immersion into digital recording and production, whereas the former featured a more balanced marriage of electronic and acoustic instrumentation.

Look at a song like “Superstition.” While its main components came from several layers of clavinet, Arp, and Moog synthesizers, live drums, and brass served as a perfect counterpoint.

As the 1970s progressed, artists like George Clinton (“Flashlight”) and Herbie Hancock (“Come Running To Me”) began to follow Wonder’s lead. As that decade closed, synths and drum machines were the rules, not the exception.

The end of the 1970s also proved to be a pivot point for Wonder. For his 1979 album, Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants, he recorded it fully digital for the first time. Wonder used mostly synthesizers, keyboards, and drum machines, all but exclusively to record what’s, in essence, a symphonic orchestral film score. Although much of the music itself was pleasant and emotional, the full digital production gave it an undertone of iciness.

Secret Life of Plants, Wonder’s first release following his magnum opus Songs in the Key of Life, received a less-than-welcoming reception, as fans and critics were perplexed and let down. As a result, 1980’s Hotter Than July was hailed as a return to Wonder’s classic form for some. While also another fully digital recording, he continued his prodigious blend of technology and live instrumentation. The tight 10-song set incorporated a variety of sounds and genres, much like his 1970s albums.

(Stevie Wonder with Lionel Richie at the 1982 American Music Awards. Wonder won the Lifetime Achievement Award. Getty Images)

“Master Blaster (Jammin’),” Wonder’s homage to reggae icon Bob Marley, shot to the top of the Billboard R&B charts and the top five on the pop charts. “I Ain’t Gonna Stand For It,” Wonder’s first foray into country music, peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. “All I Do” and “Lately” became classic fan favorites.

Hotter Than July concluded with what could be considered Wonder’s most enduring composition ever: “Happy Birthday.” Conceived as a tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and outcry for the slain civil rights leader’s birthday to become a national holiday, Black folks everywhere adopted its chorus and coda for every birthday cake candle blow-out to this day.

Wonder’s next release, 1982’s Original Musiquariam I, was a double LP compilation of the biggest hits from his imperial era. He included four brand new songs in the collection, and three of them, “Ribbon in the Sky,” “That Girl,” and “Do I Do,” stood head-and-shoulders with Stevie Wonder’s classic canon.

“Ribbon” and “That Girl” followed the DIY tradition of songs like “You Are The Sunshine of My Life” and “Knocks Me Off My Feet,” combining live acoustic instruments with understated synthesizers, while “Do I Do” was a cousin of “Sir Duke,” recruiting a full band of the best and brightest session musicians of the day.

The odd song out on the Musiquarium, “Front Line,” was a prelude to what was to come.

A first-person account of a Vietnam veteran coming home from war to find little to no opportunity and dealing with the aftermath of PTSD, “Front Line” was a contemporary progression of “Living For The City.” However, it had a tinge of preachiness and lacked the righteous indignation of the former. Also, where “Living For The City” had a warmth in its production as Stevie played every instrument, the production of “Front Line” was flat and two-dimensional.

(Getty Images)

In 1984, Wonder dropped the soundtrack to The Woman in Red. This project found songs completely void of acoustic instruments, adjacent to songs with live studio musicians and string sections. The transitions between robotic production up-tempo cuts like the title track and “Don’t Drive Drunk” and organic ballads like “It’s You” and “Weakness” were stark, to say the least.

However, the hit dance single “Love’s Light in Flight” remains a jovial number and contains an electro-funk vibe that’s both time-tested and nostalgic.

Wonder’s final two albums of the decade, 1985’s In Square Circle and 1987’s Characters, had nary a trace of live instruments. Like most acts in the latter part of the decade, the production and engineering watermarked songs like “Part-Time Lover,” “Go Home,” and “Skeletons” to the era.

Compared to 1970s era songs like “I Wish” and “Boogie On Reggae Woman,” fans feel like much of Wonder’s 1980s songs had a cyborg feel and hindered the heart that went into crafting these songs.

Looking under the surface, however, many of these compositions have the same strength as his prime. Had songs like “With Each Beat of My Heart,” “My Eyes Don’t Cry,” and “Never In Your Sun” been recorded during his classic run, people may have felt differently about these songs.

Another important context to consider when reappraising Wonder’s 1980s catalog is the socio-political climate for Black America in that decade, and Wonder’s response to that musically and personally.

(L-R) Ahmet Ertegun, Paul Simon, Jann Wenner, Stevie Wonder, son, and daughter attending the Fourth Annual Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Awards on January 18, 1989, at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City, New York. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)

While his actions were byproducts of Black American civil disobedience in the 1960s and 1970s, Wonder’s music reflected a more subdued timbre of the Black experience during the 1980s.

The “Me Decade” was defined by assimilation between Black and white America. African-Americans spent much of the previous decade with the fullest understanding of their place in the country, how the white upper echelon thought of them, and openly embraced their sense of independence and heritage.

Sadly, though, the opportunity to live in the suburbs and have disposable income superseded knowledge of self. If Black folks spent the 1970s being woke, the 1980s found many of them taking sleeping pills because it was easier to believe that things were better, via assimilation, than the reality of what the way things were.

