One of the Best Books of the Year: San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, The Root, Variety, Esquire, The Guardian, Pitchfork, She Reads, Publishers Weekly Her beloved second hometown is Brooklyn, but Danyel is a proud Oakland native now living in Southern California with her husband.
She has written two novels - More Like Wrestling (Crown, 2003) and Bliss (Crown, 2005), and Danyel’s recent work appears in the New York Times Magazine, and at NPR. She was editor of Billboard, and the first woman and first black person to serve as editor-in-chief of VIBE. Danyel’s CV includes being a producer and writer at ESPN, a Knight fellow at Stanford University and an arts fellow at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. She has interviewed everyone from Whitney Houston to Janet Jackson to Simone Biles to Beyoncé. Danyel’s career has been laser-focused on black creatives making brilliant things. Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Verde Outdoor Media.Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop (One World, 2021)ĭanyel Smith is an award-winning journalist and the host of Black Girl Songbook, a music talk show that centers the sounds and stories of black women (The Ringer/Spotify). Shine Bright also happens to be the May 2023 Open Book Club book, so we have lots of copies available through the library.Ĭheck out Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith and other great book club titles at the Sioux City Public Library today! One of the scenes that stands out to me is when Danyel describes visiting Whitney Houston’s house for a Vibe magazine cover story interview that was meant to be twenty minutes but ended up hours long with Danyel and Whitney playing catch in the singer’s living room. Her personal life ends up intersecting with her subjects quite often since she interviewed many of the women she is writing about during her prolific journalism career. Smith uses her own life experiences as a framing device through which she shares stories about the music. This brilliant introduction gets readers ready to reconsider what they already know about the A-list women profiled throughout the rest of Shine Bright.ĭanyel Smith covers a lot of ground in this book- From Black churches and gospel music through Motown girl groups, disco divas, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Janet Jackson, all the way through to Rihanna and Beyonce. Smith meets readers at the very beginning by making a compelling case for marking Phillis Wheatley as the progenitor of Black women who make popular American music. Shine Bright is a nonfiction history of American popular music and a memoir by a prominent music journalist all rolled into one narrative that truly does radiate light. Today, I am recommending Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith. This is Michael Maxwell with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
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