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  • Unsung: Before There Was DeBarge, There Was Switch

    The story of Switch, the group that paved the way for the group DeBarge with sibling harmonizers Bobby and Tommy DeBarge, is a story as much about the journey for self-love as it is about their ability to seduce audiences with falsettos, rich love songs and lush harmonies. On Sunday, TV One’s Unsung tells the…

    By

    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • Marvin Sapp’s Life Is More Than the Gospel on TV One’s Unsung

    Marvin Sapp is more than a preacher who sings or a singer who preaches. Both singing and preaching represent spiritual experiences for him. On Sunday’s episode of TV One’s Unsung, he and family members outline his personal story—a fully lived story with high highs and particularly low lows—which provides insight into his inspiration for his…

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    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • Is Wyclef Jean Really Unsung? There’s More to His Story Than You Know

    For ’90s hip-hop heads, Wyclef Jean will always be known as one-third of the legendary group the Fugees. And anyone paying attention over the last few decades probably thinks he or she knows everything about Jean: how he became a sought-after producer, his near-presidential run in his home country and his starring role in a…

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    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • Jagged Edge May Be Unsung, but They Haven’t Stopped Singing Yet

    Twins Brian and Brandon Casey, along with their friends Richard Wingo and Kyle Norman, made up the 1990s R&B group Jagged Edge. Unlike boy groups like New Edition or Jodeci, the individual members didn’t become household names or branch out into solo careers, but their sound was so unusual that even traditional R&B balladeers like…

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    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • For Jodeci, Diary of a Mad Band Wasn’t Just an Album, It Was a Way of Life

    If you wondered when R&B singers became rappers and rappers became R&B singers, you just need to take a trip back to the ’90s, when Jodeci first took the hip-hop aesthetic and seamlessly blended it with baby-making jams. Before them, rhythm and blues balladeers were known for their impeccable suits and precise dance moves—from the…

    By

    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • ‘State of Black America’ Town Hall Lays Out a Plan for Surviving the Trump Era

    Every year around this time, the National Urban League releases a “State of Black America” report, with its successes and challenges for the future. This year, under the Trump administration, the need for a cohesive plan is more urgent than ever. “I think we are in a state of disarray,” said CNN commentator Angela Rye…

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    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • Whites Need to Understand That White Supremacy Hurts Them, Too

    Two weeks ago, I logged into my email to read a note written by the headmaster of my daughters’ school about the white supremacist terrorist who traveled to New York from Baltimore—one of the blackest cities on the East Coast—to find a black man to kill. The note said this terrorist had graduated from my…

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    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • Unsung: How After 7 Made Grown Folks’ Music in the New Jack Swing Era 

    It was the summer of 1989 when the R&B trio After 7 dropped their infectious eponymous debut album with the lead single, “In the Heat of the Moment,” a mischievous dance tune about the wonders of lust. Even though that album went platinum and the following two went gold, After 7 disappeared from the scene.…

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    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • Unsung: Gospel or R&B? Dave Hollister Won’t Let Anyone Box Him In

    Chicago native Dave Hollister has always had vocal chops, straddling the secular and gospel worlds with seeming ease. But after a peak career in the ’90s with Teddy Riley’s group Blackstreet, and then as a solo artist, his name disappeared from the lips of fans who had reveled in his old-school-style love songs. Hollister is…

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    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

  • Lawsuit Against Marilyn Mosby Could Make Prosecutors More Fearful of Going After Abusive Cops

    When a federal judge made the unusual move earlier this month to allow key parts of a lawsuit filed by five of the six police officers in the Freddie Gray case to go forward against Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby (as well as Assistant Sheriff Samuel Cogen, who wrote the statement of probable cause),…

    By

    Ericka Blount Danois

    Published

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Ericka Blount Danois
I am an author, journalist and professor. My first book, Love, Peace and Soul, the behind-the-scenes story of the television show, Soul Train, was published in 2013.