Like every movement in the culture of Black America, the songs were the mirror of the mindsets and lifestyle of what writer Nelson George dubbed the “post-soul nation.” The tracklist of that soundtrack included music from Lionel Richie, Whitney Houston, Anita Baker, Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson, Melba Moore, and others. The thematic focus on relationships, good times, and the sleek, polished production and engineering described the aspiration aspect of Black ideals.

George wrote, “Economic clout has granted many black cultural figures an unprecedented level of financial control over their art. Once Berry Gordy was the patron saint of black capitalism, but Godfather Bill Cosby, singer/conglomerate Michael Jackson, TV host/producer Oprah Winfrey, and a legion of others enjoy total product control — though, significantly, not distribution control — over their hunk of culture. That’s an undeniable result of genuine integration.”

Wonder no longer had the time to present a statement in a poetic, nuanced way with coded language. If he was going to get his point across, he needed to make it plain.

Let’s look at a song from each era: 1973’s “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” and 1985’s “It’s Wrong (Apartheid).”

The instrumentation and arrangement of “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” evoke a mid-tempo gospel song, heavy with bass and piano, with a vamp out of exuberant, almost ostentatious drum soloing. The lyrics were addressing former President Richard Nixon amid the Watergate scandal, but his name is never spoken. It describes a sheisty individual who gets where he wants by deception, narcissism, and capitalistic obsession. So many men could fit that mold.

“It’s Wrong (Apartheid)”, on the other hand, lets you know just from reading the tracklist what you’re going to expect. The production is a slick collection of synthesized poly-rhythms and African chants. The chorus is self-explanatory: “You know Apartheid is wrong/It’s wrong/Like slavery was wrong/Like the Holocaust was wrong/Apartheid is wrong/It’s wrong.”

When you turn on the radio today or watch what songs award shows are honoring in the 21st century, you begin to realize that maybe the simplistic, synth-heavy Stevie Wonder songs from the 1980s weren’t so bad. People who slammed “I Just Called To Say I Love You” may pray that such a song is popular today.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

The last two years have been interesting for Lupe Fiasco. In June 2024, the Chicago MC dropped his latest LP, Samurai, to critical acclaim. He started 2025 with news that he’s joining Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute as a rap professor in the fall semester. He also announced his collaboration with MIT (where he previously taught), “Endless Lup,” an AI-powered radio station that creates and plays AI-generated Lupe Fiasco songs on FM radio, which sparked polarizing responses from critics.

Backlash from the AI-related projects aside, dropping acclaimed rap albums and securing teaching gigs at prestigious Ivy League institutions are accomplishments few get to experience. But despite this success, Lupe’s career is still followed by “what-if” questions. He’s a well-respected MC, a rapper’s rapper, if you will; someone whose lyrical ability and output exceed his pop culture appeal, like The Roots’ Black Thought, Little Brother’s Phonte Coleman, or Immortal Technique. But if you rewind to Lupe’s debut album in the mid-2000s, he seemed poised to become a new leader in thoughtful hip-hop and an antidote to the Gangsta Rap that was needed to balance out the market.

Lupe’s notoriety was cresting with each release of his first two albums. By 2009, it seemed like he was going to leap into mainstream success while still keeping his musical principles. His third album, Lasers, was, indeed, the turning point of Lupe’s career, but for all the wrong reasons.

(Lupe Fiasco performing live, circa 2011. Photo Credit: Casey Rodgers/AP Images for Fuse)

Let’s go back to 2005. Lupe Fiasco, born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, was a 23-year-old rapper who was dropped by Arista Records and was about to get his first big break. Budding rap superstar and fellow Chicagoan Kanye West had a guest spot for him on his sophomore album, Late Registration. Lupe took advantage of the spotlight, rhyming the final verse of West’s “Touch The Sky.” Lupe raps with scholarly dexterity while possessing a youthful vocal tone. His verse skillfully mixed references and double entendres that melded Japanese Manga characters, gunplay, and 1980s cartoon ThunderCats.

Lupe had arguably the most memorable verse on West’s album, which went five times platinum and earned three Grammys. After Jay-Z caught wind of Lupe’s ability, the then-president of Def Jam assisted in getting Lupe signed to Atlantic. The stage was set for Lupe’s debut album, 2006’s Food & Liquor.

Food & Liquor set Lupe apart from his peers. He was a Chicago rapper who had “nerd” aesthetics. Critics considered him part of the next wave of so-called backpack rappers, like Mos Def and Talib Kweli. Songs like “Kick, Push,” an ode to his skateboarding days in Chicago, and “Daydreamin’,” a soulful collaboration with Jill Scott, propelled Food & Liquor to three Grammy nominations, including a Best Urban Alternative Performance win for “Daydreamin’.”

In 2007, Lupe put out The Cool, showing off his ability to craft a large-scale narrative on wax. Along with more critical acclaim, The Cool included Lupe’s first top 10 Billboard Hot 100 single, “Superstar,” featuring singer Matthew Santos. True to form, “Superstar” spoke of the darker side of achieving fame and adoration, proving that Lupe could get a crossover hit without dumbing down (no pun intended) his substance. The Cool became Lupe’s first platinum album. His stock was rising, and he was primed to make a commercial breakthrough with his next album.

