Artist Profiles
She Sang First: The Unsung Women Who Gave American Music Its Soul
Long before rock and roll had a face or pop music had a formula, a handful of Black women stood at the microphone and invented American sound from scratch. Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and their peers didn't just perform — they built an entire cultural architecture that the rest of the music world has been borrowing from ever since. It's past time we gave them their flowers.