Happy Birthday, Janet Jackson!

May 16th, in addition to being St. Brendan the Navigator's feast day, is also the birthday of one Ms. Janet Damito Jo Jackson, born in Gary, Indiana. In honor of my fellow Hoosier lady, here are a few of my favorite Janet Jackson videos. Today she turns 59.

All-time fave: "If," from janet, the first album I ever bought in CD format. It samples Diana Ross & The Supremes' 1969 hit "Someday We'll Be Together."

In "Alright," the choreography and video styling allude to classic musicals of the 1960s and earlier. It premiered in 1990. In the long-form mv, Black musical pioneers the Nicholas Brothers and Cab Calloway appear. The video also features legendary dancer-actor Cyd Charisse (one of my people, a white Jewish woman). 

Another classic that contains some interesting pop culture cameos is "Nasty," from 1986. It features Paula Abdul and Dennis Franz*. The video was directed by Mary Lambert, who directed several of Madonna's iconic 1980s music videos as well as feature films including Pet Sematary (1989).

*Dennis Franz was also in City of Angels with Andre Braugher.

Jackson's 1989 smash hit album Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 spun off many hit singles, including "Love Will Never Do (Without You)." 

The video features Beninese-American actor Djimon Hounsou. In addition to videos by Jackson, Madonna, Tina Turner, Paula Abdul, and En Vogue, he's also starred in many hit feature films and played Caliban in Julie Taymor's The Tempest (2010). 

Prior to 2012, when the film was scrapped, Hounsou was signed on to play John Milton's self-insert character, the seraph Abdiel, in the Bradley Cooper adaptation of Paradise Lost. (Cooper would have played Lucifer.) 

Jackson's single "Again" from 1993's janet was used in her film with Tupac Shakur, Poetic Justice*, also starring the poetry of Maya Angelou.

*And Clifton Collins Jr., just a little bit.

This is another fun one from janet: "You Want This." It's a playful tease.

"Got 'Til It's Gone," featuring rapper QTip and interpolating Joni Mitchell's rock classic "Big Yellow Taxi," was one of the big hits off of Jackson's 1997 album The Velvet Rope.

Jackson's 2001 hit "Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)" does for Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" what "Got 'Til It's Gone" did for "Big Yellow Taxi." These tracks were done with the cooperation of Mitchell and Simon respectively. 

I could go on and on. The Velvet Rope alone has many good singles. "Go Deep" is one; the video was directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, who also directed the "1979" video for The Smashing Pumpkins. The song is a super-infectious earworm. I love it.

Janet Jackson is an iconic female singer/songwriter/rock star who uplifts and upholds other women in the music industry. If you like this kind of music, I am once again recommending that you read She’s A Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll (Expanded Second Edition) by Gillian G. Gaar.

A Few Awesome Women in Honor of Black History Month

Happy Wednesday! I've been really uninspired to blog this last week - it may have something to do with my work period being 13 days (February 16-28) instead of the usual 15-16 days. Time crunch? Yeah, just a little bit.

I still had time to finish reading Carrie's Story and interview Molly Weatherfield. As part of the book tour, I'll be sharing the interview and my review on April 4th.

This is just a small sample of the women of African descent I admire. I could keep going but the post would quickly get too long.

The poet Ntozake Shange, who wrote For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Even if you don't read poetry, you may remember it from its adaptation into a Tyler Perry movie with an ensemble cast including Thandie Newton, Janet Jackson and Kerry Washington.



Lucille Baldwin Brown is an everyday woman who blazed a trail (with an extraordinary sense of style!) - she was the first Black public librarian in Tallahassee, Florida.



Author Alice Walker.



Sojourner Truth. (It's a little hard to read here, buy easier to see on Pinterest.)



Josephine Baker - the singer/dancer/actor/civil rights activist was also an Allied spy during World War II!



Rosa Parks - there's so much more to her story than the time she refused to give up her seat on the bus. She was a lifelong civil rights activist who also worked to bring more attention to the issue of violence against women. When she passed away, she was the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda and only the second African-American. With Sojourner Truth, she's soon to be one of two African-American women honored with a statue in the Capitol.



Raina Lamont, age 3, wore her Captain America costume to the polling place during last year's election.



Music and style icons Grace Jones and Tina Turner hung out together in 1981.



Going back one more generation, here's Billie Holiday hanging out with Ella Fitzgerald.



Finally, our strong (and beautiful) First Lady of the United States, Ms. Michelle Obama. Whether you agree with her husband's politics or not, you must admit wherever she goes and represents American women, she makes a good impression.