With The Cool being a sprawling conceptual double album, Lupe’s third album would be a more succinct, focused piece with a clear message of rebellion and unity. In 2009, Lupe began the rollout for his third album, then titled We Are Lasers.

Fans’ first glimpse of We Are Lasers came via a promo video that featured a collection of people of different races and ages reciting an audacious manifesto:

“We want an end to we want to end the glamorization of negativity in the media,
We want to end the status symbols dictating our worth as individuals,
We want a meaningful and Universal education system,
We want substance in the place of popularity,
We will not compromise who we are to be accepted by the crowd,
We want the invisible walls that separate by wealth race and class to be torn down,
We want to think our own thoughts,
We will be responsible for our environment,
We want Clarity and truth from our elected officials where they should move aside,
We want love, not Lies,
We want an end to all wars foreign and domestic,
We want an end to the processed culture of exploitation over consumption and waste,
We want knowledge, understanding, and peace,
We will not lose because we are not losers;
We are Lasers.”

The promo was soundtracked by a new song, “Shining Down,” with Lupe teaming up once again with “Superstar” collaborator, Matthew Santos. Much more sonically and melodically urgent than “Superstar,” “Shining Down” was a diagnosis of an American society ruled by apathy and distraction. Lupe was putting lyricism up front as a weapon for revolution.

As “Shining Down” unofficially leaked, We Are Lasers’ first promotional single was “I’m Beamin’.” Teaming up with The Neptunes again on production for the first time since Food & Liquor, “I’m Beamin’” finds Lupe celebrating his ability to juxtapose two opposing vantage points. “You see, I hood a lot, and yeah, I nerd some/hood’s where the heart is, nerd’s where the words’ from.” Raised on the West Side of Chicago next to a crack house, Lupe’s parents exposed him to higher education and eclectic music, which all informed his lyrical prowess and demeanor.

With two outstanding singles out in the open and an ambitious promo video, We Are Lasers was about to be THAT album for him...until it wasn’t.

Lupe submitted the album to Atlantic Brass in 2009, but nothing happened. At the top of 2010, he announced he would debut the songs from the album during a national tour. He told MTV News that his label was holding up the album’s release. “Lasers [is coming] soon,” Lupe said. “It’s on my label Atlantic, so they have it, it’s finished. I’m just waiting for them to give me a release date to put it out.”

The 21-city tour came and went, and 2010 closed with no album. Fans even signed a petition to get Atlantic Records to release the album. Label interference is apparently what kept the LP from dropping. Lupe stated that Atlantic felt that there weren’t any commercial singles on the submitted We Are Lasers.

“I don’t think the label cares about an album,” Lupe told MTV News. “I don’t think n---as care. People just want their number-one record. They don’t care about the rest of the album.” Eventually, Lupe conceded to Atlantic, recording songs they felt would crossover to the pop audience. One of those songs was “The Show Goes On,” a stadium-ready anthem built from a sample of Modest Mouse’s “Float On.”

On March 8, 2011, nearly two years after submitting We Are Lasers, Atlantic Records released Lupe’s third album, now simply entitled Lasers. The cover art featured the word “losers” with an “A” spray-painted over the “o,” the universal symbol for anarchy. While the original aesthetic of the album previewed in the initial 2009 promo video seemed intact on the outside, the tracklist of Lasers didn’t fully live up to what the manifesto was hinting at.

Songs like “The Show Goes On,” “Out of My Head” featuring Trey Songz, “Never Forget You” with John Legend, and “I Don’t Wanna Care Right Now” watered down the album. These tracks diluted the punch that songs like “Words I Never Said” with Skylar Grey and “All Black Everything” were packing. The former is one of the most politically charged rap tracks of the decade, condemning the war on terror, the country’s subpar education system, and even criticizing U.S. President Barack Obama for alleged war-mongering. The latter is a satirically utopian fantasy of American life if all Caucasian institutions and icons were turned Black and vice versa.

Lasers debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, while “The Show Goes On” peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming his second top 10 hit on the chart. The label got its hit record, but compared to The Cool’s “Superstar,” a more organic hit, it came off as cheesy pop audience pandering. Worst of all, both “Shining Down” and “I’m Beamin’” were removed from Lasers’ final tracklist (They’d later be included on future Lasers re-releases as bonus tracks). The omission of these two essential tracks effectively bleached Lasers of all its original character and intentionality.

Now, this is not to say that Lasers didn’t have room for lighter material. Many Black albums with front-facing socio-political content organically sequenced with songs of love and whimsy, like Bob Marley & the Wailers’ Exodus, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, or Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions. However, the label imposed its influence on Lasers’ tracklist quite severely, and Lupe didn’t have the leverage to maintain his vision the way Marley, Jackson, and Wonder could.

Label interference isn’t a new concept. It predates Lasers and has happened to some of the biggest artists in history. When Eminem submitted The Marshall Mathers LP to Interscope Records in 2000, label head Jimmy Iovine told him to record a track that was “lighter,” reminiscent of the breakout hit “My Name Is…” from the previous album, to introduce the album. Eminem was able to create “The Real Slim Shady” in the 11th hour, but also made the brooding “The Way I Am” out of frustration from the pressure of following a formula.

