opera + a historic super bowl halftime
it's just another manic Monday
I’m the author, journalist, producer, and podcast creator Danyel Smith. And today is a jam-packed, deadline day. How are you?
SHINE BRIGHT HQ is where I freestyle about music and culture.
It’s Black History Month, and it’s Black History Month daily over here.
So far this month, I’ve published a post a day (which is wild). I like doing it, and I deeply appreciate the response. Thank you for subscribing to, and for sharing my work.
FYI the full SHINE BRIGHT HQ archive is here. And: your daily (for now!) Black History Month newsletter continues. So, right now is an awesome time to ⤵️
February 10 1927 is Leontyne Price’s birth date.
I have been blessed with a voice that is, even to me, breathtakingly beautiful. That’s total immodesty. I do not apologize for that. I don’t know of anything, not even myself, that I love more than my sound. It gives me goosebumps when it’s at its best.
The relationship between the heights of opera and the heights of pop is straight and strong, and aside from her genius as a performer — too few music lovers know about the dynasty of which Miss Leontyne Price is a part:
“Something that few people are aware of is that the legendary opera star Leontyne Price is my cousin,” Dionne Warwick says in her 2010 memoir, My Life, as I See It. “Her relationship to me is from my mother’s side of the family. Leontyne lived in the south and was not a constant in my life. But when we see each other at functions, we acknowledge each other with ‘Hey, Cuz.’
So: Warwick, born Marie Dionne Warrick in December 1940 in East Orange, New Jersey, is thirteen years younger than her cousin Leontyne Price. Warwick’s aunt Emily “Cissy” Drinkard Houston was born in September 1933 in Newark, New Jersey. Cissy’s daughter, Whitney Elizabeth Houston, was born in August 1963, also in Newark. All are pop-cultural royalty. Women who kicked down doors and influenced generations. All are of the Drinkard family bloodline.’
Just saying.
HITS magazine recently excerpted1 my Shine Bright Leontyne Price chapter:
other Black History Month-type things:
Kendrick Lamar wanted to turn his life into a video game for his big Super Bowl halftime show. The team tasked with doing that knew what to do. More here.
How about the statement of Lamar’s show? Plenty, here. It made history. Some disliked it. And: Magic Johnson loved it.
Every Philadelphia Eagles' postgame interview from Super Bowl LIX is right here.
The President, “End Racism,” and Super Bowl. More here.
From his position on Colin Kaepernick, to his slanders about those concerned about brain injury, the sitting president has demonstrated just how much he disrespects the NFL. More, here.
My Jalen Hurts profile is here.
If you’re looking for another Shine Bright excerpt, Rolling Stone excerpted the Mariah chapter.
Whoa, dude. Thank you so much for putting up that interview with the fabulous Leontyne. Listening to her has sparked the seed of a story. I don't know where it's going to go at this moment, but the last time I had a spark I wrote my story THE TRUTH OF WHO WE ARE. (Check it out if you have time.) But the story of a Black woman in the 50's and 60's and Civil Rights and all that other shit. We'll just have to see how it goes.