A review by davyt
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis

Incredibly dense book tackling themes of feminism in black art that are shockingly progressive and out-right ignored historically. This book was written in the late nineties with artist like Tracy Chapman and Erykah Badu being mentioned in the closing paragraphs as catalysts of some of the same sentiments the three main women discussed in the book represented. It’s disheartening to see in genres like hip-hop, contemporary female artists like Little Simz are being so widely ignored and not respected despite making clearly some of the best music in the genre. Artists like Megan Thee Stallion are getting torn down for structuring songs around female sexuality similar to Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith in their time.