In 2010, Atlanta Rap legend Big Boi turned in his first solo album, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, to Jive, the label where he and his OutKast partner Andre 3000 made all their classic albums. Jive executives felt that the album was very artistic and asked Big Boi to record a song like Lil Wayne’s hit single “Lollipop” to be the first single. The Grammy winner was understandably dumbfounded. “But how could you ask me, as an MC, to bite another man’s style? That’s crazy,” Big Boi told Rolling Stone. As a result, Big Boi asked Jive to release him, and Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty was released on Def Jam.

Despite its No. 1 debut, Lasers failed to meet the expectations of everyone - fans, critics, Atlantic Records, and most of all, Lupe. It achieved gold certification, but all of the upward momentum of Lupe’s career was halted, and it never recovered. He released Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1 the following year, hoping to make a more definitively political statement with songs like “Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free),” “Bad Bitch” and “Lamborghini Angels.” Recorded during the Lasers sessions, Food & Liquor II earned Lupe a Best Rap Album Grammy nomination and another gold album. But it was too late. The public moved on from Lupe. Also, controversies began to pile up.

The 2012 single “Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free),” sampled Tom Scott’s “Today,” the same sample Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth used for their 1992 classic, “They Reminisce Over You.” Rock was publicly displeased with Lupe over the usage, saying he felt “violated.” In January 2013, Lupe was scheduled to perform as part of an unofficial inauguration ball for President Obama’s re-election. He only performed the first verse of “Words I Never Said” over and over, criticizing Obama as an act of protest. This led to him being rushed off-stage. And while Lupe’s public cache was dipping, another young rapper was ascending.

In 2012, another socially conscious rapper, Kendrick Lamar, dropped his major label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d. city, and very well may have scratched the public’s itch for a rapper like they expected Lupe to be. Like Lupe, Lamar combined the world-weary tales and observations from his dangerous city (Compton, CA) with the loving influence of his parents. But Lamar’s trajectory grew and grew with each release, and today is considered one of the greatest of all time.

Certainly, Lupe is regarded as one of the most gifted MCs of the 21st century. His latter albums, Tetsuo & Youth, Drogas - Wave, and Drill Music in Zion, are deft offerings of immaculate lyricism not easily matched by his peers (listen to “Murals”). In addition, Lupe possesses a prodigious knack for crafting cohesive narratives across his albums. Like Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city, To Pimp a Butterfly, and DAMN., Lupe’s The Cool, Drogas - Wave, and most recently Samarai, are all dense works that tell full stories, with compelling characters and character arcs. However, Lupe’s albums post-Lasers never managed to produce any singles that appealed to a broader audience the way Lamar has managed to do for over a decade.

This distinction has led many to speculate that Lupe began to lash out at Lamar out of jealousy. In 2018, he took to Twitter, expressing that Lamar’s infamous verse on Big Sean’s “Control” was “wack” and that Lamar is “not a top-tier lyricist.” In 2024, Lupe weighed in on Lamar’s highly publicized battle with rap superstar Drake, posting that he felt Drake was a superior rapper to Lamar.

While it’s easy to accuse Lupe of aiming misplaced anger towards Lamar, it’s not that simple - it may just boil down to plain subjectivity. Regardless of any alleged animosity Lupe may or may not have toward Lamar, it doesn’t take away from the fact that Atlantic Records is the main villain in this story. Atlantic withholding Lasers for nearly two years, removing its most potent material due to metrics, and making Lupe record tepid pop-rap for chart success at the tactics (while ironically rejecting songs like “Nothing on You” and “Airplanes” that became big hits for B.o.B.) kept Lupe from ascending to the commercial acceptance he seemed destined to reach on his own merit. Atlantic continued to push pop-centric records on Lupe up to his final album on the label, 2015’s Tetsuo & Youth.

(Lupe Fiasco during the music video for “Words I Never Said.” Photo credit: screenshot from YouTube)

Mainstream success isn’t the main metric for overall success, though. Lupe still managed to release stellar albums after Lasers and landed teaching gigs at institutions like MIT. His forthcoming professorship at Johns Hopkins will be more of a one-on-one style, where he teaches rap technique. His new AI project Endless Lup, as well as RhymenShop - a Data Compression Service where fans come to concerts to retrieve unreleased Lupe tracks with a USB - are alternative ways for Lupe to connect with his audience, regardless of the controversial implications surrounding the former.

What’s certain is that times are different today than in 2009. With the evolution of streaming, online home recording, and the prominence of independent companies, his original conception of We Are Lasers could’ve escaped the clutches of a record company that only cares about the bottom line. Hopefully, we’ll hear it one day in the form of an anniversary super deluxe release. You never know.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

One of the best albums to drop last year was Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out, their first album since 2009. It was great to hear that the duo sounded better than ever, even after such a long layoff. Same as Chance The Rapper, whose Star Line album, his first in six years, saw him return to form following his previous release, the maligned The Big Day.

This year, many big name artists have returned with superb albums after a lengthy hiatus - Bruno Mars, Jill Scott, J. Cole, Gnarls Barkley, A$AP Rocky, and Baby Keem, just to name a few. And yet, there are so many other legends we’ve been waiting for to return. The Moving Shrine will list some of those artists, how long it’s been since their last album, and the likelihood we’ll see the album before 2026 is over.

