Gomenasai: To the Uncredited and Unsung Black Women in Music History
"The American psyche can’t really process black women, especially without a major label behind them. Unless you’re on a major label, you’re not busting out of the woodwork and making your mark…”
Perusing through the internet I happened to come across a quote by Kelela giving a backstory to her song “Gomenasai”. In the quote she mentions watching the movie 20 feet from stardom and how those women never got their big break despite their voices being beloved by the masses. Gomenasai is the romanization of the Japanese word which translates to I'm sorry and it had me thinking about the many black women who have shaped what we know to be music today and how they haven't yet received proper credit for the work they've produced.
I grew up surrounded by music. As a child I would wake up to the earthy smell of eggs, grits, and sausages and the tunes of Sade. Some days it was the sweet smell of maple syrup and Anita Baker. My house was filled with melodies of love and strength by women who reminded me of my mother and food that filled my soul made by the hands that tucked me in at night. I grew up with the strong presence of Black women in my life and it shaped me into who I am today. There is not one person I know who can say that they didn’t grow up listening to black women, who weren’t influenced by black women and yet it just never occurred to us how important these women are to us. We have taken these women for granted and it’s not just us but also the industry in which these women are a part of. They helped shaped music to be what it is today and there is a lot of undue credit to be made.
Even amongst the black women I knew of like Aretha, Patti, and Gladys, there were leagues of women throughout music history who have become almost nameless over the course of the decades despite sparking movements and creating genres everyone around the world loves. One of those women is Sister Rosetta Tharpe, dubbed the Godmother of Rock n’ Roll by the most die hard music historians. A child of the church, she was a genius guitarist and one of the first few people to make the guitar a prominent component in her music which is noted to be the precursor of Rock n' Roll. Her sound ranged from charismatic night club music to upbeat guitar-heavy music of praise.
Amongst Black historians it is said that Elvis lifted his style from Chuck Berry, but it was actually her he copied. In his teens he and friends would sneaked into black churches to see her perform and would mimic her style at home. This is a known fact that was mentioned in her documentary, “Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Godmother of Rock n’ Roll”. Rosetta Tharpe had a fairly successful career decades before chuck berry and even to this day she has not been inducted to the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, an award considered to be the highest honor a rock musician can receive. She wasn't even inducted in the early influences section which is quite literally for individuals who predated rock but had an impact on the evolution of rock and inspired rock artists. Despite her exceptional guitar skills, if you look up any lists of guitarists you do not see her once. She and many other black women like Big Momma Thorton and others have been prominent components of Rock n’ Roll but it’s a genre mostly credited to White men.
“They were trying to sound black, and the way to get that sound they had to use us to get that sound.” Darlene Love on English Rock musicians from the movie 20 Feet from Stardom
Women, especially black women, throughout history have been treated as props of inspiration for men, as well as tools to further men into the positions they’re in now. Women like Merry Clayton, Claudia Lennear, and Darlene Love have lended their voices and sung backup for the men loved by the world. They sung for the likes of David Bowie and The Rolling Stones. Their melodious and soulful voices made the sounds these men produced into something accessible to all. Usually when someone gets hooked to a song it is almost the chorus, that backup harmony that bridges the lead with the beat, yet it is the singer we tend to focus on giving little to no thought on the people who sung what we first get hooked onto. Kelela once said "The American psyche can’t really process black women, especially without a major label behind them. Unless you’re on a major label, you’re not busting out of the woodwork and making your mark…” But even being backed by Lou Adler, who is a highly respected producer, and being signed to his record label Merry Clayton couldn’t get her career off the ground.
“We did everything possible and it just didn’t take.” - Lou Adler, 20 Feet from Stardom
She continued backing for other singers until she was featured in 20 Feet From Stardom which gave her some popularity but she still hasn’t received her dues as one of the best singers of her time. She may have not been in the forefront but that shouldn’t undermine the influence she made. Her voice is the quintessential soul sound and she sung with such confidence one hardly comes by. She was a star in her own right but to be a black woman, dark skinned and confident with yourself is something that was not--is not--easily receptive by the mainstream a.k.a white audience.
Colorism, the systematic discrimination against those who are the farthest from lightness/whiteness, has left black women in an suffocating predicament with dark skinned women being the most vulnerable. In the music industry the closer your image is to whiteness (fair skinned, skinny, thin nose, thin lips, etc), the more successful you were. Also because of anti-black misogyny, the systematic oppression of black women, being what was deemed feminine was crucial to being successful, especially in the music business. Black women, due to dehumanization and hyper-sexualization imposed on the black body, have to perform the utmost that is required of femininity in order to even get their foot in the door because to be a woman in the eyes of white supremacy is to be feminine and to be considered a woman is having some type of access to humanity. To be human means to be someone with a complex identity, someone who feels various emotions and can evoke various emotions in others. To be a singer means to express these emotion as well as evoke emotions in others through your music, but if the audience cannot perceive your humanity, they cannot perceive your emotions or the different dimensions of your identity.
There are so many black women that, due to white supremacy, in a field heavily affected by what image you portray, will probably never the get the credit they deserve. Black creatives have been the pioneers of most artistic inventions/movements and black women have been the pacesetters of these movements if not inventors themselves. The results produced by Black women throughout history have been recognized across the globe except they have not been recognized as the ones who produced these results. The rampant discrediting and erasing of black women in the music industry and other creative fields not only affects the livelihood of these women but it also leaves young black girls with little representation, with hardly any examples as motivations to figure themselves out and build their identity. Human beings learn from everything around them. Young minds soak in the images they see and build themselves from there.
What does it say to a young black girl who takes all this in that her efforts, her genius, will be relegated to the shadows and only to be recognized when it's of use to men?
Sandra // @frgblgl // @softmami
Photo cr. Merry Clayton
