FBA Music Pride

FBA Music Pride

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Thriller poster image of Michael Jackson as Werewolf

Michael Jackson’s Thriller: Liberation in Red Leather and Rhythm

This month closes with a spotlight on Thriller, the landmark album by Michael Jackson—one of the most globally recognized Foundational Black American artists across any genre. His name needs no introduction. In this piece, I examine each track through an FBA lens, with particular focus on the title song

Willie Dixon playing Double Bass

Supernatural Songs

Willie Dixon’s Dual Blues: “Evil” and “I Ain’t Superstitious"

In the mythology of the blues, Willie Dixon stands as one of the great architects — not only of sound, but of symbol. Born in 1915 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Dixon came of age in a world where evil was not a metaphor but a social reality. By the time he began

Chopping Down Mountain with Guitar

Supernatural Songs

Voodoo Child (Slight Return): The Electric Conjure of Jimi Hendrix

I first encountered the music of Jimi Hendrix when I was about ten years old, through the 1994 film Forrest Gump starring Tom Hanks. The movie featured two of Hendrix’s most iconic tracks — “All Along the Watchtower,” originally written by Bob Dylan but transformed by Hendrix into a psychedelic

Standing at the Crossroads

Supernatural Songs

Between Worlds: Robert Johnson, the Crossroads, and the Telepathic Power of Black Art

To understand the soul of Foundational Black American music, one must stand where Robert Johnson once stood—at the crossroads. Recorded in 1936 in a makeshift San Antonio hotel room, “Cross Road Blues” has become one of the most mythologized songs in American history. For some, it is a ghost

Screamin' Jay Hawkins holding a Voodoo Doll

Supernatural Songs

I Put a Spell on You: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and the Voodoo of Black Sound

As we open our October series, we step into the shadowy realm of the supernatural—a space where music, folklore, and lived history collide. For Foundational Black Americans, songs about the uncanny have long carried layered meanings. Behind the talk of voodoo, hoodoo, spells, and spirits are echoes of ancestral

Men Working on Parchman Farm

Prison, Protest, and the Blues: The Enduring Legacy of Bukka White’s Parchman Farm

Bukka White’s “Parchman Farm Blues,” recorded in 1940, stands as one of the most searing testimonies in the Delta blues tradition. The song is rooted in White’s own incarceration at Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm, and it captures with raw honesty the despair, loss, and

Men Working on the Chain Gang

Working on the Chain Gang: Sam Cooke’s Hidden Protest Song

I first encountered Sam Cooke in a meaningful way during my freshman year of college, when I picked up a compilation album entitled Portrait of a Legend: 1951–1964. Growing up, I had certainly heard “A Change Is Gonna Come” and other Cooke classics, but like many people of my

Attica Blues Artwork

Attica Blues: Archie Shepp’s Soundtrack of Prison Protest

This week we continue exploring songs of prison protest and the ongoing fight for social reform. Instead of focusing on a single track, I want to highlight an entire body of work: Archie Shepp’s 1972 album Attica Blues. Created in the immediate aftermath of the Attica Prison Rebellion, the

Watercolor Art of Angola Prison

Angola Bound - Aaron Neville’s Testimony from the Prison Plantation

To launch our September series, we turn to prison protest songs through the lens of Foundational Black Americans. These songs form a cultural archive of survival and resistance — from the chain gangs of the Mississippi Delta to the prison fields of Louisiana’s Angola, and on into the age of

Brown Rabbit in a Mississippi Cotton Field

Jim Crow Protest

Down in Mississippi: J.B. Lenoir and the Sound of Southern Truth

I first heard the name J.B. Lenoir not from a blues documentary or history book—but through a song by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. I was in college, constantly digging for hidden gems and forgotten legends, when a friend played a track called “The Death of J.B.

Watercolor painting of bluesman Charley Patton on a dirt road

Jim Crow Protest

Walking That Dirt Road: Charley Patton and the Jim Crow Blues

I still remember the first time I heard Charley Patton’s voice—it was on the haunting track “High Water Everywhere.” Strangely enough, my path to Patton began not through an old blues record, but through Bob Dylan. In 2001, Dylan released his critically acclaimed album Love and Theft, which

Chains breaking free from Jim Crow and Guitar

Jim Crow Protest

Jim Crow Blues – Lead Belly’s Unflinching Protest Song

I can’t remember exactly when I first learned about Lead Belly, but I remember the moment his music hit me. I was in high school when two songs from his catalog found their way to my ears—though not in their original form. One was “Midnight Special,” as covered

Image of a Hellhound chasing a black man.

Jim Crow Protest

Hellhound on My Trail: The Song That Chased America

Before there was Clapton, before there was the Stones, before the British even thought they had the blues, there was Robert Johnson. John Mayall studied him. Peter Green dissected his licks. Keith Richards called him a genius. And Eric Clapton? He built an altar to him. What do all these

Blood on leaves for post "Strange Fruit"

Jim Crow Protest

Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”: The Song That Still Haunts America

One of the most harrowing protest songs ever recorded in American music—and the one that has become synonymous with the lynching of Black Americans—is Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” recorded in 1939. The imagery is brutal, drawn from the sight of Black bodies hanging from trees in the