Solange
Years Since Last Album: 7
Last album: When I Get Home (2019)
Odds For 2026 Release: 3/10

Since 2008, Beyoncé’s baby sister has carved out her own path with her sophomore album, Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams. From that point, Solange stepped out of her superstar sister’s shadow with acclaimed projects like her True EP (2012) and the universally acclaimed A Seat at the Table (2016). Her last release, 2019’s When I Get Home, was an implicit homage to her homage to the sonic textures of her hometown, Houston. Tracks like “Binz” and “Almeda” were subtle odes to the city’s Chopped and Screwed production style. Over the years, she’s had her hands full, curating operas and ballets via her Saint Heron label. However, earlier this year, she dropped an eight-minute short film, Shakersss, that teased original music in the background. Could this be a soft launch for her next album? We’ll have to wait and see.

Raphael Saadiq
Years Since Last Album: 7
Last Album: Jimmy Lee (2019)
Odds For 2026 Release: 0/10

Raphael Saadiq’s last album, 2019’s Jimmy Lee, was a touching, poignant tribute to his older brother of the same name, whose drug addiction led him to succumb to AIDS. The album was full of meditations on addiction, like the soulful single, “Something Keeps Calling Me,” the danceable funk of “So Ready,” and political commentary on “Rikers Island.” During his hiatus, he stayed busy, most notably reuniting with his legendary trio, Tony! Toni! Tone! (T3) for a nationwide tour in 2023. The triumphant trek turned out to be a swan song for Saadiq’s older brother and T3 co-founder Dwayne Wiggins, who died of cancer in 2024. Despite the Grammy winner doing a one-man tour in 2025, a new album is something we’ll continue to wait for.

The Internet
Years Since Last Album: 7
Last album - Hive Mind (2018)
Odds For 2026 Release: 7/10

When Odd Future’s DJ Syd and keyboardist Matt Martians launched their own side project, The Internet, few would’ve thought they’d stand out like their counterparts Tyler, The Creator, Frank Ocean, and Earl Sweatshirt. But they did. The alt-R&B duo ballooned into a Grammy-nominated quintet in no time, thanks to Syd’s nonchalant but engaging vocals and spacey funk from Martians and guitarist Steve Lacy. Much has happened since their critically acclaimed Hive Mind. Syd dropped her third solo album, and Lacy, an in-demand producer for artists like Kendrick Lamar, became a household name thanks to his pop crossover hit, “Bad Habit.” But just when you thought The Internet was done, Syd posted photos on her IG of her, Martians, and Lacy back in the studio together last year. We are waiting!

Jay-Z
Years Since Last Album: 9
Last album: 4:44 (2017)
Odds For 2026 Release: 2/10

By 2017, Jay-Z had nothing left to prove. With more Grammys than any rapper in history, several platinum albums and singles to his name, a budding entertainment empire in Roc Nation, and his billionaire status with wife Beyonce, Shawn Carter could’ve coasted into retirement. But he didn’t. Turned out, he still had more to say. That year, he dropped 4:44, easily his most personal and unmasked album yet. Tackling social issues, preaching financial literacy, praising his mother for coming out, and apologizing to his wife for cheating over No I.D. beats, 4:44 was praised to the high heavens. Since then, he’s gone back into recording hibernation, but his lauded guest verse on DJ Khaled’s “God Did,” and news that he was asked to submit a verse on Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out, there are whispers that Jay-Z may have something left in the tank. Memphis Bleek said on the Drink Champs podcast that Jay is currently cooking up new music.

Maxwell
Years Since Last Album: 10
Last Album: blackSUMMER’Snight (2016)
Odds For 2026 Release: 2/10

Maxwell is one of the most recognizable voices of Neo-Soul. He’s been a transformative and reliable hitmaker since his 1996 debut, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite. But Maxwell is known for his long layoffs nearly as much as his music. Eight years after his 2001 album Now, Maxwell dropped the first of his self-described BLACKsummer’snight trilogy. The first installment earned him two Grammy Awards. Seven years later, part two, blackSUMMER’Snight, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. Fans were hoping the wait for the final installment, blacksummer’sNIGHT wouldn’t take as long after he released the single “Shame” in 2018, but no album came. In 2021, he announced that NIGHT was imminent with the release of his single, “OFF,” but again, no album. Following a Valentine’s Week performance cruise two months ago, we can only hope we’ll have new songs to sing along to by then.

Frank Ocean
Years Since Last Album: 10
Last album: Blonde (2016)
Odds For 2026 Release: 0.5/10

It would’ve been weird if Frank Ocean was NOT on this list. The enigmatic singer/songwriter has provided classic alt-R&B for himself and other artists, including Beyoncé, Tyler, the Creator, and more. Four years after his 2012 major label debut, channelORANGE, Ocean gave us Blonde (and Endless a couple of days before), subverting expectations sonically and conceptually, shocking fans and captivating critics to make what many consider a modern classic. With only a couple of loosey singles since like “Chanel” and “Biking,” Frank Ocean fans have waited nearly a decade for his next project. Following a disappointing performance and cancellation at the 2023 Coachella, Ocean went further into seclusion, only dropping scant posts to his IG for proof of life.

