“Faith Ringgold: American People' covers more than 50 years of paintings, quilts and sculptures, including the original paintings for her kid’s book “Tar Beach.' It could as well been called “A Very Personal History of Black Women in Art and in America.”
Thursday reminded me of what’s great about living in San Francisco. The day began with a press tour of “Faith Ringgold: American People,” a retrospective of the 91-year-old artist’s work at the de Young, and ended at a KQED Live event with Oakland’s own Danyel Smith, author of ”A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop.” Having the good fortune to spend a big part of the day immersed in the work of two brilliant Black women was like someone turning the lights and music back on inside of me.
Trust me when I say Smith is traveling some of the same roads as Ringgold in her new book, which is part deep history of Black women in pop music and part memoir of these women’s influence on Smith’s life and work. If you were living here in the early ‘90s and reading the weeklies, you would remember when she began writing about hip-hop for the S.F. Bay Guardian, the East Bay Express and S.F. Weekly. Smith was the first woman music writer I ever read, and she was writing about the music I loved.
Smith is obsessed with ensuring that Black women in the music industry get their due credit. Thursday night at KQED she noted that unlike white women, Black women who perform and write songs are rarely referred to as “singer-songwriters.” We all know about singer-songwriters Joni Mitchell and Carole King, but did you know that Mariah Carey shares one of her own 53 songwriting credits with King? She also noted, “Coachella gets all the press, but Essence Festival gets all the people.
I bought my own $10 ticket to the KQED event. The crowd was mixed, but predominantly Black women. Yes, the non-Black people were outnumbered, but no one seemed to be stressing. By the end of the night, everyone was singing along to “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.” Honestly, it felt really good to be surrounded by Black people at a cultural event in a space — KQED — not typically associated with people of color. This is a rare experience.
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