u/TheWriteRobert

This was a really cogent, fun, and engaging analysis of why Wonder Woman is such a dope character. I hope you take the time to watch. Shout out to Johnny Star for this!

You might have seen that Essence magazine recently released their list of the 50 Greatest R&B Songs of All Time. It’s a pretty marvelous list, filled with some of the most talented artists and most moving songs ever created. In my opinion, they got a lot right. Their list is definitely better than some of those othermagazines and sites that try to compile the best of what musical artists have to offer and wind up showing just how much they don’t know music. I would quibble with some of the positions of artists and some of the some choices for particular artists, but Essence did pretty good—though, no Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin is diabolical!

In any event, Essence extended an invitation in the write-up of their list. They said: So yes, debate the rankings. Tell us what should have been higher. Tell us what we missed. Defend your favorite with your whole chest. That's part of loving R&B, too.
They ain’t have to tell me but one time!

List: https://robertjonesjr.substack.com/p/the-witness-top-50-greatest-r-and

DEEP!

"Alternative R&B is having a moment. Kelela, fresh from the release of her critically acclaimed album, New Avatar, has cemented her legacy as a giant of the genre. The album, featuring collaborations with Pink Pantheress and Foushee, is a celebration of R&B at its best. Experimental, layered, and unapologetically black, New Avatar spotlights the textured intellectualism of a genre that's too often typified as the opposite. Steve Lacy has found comparable success with his latest project, Oh Yeah?, a psychedelic exploration of Lacy’s inner tumult - and what it means to be a 21st-century lover boy. 

With the positive reception of these albums and recent sell-out tours from peers like FKA Twigs, alt-R&B is making a jump into the mainstream. For a genre that has conventionally been fringe, the move is laudable. Before celebrating the genre’s success, let’s be careful not to erase those who laid the blueprint for today’s generation, foremost among them, Janet Jackson. 

As an artist who continues to push the boundaries of R&B, Jackson is undeniably a musical great. The recipient of 5 Grammy awards, 11 Billboard Music awards, and an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, her résumé places her alongside the likes of Madonna, Whitney Houston, and another Jackson, who happens to be her big brother. Despite these accolades, Jackson’s artistic legacy is often underappreciated. Whilst Madonna is widely celebrated as the queen of pop, Jackson’s name doesn’t hold such weight in R&B - it’s time to correct that."

FULL ARTICLE: https://www.stilllisteningmagazine.com/features/as-the-velvet-rope-nears-30-can-we-finally-give-janet-jackson-her-flowers

Florence “Flo” Anthony, a trailblazing entertainment journalist, author and TV and radio personality who broke a number of barriers for women of color, died August 6 of cancer. She was 74.

Jack Hirsch, biographer of Anthony’s husband, Olympic and pro boxing champ Michael Spinks, confirmed the news to Anthony’s longtime publication New York Amsterdam News.

https://deadline.com/2026/08/flo-anthony-dead-gossip-reporter-1237028910/

Today marks the 102nd birth anniversary of the magnificent genius and legendary icon known as James Baldwin.

James Baldwin was a giant among us; and he was, I think, often misunderstood and underappreciated while he was alive. Many people don’t realize that he never went to college; his intellectual curiosity and prowess were innate. He never won any of the major literary awards or prizes, but he was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacDowell Fellowship. MacDowell, in fact, named its library in his honor. Despite the fact that we measure talent via accolades, Baldwin was the greatest writer of his generation, certainly the most influential. And we remember and return to him more than we do the writers who were rewarded above and beyond him. I think that’s more of a measure of his talents than anything else.

Full article: https://robertjonesjr.substack.com/p/baba-baldwin

Hey Fam,

Has there been any Wonder Woman news out of SDCC yet? I haven’t heard anything and I’m very curious to know what’s going on with Diana and her family and cast of characters (outside of King’s run).

“My greatest mentor, Professor George Cunningham, who taught Africana Studies and Literature at Brooklyn College, passed away recently. It’s a devastating loss. Professor Cunningham was the first of the very few Black male professors I ever had. He was someone who ignited and magnified my love of literature by teaching me how to read between the lines and in the margins; and he did so in what was the most enlightening college course I have ever taken: Reading Race.

Professor Cunningham—whom I could never bring myself to call George, even after I got my master’s degree—introduced me to some of my most important and lasting literary influences, including Herman Melville, Jean Toomer, Wallace Thurman, and Zora Neale Hurston. He told me that I was the best writer he had come across since Gloria Naylor, who was once a student and mentee of his. He taught me the reasons why dictators, royals, and enslavers throughout human history have endeavored to prevent the masses from having access to books or literacy. He gave me the insight necessary to not be bought and sold, to not be wooed by promises of fame, rewards, and riches in exchange for my integrity. He gave me the courage to be the kind of writer that might not be well-liked because I have to be honest and tell the truth even when doing so can be cantankerous, unpopular, and perhaps even deadly.

He taught me, in essence, how to be a menace to empire.”

Full essay here: https://open.substack.com/pub/robertjonesjr/p/read-a-fucking-book?r=1309er&utm\_medium=ios

Funny anecdote from Dallas Austin on how “Sexhibition” was created. 😅

You hear that crowd? Those screams? You see that standing ovation? The enthusiasm from other celebrities?

This was Janet's first performance at a major awards show and it was so epic that the newspapers covered it the next day.

This was Janet's arrival, baby. Torched passed to her by Diana Ross.

I'll never forget watching this when it aired. Everybody in my high school was talking about it.

Those were the days.

This level of showmanship is rare these days.

Excerpt:

>Anyone who has ever thought, theorized, spoken, written or acted upon Black men ain’t shit, or some facsimile thereof, is as culpable in the deaths of Black men and boys as any lynch mob, all-white jury, Hollywood studio, or sheriff’s department because they have shared in creating the optimal conditions for that peculiar kind of dying. I am implicating myself in this too because years of indoctrination, under severe and common duress, had me rooting against myself and anyone who remotely looked like me (they do not call it blackmail for nothing). The applause, popularity, and profit that comes with just such a positionality can also be addicting.

But I am older now and perhaps wiser. And the greatest lesson I have learned in five decades and then some is this: I do not have to diminish the humanity of others in order to assert my own. I know what comes after a lynch mob’s ovation. I realize that if I am to survive, if we are, my gaze, my attitude, must be of better use than simply viciousness. My trauma must be resolved not shared. And given current conditions—the endemic refusals to hear or heed; the feet entrenched in righteousness; and not a real witness to be found nowhere—I realize this too: Because I am a Black man, unapologetically so, it means that though I may love you, I cannot trust you. Not out of bitterness, but out of an overabundance of caution: I have seen what happens when Black men allow people to get too close; and I have seen the disgrace that follows. I do not know if I will live to see the day when reconciliation replaces rancor (Black men don’t stay here long, is what the studies say). But I pray for it nonetheless.

We have selected the para over the social, relinquished dialogue in favor of offense/defense because we have decided that everything must be a competition, including pain. We have declared war upon each other, made hatred inescapably mutual at the coaxing of agents, at the behest of plantation owners, for the arousal of trillionaires. I do not see any signs of a ceasefire, but extinction, through lovelessness, has made itself inevitable. We have been fooled, I guess, because the plantations, and the rape factories, do not, for the most part, look the way we have grown used to seeing them. With HGTV-worthy makeovers, they now look like the elite institutions, all-white parties, and latest technology that they have always been.

Today, we celebrate 250 years of only rich people being free and poor people confusing living vicariously with the real thing.

SOURCE: https://robertjonesjr.substack.com/p/gather-me-man