Janet Jackson
Years Since Last Album: 11
Last Album: Unbreakable (2015)
Odds For 2026 Release: 1/10

Janet Jackson has fully embraced her legacy artist mode. In the hiatus since her critically acclaimed Unbreakable album in 2015, she’s become a mom, got a divorce, got inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, booked residencies in Las Vegas, and toured the world a couple more times, still selling out arenas as she approaches her 60s. In 2018, she dropped the single “Made For Now” with Daddy Yankee, and announced a new album, Black Diamond, and accompanying tour in 2020. Well, we all know what happened to the world in 2020, and Jackson had to cancel her tour and shelved the album released. She returned to the road and Vegas since then, and insisted the Black Diamond album was still coming in a 2024 interview, but no other news has dropped since.

The Foreign Exchange
Years Since Last Album: 11
Last Album: Tales From the Land of Milk and Honey (2015)
Odds Of 2026 Release: 0/10

When Little Brother MC Phonte Coleman and Danish producer/instrumentalist Nicolay linked up to make their 2004 Connected album without ever sharing a studio together, people were taken by surprise by this unlikely, Transatlantic collaboration. But after five albums, they’ve carved a sizeable fan base for themselves, as well as a Grammy nomination, with their infectious blend of hip-hop, alternative-soul, and electronica. During their time, the built their own label, built a community of artists and collaborators like Zo!, Sy Smith, and Eric Roberson that have led to amazing projects, including their 2015 album, Tales From the Land of Milk and Honey. Since then, Phonte and Nicolay gave us solo projects, Phonte reunited with Little Brother’s Rapper Big Pooh for the amazing May The Lord Watch album, subsequent documentary. After the conclusion of Little Brother’s farewell tour, it’s not likely the next FE album will materialize anytime soon.

The Roots
Years Since Last Album: 12
Last Album: …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin (2014)
Odds For 2026 Release: 8/10

Ironically, since becoming Jimmy Fallon’s late night house band in 2009, The Roots have released some of their best work in the forms of 2009’s How I Got Over, 2011’s Undun, and their most recent album, 2014’s …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin. Roots drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson recently stated on Score: The Podcast that the reason behind the band’s longest hiatus between albums is largely due to the death of their longtime manager and producer, Rich Nichols. They’ve been teasing an album called Endgame for a few years, even giving an untitled single to Funkmaster Flex to play on Hot 97 in 2023. While Questlove has become an Oscar-winning documentary director and Black Thought dropped acclaimed solo projects in the interim, Thompson stated that the album was submitted in late 2025, with a 2026 release imminent.

Sade
Years Since Last Album: 16
Last album: Soldier of Love (2010)
Odds For 2026 Release: 0/10

With every Sade album comes a longer gap between albums. Since their 1985 debut Diamond Life, the gaps have increased, respectively, from one year, to two years, to four years, to six years, to 10 years, culminated with 2010’s Soldier of Love. Currently at the 15 year mark, fans are still holding out hope that a new Sade project will come, especially since the single “Young Lion” dropped late 2024. We won’t hold our breaths, but we’ll loving exhale should we get a new project and tour.

Erykah Badu
Years Since Last Album: 16
Last Album: New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) (2010)
Odds Of 2026 Release: 9/10

Much like her Neo-Soul counterparts D’Angelo, Maxwell, and Jill Scott, Erykah Badu makes art when she feels like. Her last two albums were the companions, New Amerykah Part One (2008) and Part Two (2010). From that point on, Badu made a 2015 mixtape, But You Caint Use My Phone, the closest she’s come to making a full-fledged project, including a lush cover of “Hello, It’s Me” with Andre 3000. Other than that, Badu has toured, DJ’d, and made an eccentric line of incense. But in 2025, she finally announced that she was collaborating on a new album with Alchemist. The album got an actual rollout: a title, Abi & Alan, release date, lead single, and press run with outlets like the Drink Champs podcast. Badu and Alchemist tested the album for live audiences during a brief summer tour, leading up to the Aug. 29 release date. But sadly, Badu posted hours before it was set to drop that Abi & Alan is delayed. But since they actually played it for fans across the nation, there’s a good chance it’ll drop before the year is out.

Yasiin Bey f.k.a. Mos Def
Years Since Last Album: 17
Last Album: The Ecstatic (2009)
Odds Of 2026 Release: 5/10

Yasiin Bey, formerly Mos Def, has never done anything conventionally. His solo albums like Black on Both Sides have gone against the mainstream grain, as did his 1998 album with Black Star partner Talib Kweli, and even his acting gigs. Bey has collaborated with several people since his last album The Ecstatic dropped in 2009, including Kanye West, Erykah Badu, and The Robert Glasper Experiment. In 2012, he was set to drop a collaborative album with Cash Money producer Manny Fresh, OMFGOD. Although we got a YouTube docuseries on the BTS, and two singles, the album never dropped. In 2019, Bey performed an album, Negus, that was only available at a Hong Kong museum, and promised to never be on DPS or in physical form. Perhaps after he and Kweli dropped their own long-awaited sophomore album, No Fear of Time, in 2022, Bey got some creative inspiration. Last year, he announced a collaborative album with Alchemist, FORENSICS, was dropping in March 2025, but it was delayed.

