Black Girl Songbook is where "Black women in music come to get the credit that they’re due." Hosted by veteran journalist Danyel Smith, listeners get in-depth insight, exclusive conversations, personal anecdotes and the music being discussed in full.
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From explaining why Lauryn Hill's "Lost Ones" is a diss track to kicking off the series dissecting Whitney Houston's iconic 1991 Super Bowl performance, Smith's expertise and personality is why this podcast is so captivating. We got the chance to catch up with the Oakland, California native to discuss the importance of this podcast, what it's like being a protector of the culture and much more.
As the first Black female Editor-in-Chief of VIBE, she revealed just why Black Girl Songbook is necessary. "I don't know, at this stage in my career if there's anything more important," she began. "And I just never feel that there's enough time. There's never enough pages. There's never enough podcast time [...] there's just never enough because for so long, our stories were hidden. For so long, we weren't getting the credit we were due. [...] And I could scream it from the rooftops about anybody from Gladys Knight to Cardi B and it'll never be enough."
Throughout her storied career, she mentioned interviewing Janet Jackson four times and of course, she listed the 1995 Whitney Houston cover story for VIBE among her favorite stories she's told about Black women in music. With Black Girl Songbook, she did agreed that the podcast is a reawakening the careers of R&B and Pop's best. Specifically, Smith expressed, "I think that Black Girl Songbook is apart of a whole community of storytellers right now that are raising their voices to tell the stories of Black women and their contributions. In music, yes, but also overall."
Smith is also putting her expertise on Black women in music to paper with her forthcoming book, Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop. She explained the similarities and differences between the book and podcast. Gleefully, she stated, "Songbook and Shine Bright are sister projects!" Continuing, "Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop is an intimate set of histories. Black Girl Songbook is an intimate series of oral stories and conversations. Both projects tell the stories of Black women in music to a powerful, passionate, and underserved audiences."
Black Girl Songbook is actively in production for its second season. Smith revealed, "we're creating even more deeply felt and deeply reported stories about genius black women in music." However, there's a special two-part series on Tupac, where Smith mentioned, "we're exploring the Black Girl connection to artists like Tupac Shakur (on the occasion of what would have been his 50th birthday). We broke our summer hiatus to do this because we were already missing our amazing Songbook community!"
Ultimately, Smith feels "our listeners are songbirds themselves — a whole choir that we can hear and feel! Every Black Girl has a song." Check out every episode of Black Girl Songbook exclusively here.
This interview has been condensed for clarity.
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