Category: Black Excellence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Smith

Bessie Smith (April 15, 1892 – September 26, 1937) was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues” and formerly Queen of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.^[1]

Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Smith was young when her parents died, and she and her six siblings survived by performing on street corners. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career with Columbia Records began in 1923, but her performing career was cut short by a car crash that killed her at the age of 45.

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/10/nx-s1-5306937/as-fentanyl-deaths-drop-fast-experts-say-more-survivors-need-help

PHILADELPHIA — On a blustery winter morning, Keli McLoyd set off on foot across Kensington. This area of Philadelphia is one of the most drug-scarred neighborhoods in the U.S. In the first block, she knelt next to a man curled on the sidewalk in the throes of fentanyl, xylazine or some other powerful street drug.

“Sir, are you alright? You OK?” asked McLoyd, who leads Philadelphia’s city-run overdose response unit. The man stirredand took a breath.”OK, I can see he’s moving, he’s good.”

In Kensington, good means still alive. By the standards of the deadly U.S. fentanyl crisis, that’s a victory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Mitchell_(photographer)

Tyler Mitchell (born April 12, 1995)^[1][2][3] is an American photographer. He is based in Brooklyn, New York, and is best known for his cover photo of Beyoncé for the cover of Vogue.^[4]

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/05/833528769/roy-ayers-whose-everybody-loves-the-sunshine-charmed-generations-dies-at-84

Roy Ayers, the vibraphonist, composer and jazz-funk pioneer behind “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” has died at the age of 84.

He died Tuesday in New York City after a long illness, according to a statement shared on his Facebook page.

Ayers was born in Los Angeles on Sept. 10, 1940, to a musical family. Like a scene out of a movie, a 5-year-old Ayers boogie’d so hard at a Lionel Hampton concert that the vibraphonist handed Ayers his first pair of mallets.

“At the time, my mother and father told me he laid some spiritual vibes on me,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2011.

https://www.kathybullock.com/about-me

Dr. Kathy Bullock is an educator, scholar, singer, accompanist, arranger and choral conductor who specializes in gospel music, spirituals and classical works by composers from the African diaspora.  A Professor Emerita of Music from Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, she currently teaches, performs, and conducts workshops and other programs on African American music throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa.

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/nx-s1-5307290/on-becoming-a-guinea-fowl-movie-review

Filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s spellbinding melodrama On Becoming a Guinea Fowl begins with a woman named Shula (Susan Chardy) happening upon the dead body of her Uncle Fred on the side of an empty dirt road in Zambia one evening. Shula is eerily unmoved. She in fact appears more inconvenienced and annoyed than anything else — now she must wait with him until the authorities come, which takes hours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungano_Nyoni

Rungano Nyoni is a British, screenwriter and actress.^[1] She is known for the film I Am Not a Witch, which she wrote and directed. The film won Nyoni the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut in 2018 and has also garnered accolades from international film festivals. Her 2009 film, The List, won the Welsh BAFTA Award for Best Short Film.^[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Wales_Bonner

Grace Wales Bonner MBE is an English fashion designer.^[1] Her designs blend sportswear and tailoring.^[2] In 2014, she founded the London-based label Wales Bonner, originally specializing in menswear.^[1][3]

Since founding her eponymous brand, Wales Bonner awards include Emerging Menswear Designer at the British Fashion Awards (2015), the LVMH Young Designer Prize (2016), Winner of the British Fashion Council/ Vogue Designer Fashion Fund (2019) and CFDA International Men’s Designer of the Year (2021). In June 2022, she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to fashion. Wales Bonner is the head of the department of Fashion Design at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.^[1]