It's time again to hand the turntables over to Mini Moose. She's dedicating her week to the celebration of Black History Month.
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SONG OF THE monDAY
My President was the third single from Young Jeezy's 2008 album, The Recession. Jeezy and Nas recorded the song the day Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination for President, ending a two-year feud between the two artists.
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SONG OF THE tuesDAY
2Pac released Keep Ya Head Up in 1993 as a dedication to black women and Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old black girl killed by a Korean store clerk. The clerk got no jail time. Many believe Harlin’s murder and the Rodney King beating were the main causes of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
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SONG OF THE wednesDAY
Hound Dog was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton in 1952. Though Elvis made the song famous in 1956, Big Mama's version is credited with helping spur the mix of R&B into rock music. It was her only hit, but it marked the success of race-mixing in music a year before Brown v. Board of Education mandated the desegregation of public schools.
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SONG OF THE thursDAY
Nina Simone wrote To Be Young, Gifted and Black (1969) in memory of her friend Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun and first black woman to write a play for Broadway. Hansberry's family struggled against segregation in Chicago and had challenged a restrictive covenant that kept African Americans from buying or leasing land, which provoked the 1940 Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee.
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SONG OF THE friDAY
A Change Is Gonna Come was written and recorded by Sam Cooke and released in 1964 on the album, Ain't That Good News. The song was inspired by events in Cooke's life, specifically when he and his entourage were turned away from a whites only hotel in Louisiana. Though it was only a modest hit for Cooke at the time, the song quickly became and still is an anthem for Civil Rights.
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SONG OF THE saturDAY
Waterfalls was written by Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Marqueze Etheridge, and Organized Noize for TLC's 1994 album, CrazySexyCool. The song was the first hit song to reference HIV/AIDS in one of its verses and was nominated for two Grammys. The accompanying video won MTV's "Video of the Year" in 1995, making TLC the first black artist or group ever to win that award.
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SONG OF THE sunDAY
Redemption Song was written by Bob Marley in 1979 and was the final track on Bob Marley & The Wailer's ninth album, Uprising. The lines of the song were inspired by a speech called "The Work That Has Been Done" by Marcus Garvey. "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds" comes directly from the speech and reminds the listener that the "mind is your only ruler, sovereign."
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