A protege of dancers Eubie Blake and Noble Sissel, 15-year-old Josephine Baker began her career on the vaudeville circuits, touring with Bessie Smith as a chorus girl. After Broadway appearances in "Shuffle Along" (1921) -- which marked the advent of the black theatrical renaissance, and "Chocolate D
His name is an inevitable entry in the roll call of American Minimalist composers. Steve Reich, along with Philip Glass, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, and others defined a new wave of art music in the latter half of the twentieth century, one that deliberately rejected the knotty complexities of its Eu
Though he was born Prince Sunday Adeniyi, he would grow up to become King Sunny Ade, the best-known proponent of juju: a guitar-based style of music indigenous to western Nigeria. The Green Spots, Ade's first group, evolved into the African Beats in 1971. The African Beats went on to record some 4
Jane Campion's lush study of repression, "The Piano," contains an enduring image: high cliffs tower over a deserted beach, waves crashing and rolling upon the cold sand. Deposited in the tide is a black piano, a misplaced presence seemingly dropped from heaven. It is a solitary signifier of humanity