Black Gurl Pop

What is old is new is old is new again.

Once upon a time there was a girl who was gifted her first dell laptop in 2004 for Christmas. And then a year later YouTube was invented. A year after that a channel called Vevo came on the scene and she could see all her favorite music videos whenever she wanted. A playlist of music videos from The Spice Girls, to Ciara, to the Dixie Chicks would play well past midnight.

When she would go over her friends houses some of their parents had the box set DVD of Michael Jackson music videos, and she would watch and dance along with her friends.

After school she would go home and cut on 106 & Park on BET and watch black girls sing and dance in the coolest places and to the best beats.

That girl was me. Is me.

I’ll admit when I started to pursue dance professionally I started to consume dance differently I felt like I couldn’t just watch and enjoy and dream. I had the real world to think about and my spot in this industry.

And when I take breaks, like during the pandemic and right now I fall back in love with music videos. Especially of the Black Gurl Pop genre.

What is that genre?

A black woman, singer, who is dancing throughout the video or there is a dance break, and the song is classified as popular.

I consider blues and jazz to be pop music of the 1920s and 30s. Disco to be popular music of the 70s. Rock and Roll and R&B to be the pop music of the 80s. I consider Hip-Hop to be pop music today.

Why am I writing about this?

I am an avid tiktoker (@ciaraontheline) and I saw that Victoria Monet put out a new music video and I just saw stills of her wearing a Michael Jackson replica suit. And the comments saying that she is paying homage to the Jacksons. Who are also pop icons. So I had to see the music video and I enjoyed it! A lot of images and inspiration for the music video came from other pop icons and I was triggered. It reminded me of Beyoncé, Crazy in Love, Rihanna, Under my Umbrella, and of course Michael Jackson’s iconic performances in that suit.

Then I started thinking about the concept of women pop artist performing in suits and my mind went directly to Bessie Smith and how she would cross dress and really was a queer icon in the 20s and 30s which was extremely radical at that time. And how Bessie Smith paved the was for black gurl pop and queer black girls in pop. But how many of the fans today know who Bessie Smith is or who Cab Calloway is or the Nicholas brothers, because they were some of the first performer to break it down in a suit. So I thought let me tell the kids who, what, when, where and why from the images that are being recreated by our faves today and what it looked like 100 years ago.

This is also just a practice of me honoring my inner child because she loved music videos, especially where she was represented.