MUSIC JOURNALISM

“Tina Turner: 10 of Her Greatest Songs,” The Guardian, May 24, 2023

“Why Radiohead Are the Blackest White Band of Our Times,” The Guardian, October 2, 2020

“One Hundred Years Ago, ‘Crazy Blues’ Sparked A Revolution for Black Women Fans, The New York Times, August 10, 2020 (Winner of the ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for an article in the pop music field.)

“Diana Ross’s Greatest Songs—Ranked,” The Guardian, June 18, 2020

Contributing Editor, “The ZORA Music Canon: The 100 Most Iconic Albums by African American Women,” June 2020

“‘Drag ‘Em’: How Movement Shaped the Music of Mary Lou Williams,” NPR.org, September 2019

“Toni Morrison and the Music of Black Life,” Pitchfork.com, August 2019

“At ‘Black Woodstock,’ An All-Star Lineup Delivered Joy and Renewal to 300,000,” The New York Times, August 18, 2019

“Drenched in Glory: How Aretha Gave Voice to Embattled Black Women—And Transformed a Nation,” TheGuardian.com, August 2018

“Aretha’s Bridge,” NPRMusic.com, August 2018

“Betty Davis, Grace Jones and the Art of Anti-Confessional Cinema,” Los Angeles Review of Books, July 2018

“Girl Groups: TLC, The Pointer Sisters, The Supremes,” Pitchfork.com special issue, June 2018

“Tina Turner: The Making of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolutionary,” TheGuardian.com, March 2018

“It’s After the End of the World,” Introduction to Pitchfork.com special issue: Nina Simone, May 2017

“On Nina Simone’s ‘Why? (The King of Love is Dead)’ and ‘22nd Century’,” Pitchfork.com special issue: Nina Simone, May 2017

“See My Face From the Other Side: Freedom is a Blues Woman’s Prerogative,” Oxford American Magazine, Southern Music Issue 2016, pp. 130-141.

“Mama’s Gun: Tarrying with Erykah Badu in the Y2K Era,” Pitchfork.com, September 2016

“Review of Prince, Controversy,” Pitchfork.com, April 2016

“The Missing Blacknuss in Nina,” Slate.com, April 2016

“How #Blacklivesmatter Started a Musical Revolution,” The Guardian.com, March 13, 2016

“‘Ain’t Got No, I Got Life: #Oscarssowhite & The Problem of Women Musicians on Film,” The Los Angeles Review of Books, LARB.com

“‘I’m Every Woman’: Whitney Houston, Voice of the Post-Civil Rights Era,” The Nation.com, February 2012

“Tainted Love: Amy Winehouse & the (Black) Art of Appropriation,” The Nation, September 29, 2008. Reprint in eds. Gerald Early and Randall Kennedy, Best African American Essays 2010 (New York: Random House, 2011)

“’What More Do You Want From Me?’: Making Sense Out of Al’s Green Eggs and Ham,” slavetotheism.com, 2008 summer edition.

“Suga Mama Politicized: Beyonce’s B-Day,” The Nation.com, December 18, 2006. Reprint in eds. Robert Christgau and Daphne Carr, Best Music Writing 2007 (New York: Da Capo Books, 2007): 27-35

ARTICLES, ESSAYS, BOOK CHAPTERS, CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS

"'Everything I Wanted': Black Women Listeners and the High Fidelity Culture of Taste-Making,” Harvard University Press Blog, April 7, 2021

“‘A Woman Is A Sometime Thing’: (Re)Covering Black Womanhood in Porgy and Bess,” Daedalus 150:1 (Winter 2021): 98-117.

“Introduction: The Lady Sings Her Legacy,” Eds. Kinitra D. Brooks and Kameelah Martin, The Lemonade Reader (NY: Routledge Press, 2019)

“Introduction: Displacing Whiteness,” Eds. Susan Fast and Craig Jennex, Popular Music and the Politics of Hope: Queer and Feminist Interventions (NY: Routledge Press, 2019)

“Rock and Roll,” Keywords for African American Studies, Eds. Erica Edwards and Roderick Ferguson (New York: NYU Press, 2018)

“Nina Simone,” “Janelle Monae,” and “Bessie Smith,” Ed. Evelyn McDonnell, Women Who Rock, Volume 1 (NY: Hatchette Books, 2018)

“Open Channels: Some Thoughts on Blackness, the Body, & Sound(ing) Women in the (Summer)Time of Trayvon,” Performance Research Journal (19:3: Summer 2014): 62-68

“Afro Sonic Feminist Praxis: Nina Simone and Adrienne Kennedy in High Fidelity,” ed. Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, eds. Black Performance Theory: Acting in Motion (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2014)

