Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

  Michael Jackson has long dominated GOAT talk. Current opinions suggest otherwise, citing Beyoncé and Chris Brown's career durability as justification to supplant the King of Pop's long-standing reign.  It's a conversational coup that deserves to be toppled.  In a rare moment of self-celebration, Jackson encapsulated his career in a 2001Vibe Magazine piece: "Its a rarity. I had number one records in 1969 and '70. I entered the charts at number one in 2001. I don't think any other artist has had that kind of range." Seven years later, Jackson was dead at 50: eighteen  days shy of an ambitious 50-date farewell UK tour before walking off into the sunset (with his lucrative publishing catalog), having secured the bag, solidifying his triumphant destiny.  Jackson's legacy is unprecedented. His gravitational reach far.  Tap dance icons Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly---members of the Lost Generation and the Greatest Generation demographic born before the advent...

  Man gives awards. God gives reward . Denzel Washington’s words are both ethereal and emancipating. Transparency and truth are his testimony, finally casting off the cloak of public perfection long shadowing his career. Long devoted, Washington’s faith has increasingly taken a front and center stage position as he slowly winds down an acting career spanning nearly five decades across TV, film, and stage. His past is illustrious, but it’s his beatific future that he’s anticipating. At 70, traces of Sidney Poitier’s regal restraint still remain. In the past, he wielded his high wattage grin like a singular weapon: gracefully fending off critics and dazzling fans. Now it's flashes of Washington’s Money Earnin’ Mount Vernon roots that are roaring to the surface these days: Washington boxes out interviewers with direct frankness and confronts out-of-pocket paparazzi.  Washington's spirituality grounds him, but he's still a live wire.  Instead of high fashion curated by stylis...

  Barry Michael Cooper.... You may not know his name but you know his (pen) game. Pages torn from memories of his mind would spawn Nineties classics "New Jack City" (1991) "Sugar Hill" (1994) and "Above The Rim" (1994). Cooper was the creative force behind this Harlem film trilogy penning their screenplays inspired by his time of coming up in New York in the 1970s.   Years before Hollywood came calling, Cooper sealed his legend penning articles in the Village Voice and Spin Magazine.  Cooper hit my radar during his prolific period (for me anyway)between 1988-1990 thanks to joints like his May 1989 dope Big Daddy Kane  piece   ("Raw Like Sushi"): "Big Daddy Kane is a cool head on a dangerous body. He's the greatest rapper of all time---maybe. He is what he is and that's what scares people." He'd already written a few potent narratives I would read later.  Cooper's February 1986 Spin piece  "Crack"  transported r...