Q-Tip
Years Since Last Album: 17
Last Album: Kamaal the Abstract (2009)
Odds For 2026 Release: 0/10

Q-Tip is arguably the greatest rapper/producer in hip-hop history. His work with A Tribe Called Quest speaks for itself, but his limited solo work is also impressive. Although his most recently released album, Kamaal the Abstract, was released in 2009, it was actually recorded years before his 2008 album, The Renaissance, which is perhaps his most complete and cohesive solo album so far. He’s promised to drop an album called The Last Zulu for years, but hasn’t dropped it. Instead, he dropped a killer mixtape with Busta Rhymes, reunited with Tribe to drop their 2016 swan song, We Got It From Here…Thank You For Your Service, and produced albums for Danny Brown and LL Cool J. Q-Tip is as sharp as ever, but he may never release The Last Zulu.

Stevie Wonder
Years Since Last Album: 21
Last Album: A Time 2 Love (2005)
Odds For 2026 Release: 1/10

In the 1970s, no artist was more prolific than Stevie Wonder. The GOAT dropped an album every nine months during the first half of that decade, along with producing projects for Syreeta and Minnie Riperton. But following the release of his 1976 magnum opus, Songs in the Key of Life, Wonder’s output began to get more spaced out. There was a 10-year gap between his last two albums, 1995’s Conversation Peace and 2005’s A Time 2 Love, both of which earned him Grammy wins. In 2020, Wonder left Motown Records after nearly six decades, launching a new label, So What The Fuss Music with Republic Records. He released two singles that year, “Where Is Our Love Song” and “Can’t Put It In The Hands of Fate,” hinting that a new album, tentatively titled Through the Eyes of Wonder, but no new songs have come out since. Wonder continues to sell out arenas into his mid-70s, so hopefully, he has at least one more album left in him.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Help support the page by becoming a Paid Subscriber or donate to my Cashapp: $headphoneaddict. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!

I was 12 years old the first time I thought about killing myself.

I didn’t fit in anywhere. I wasn’t Black enough for my cousins living in Syracuse, New York, but I also was too Black for my white classmates at school in Fayetteville, New York, a suburb I lived in during the 1990s.

My cousins were perplexed about why I spoke and carried myself a certain way. One time, we were playing basketball and I got a turnover. I would say, “I’m sorry,” but they were more offended by what I said than what I did. They twisted their faces up and said, “Matt. Don’t say ‘I’m sorry;’ say ‘my bad!’”

On the flipside, whenever I’d say things like “I’m not down with that,” around my white classmates, they looked at me as if to think, “Why is he using language this way?”

It wasn’t helpful that many of them already hated me on GP.

Granted, I was a kid who did things that the average kid would deem unorthodox or strange. I loved music - big surprise - and I sang aloud and danced in the hallways whenever I’d hear a song in my head. It didn’t help that 10 times out of 10, those songs were by Michael Jackson or some funk band from the 1970s that they never heard of.

I talked to myself a lot, jumped around, and spoke loudly. This annoyed a great many kids my age, who were unfiltered in expressing their disdain for me. I’ll never forget being in summer camp with a kid named Tommy, who had little patience for me. When the school year started that September, he walked into the class, saw me there, and cried aloud, “Oh no! Not you!” He was just one of many kids who told me to my face, “I don’t like you,” or “You’re the most annoying kid in this school, and everyone knows it.”

(L-R; Jackie Jackson, Randy Jackson, Marlon Jackson, Michael Jackson, and Tito Jackson, circa 1979. Photo by Govert de Roos)

Things only escalated in middle school, as older kids began getting on me about the same things, only worse, and reacting more violently. Meanwhile, my peers would do things like bring a piece of candy to class for everyone except me, or in other cases, hollow out a candy wrapper to give to me, only so I could open it to nothing as they took delight in me turning around to see them laughing in my direction.

I felt so alone as a kid, despite being one of six children. My siblings made friends easily, and I didn’t. Plus, I was a very sensitive kid. When my brothers and sister and I would fight, I took things they said to heart more than I should’ve.

All I had was TV, video games, and music. My life was like the Genesis song, “Turn It On Again,” exemplified by lines like, “All I need is a TV show/that and the radio,” and “You’re just another face that I know from the TV show/I have known you for so very long, I feel like a friend.”

I sank into my TV shows and my CDs and cassettes. My friends were Stevie Wonder, Maurice White, Marvin Gaye, and Carole King. These people sang me to sleep, comforted me when I wanted to cry, and made me laugh when I needed to smile.

But it still wasn’t enough.

The venomous words of my classmates and the isolation I felt from my family really messed with my confidence. Actually, no. My confidence was all but erased. With each passing day, I sank deeper and deeper into depression, and I didn’t even realize it. It certainly didn’t help when I would tell people how I was feeling, and all I got in return were accusations of hyperbole and being overly dramatic.

(Michael Jackson in 1978. Photo by Jeffrey Scales)

With each passing day, I’d think to myself, “Nobody likes me. I wish I was never born. I wonder if I died, would anybody miss me? Would everyone feel better if I was gone? Maybe I should kill myself to spite everyone; make ‘em think it was their fault.”

One of the reasons my dependence on music increased was to drown out those voices in my head that kept telling me to step off a curb in front of a bus, or to climb to a rooftop somewhere and jump.