“‘Puzzling the Intervals’: Blind Tom and the Poetics of the Sonic Slave Narrative,” ed. John Ernest, The Oxford Handbook of the African American Slave Narrative (New York: Oxford UP, 2014)

“Let’s Talk About Diana Ross,” ed. Carl Wilson, ed. Let’s Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste (NY: Continuum, 2014)

“‘Bring the Pain’: Post-Soul Memory, Neo-Soul Affect and Lauryn Hill in the Black Public Sphere,” eds. Nicholas Cook and Richard Pettengill, Live and Loud: Intersections in Musicology & Performance Studies (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2013)

Critical conversation with Roshanak Kheshti, “The Social Space of Sound” in ed. Patrick Anderson, Critical Stages Series, Theatre Survey 52 (2): 2011, 329-334

“Planet Earth(a): Afrocosmopolitanism, Sonic Transnationalism & the Diasporic Politics of Eartha Kitt’s Cabaret,” Interamerican Perspectives: Cornbread and Cuchifritos, ed. Josef Raab and Sebastian Thies (Inter-American Studies/Estudios Interamericanos--Bilingual Review Press, Tempe, Arizona, 2011)

“Sister, Can You Line It Out?: Zora Neale Hurston & the Sound of Angular Black Womanhood,” Amerikastudien/American Studies 55 (4) 2011

“Nina Simone’s Triple Play,” Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters 34.1 Winter 2011

“This Voice Which Is Not One: Amy Winehouse Sings the Ballad of Sonic Blue(s)face Culture,” Women and Performance: a journal of feminist theory, March 2010

“‘Once More with Feeling’: Popular Music Studies in the New Millennium,” Journal of Popular Music Studies 22(1): 98-106. Special Issue: “The State of the Field,” guest ed. Steve Waksman (2010)

“1920, August 10: Mamie Smith becomes the first black woman to make a phonograph record: A New Voice of the Blues,” A New Literary History of America, eds. Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009), 545-550

with Gayle Wald, “Women Do Dylan: The Aesthetics and Politics of Bob Dylan Covers” in Highway 61 Revisited: Bob Dylan From Minnesota to the World, eds. Colleen Sheehy and Thom Swiss (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2009)

“The Write to Rock: Racial Mythologies, Feminist Theory, and the Pleasures of Rock Music Criticism,” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture Vol. 12 (2008): 54-62

“‘All That You Can't Leave Behind’: Surrogation & Black Female Soul Singing in the Age of Catastrophe,” Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 8.1 (2008)

“The End of the Line: Josephine Baker and the Politics of Black Women’s Corporeal Comedy,” The Scholar & Feminist Online: The Barnard Center for Research on Women 6.1-6.2 (Fall 2007-Spring 2008): http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline/

“Critical Karaoke: A Journey in ‘Lights’,” Black Clock Literary Arts Journal, September 2004 135-139. Reprint in Popular Music 24 (3), October/November 2005

“Burnt Sugar: Post-Soul Satire and Rock Memory,” This is Pop: Critical Essays from the First Annual Experience Music Project Conference on Popular Music, ed. Eric Weisbard (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2004): 124-146

“‘It’s Not Right But It’s Okay’: Contemporary Black Women’s R&B and the House that Terry McMillan Built,” SOULS: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society (5:1), Winter 2003: 32-45. Reprinted in ed. Manning Marable, The New Black Renaissance: The Souls Anthology of Critical African American Studies (New York: Paradigm Publishers, 2005): 168-182

LINER NOTES, PROGRAM ESSAYS, MUSEUM CATALOGUE ESSAYS

“Everybody Still Wants to Fly,” Liner Notes for Prince, Sign O’ The Times Super Deluxe Edition (Warner Brothers, September 2020)

“Black Sound & the Archive: Objects from the Gilmore Music Library Collection,” display cards, Spring 2018 display case exhibition, Yale University Irving S. Gilmore Music Library

“Inside Out with Alicia Hall Moran,” The Whitney Museum 2012 Biennial Exhibit Catalogue, March 2012

“Anatomy of Soul: Aretha Franklin’s Revolutionary Body of Work,” The 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame American Masters Concert Celebration Program, October 2011

“Bold Soul Ingenue,” Liner Notes for Aretha Franklin, the Columbia Years Box Set (Sony/Columbia Records, March 2011).

“Come On and See Me,” Liner Notes for The Complete Tammi Terrell (Universal Music, October 2010)

Liner Notes for Nina Simone, Little Girl Blue Reissue and Nina Simone and Friends (Omnivore Recordings, forthcoming)