Cut to Christmas morning, 1995. I opened one of my numerous gifts, realizing it was full of clothes, based on the weight and thinness of the box. When my predictions turned out to be correct, it came with a fateful twist.

Nestled in between what memory serves me, was a pair of plaid shirts for school, were two CDs. Both are by The Jacksons: Destiny (1978) and Victory (1984). As I said before, I befriended so many musicians in my mind by their albums and songs, but none of them reached the reverence and regard I held for Michael Jackson and his siblings.

As far back as my memory can traverse - two weeks before my third birthday - Michael Jackson made an indelible impact on my life. His voice, his music, his charisma, his sensitivity, his ferocious energy, his dynamic movement, his unwavering professionalism; I was enamored with him. I would get up at 5:30 am to catch The Jackson Five Cartoon on WPIX before getting up to go to school each morning. The Jackson Five’s harmonies and connection seeped into my heart and soul.

My parents, though perhaps put off by my fascination and borderline obsession with The Jacksons, and Michael specifically, encouraged my fandom often, gifting me cassette tapes and CDs of Jackson 5 and MJ solo albums and compilations. In this instance, however, they had (and have until they read this) no idea how much their generosity on this particular Christmas, with this particular gift, was a true turning point for me.

I listened to Victory first, since it had “Torture” and “Body” on it. My siblings and I used to watch those music videos all the time. I realized that “The State of Shock” was the song I heard from the retrospective montage from Michael’s film, “Moonwalker.” Now, on to Destiny.

I recognized “Blame It On the Boogie,” “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground),” and “Things I Do For You,” already, so I was hyped to hear the songs I was unfamiliar with.

Following the jovial funk of “Blame It On the Boogie” was the tender ballad, “Push Me Away.” I listened to Michael sing “The tears, the pain, reality,” and it made me think of the girls I had crushes on. I fell hard for girls back then and more often than not, they were not gracious when it came to telling me that they didn’t feel the same way.

(L-R Randy Jackson, Tito Jackson, Jackie Jackson, Marlon Jackson, and Michael Jackson in 1977 in London. Photo by Allan Olley/Getty Images)

Then came that chorus, with MJ using that aching falsetto: “Don’t you know…these dreams I wish could be the real you and me/I come running back to you/you push me away/you push, you push me away.”

My goodness.

That’s just how I was feeling! I would daydream about being with some girl I liked, imagining how a relationship between us would play out. My overactive 12 and 13-year-old mind was a trip, for sure. But I felt as Michael was singing that song, I found solace in the fact that someone could articulate something that I was struggling with.

Then song number six, “Bless His Soul,” blew me away. This track spoke about how a person went out of his or her way to make people happy. The problem is that it leaves that person feeling sad and empty once they realize this is the wrong way to think; to make people like you by bending over backward for them.

“Bless his soul;

It’s hard to find,

A person like you,

You’re one of a kind;

People will cry,

If rain or sun;

You try to please all,

Then you’ll please none.”

Whoa! After years of being bullied by kids my age, kids older than me, I’d found out over time that if I made people laugh, they would treat me better. I thought it would get me friends that way, but after talking with my parents, the optics seemed like a bunch of white kids laughing at the token Black kid who was there to amuse them - like a clown.

Were they laughing at me or what I said? Either way, did that make them want to be my friend and like me for being a good person, or just use me for their amusement?

Lastly, there’s the album’s eighth and final track, “That’s What You Get (For Being Polite).” This ties everything I’d been feeling up into a final thesis status. Just the opening lyrics, “Jack still cries, day and night; Jack’s not happy with his life; Wanna do this, wanna do that; Wanna be kind, but ends up flat for love.” It was like The Jacksons were inside of my head! It continued, “He tries so hard to give a lot; He wants to be what he is not; Love’s not harsh, and love’s not bad; but what he’s doin’ for love is so sad.”

I was going out of my way to uplift people, girls especially, to get them to like me. I wanted to be someone other than who I was because I thought, “Since you don’t like Matthew Allen, maybe you’ll like this new guy who showers you with adoration. How could Michael and Randy (the song’s composers) know exactly what I was going through? How could they know about the identity crisis I was living in? The album dropped in December 1978, three and a half years before I was born!

(Michael Jackson holding a copy of The Jacksons’ “Destiny” LP with fans during an in-store promotion in 1978 at Freeway Records in Los Angeles. Photo by Bobby Holland/MPTV Images)

What I learned from those three songs, especially “That’s What You Get (For Being Polite),” is that if someone could write a song about how I was feeling, that means I wasn’t the only person who felt that way. Sadness, isolation, alienation, and depression have an effective way of making its host feel like it’s only happening to them and no one else. It’s sickening.

It was liberating to know that I wasn’t alone. The suicidal ideations dissipated after that - while never completely going away. Life was not as hard after understanding that it wasn’t just me going through hard times.

Things changed after hearing Destiny that Christmas. I doubled down on my devotion to music and later began paying more attention to lyricism. Just five years later, I would hear two more songs that diagnosed feelings and events in my life that put me on the path I walk today as an award-winning music journalist…but I’ll save that for another time.

Thank you Michael, Marlon, Tito, Jackie, and Randy Jackson. Your album helped save my life…so far.

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my page and share the piece on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned for more!