Maiysha sis down with music executive Danyel Smith about her music memoir Shine Bright which is a personal memoir of Danyel Smith as well as a history lesson about Black women in Pop. The two discuss Danyel’s turbulent and at times abusive upbringing, the Black women in music such as Whitney Houston, Lizzo, Beyonce, Ella Fitzgerald and more who deserve flowers and how women in the music industry still have to navigate a male dominated industry. The two also discuss her numerous positions in the entertainment industry from working at Vibe to Billboard to ESPN
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Panama Jackson [00:00:00] You are now listening to theGrio’s Black podcast network Black Culture Amplified.
Maiysha Kai [00:00:07] Hello and welcome to Writing Black. I am your host, Maiysha Kai, lifestyle editor here at theGrio. And I am so excited to welcome you all back to our podcast about Black writers and Black thoughts because we have an incredible Black writer with us today, one who I think has been the prototype for myself and so many other culture journalists. She is a novelist, a journalist. You may remember her as the editor in chief of Vibe. She was at Billboard. She was at The Root. She’s been everywhere. And she also has this incredible memoir that came out last year called Shine Bright, A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop. It was very personal to me. And welcome to Writing Black Danyel Smith.
Danyel Smith [00:00:50] I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for that lovely introduction.
Maiysha Kai [00:00:54] You are very welcome. I mean, I really can’t say enough about, I think, the influence that you’ve had on an entire generation of writers, including myself and and hopefully more than my generation, which is also your generation, I should say. And you know, and also, you know, you’re still giving it to everyone via the Black Girl Songbook podcast as well. I got to shout that out as well. But we are here today to talk a lot about this book, which I know came out last year. It just was rereleased in paperback, which is always a big feat for writers. We love that. We love the paperback. So I expect everybody to be tucking this into their bags this spring. Take it to the beach this summer. But I want to hear from you because it’s always better when the writer describes it. How would you describe Shine Bright to those who haven’t engaged with this yet?
Danyel Smith [00:01:48] How would I describe Shine Bright? Well, it is what it says. It is true. It is a very personal history of Black women in power. It’s a merge memoir, which is my story and biography, which is the stories of Black women in music that have meant a lot to me, meant a lot to my mother, and her sister meant a lot to my grandmother and her sisters. Women as far back as Ella Fitzgerald and before, all the way up to Beyoncé and Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson and how I’ve interacted with them over the course of my career and how they’ve interacted with the world over the course of their careers. And so it is very personal and it was an emotional book to write. It’s always an emotional book to speak about, but it is. I always tell people it was a labor of love, but it was still labor.
Maiysha Kai [00:02:44] Yeah. And you can feel it. You know, this this is a remarkable book for a lot of reasons, in my estimation. You know, I read a lot of books. First of all, this is a new example, I think of, you know, of several that have come out recently, but a really unique example of what a memoir can be in terms of this weaving of personal history with pop culture. Like literally, you know, and it’s not linear, but it’s incredibly poignant. It’s incredibly relatable. I mean, I definitely felt that as much as you were telling your story, I felt you were telling my story. You were telling the story of a lot of Black women.
Excerpt from Shine Bright [00:03:28] I was one of the free-ish breakfast kids. An gnawer of cantaloupe, down to the rind. Our morning care teacher taught us to sing The Stylistics’ “Betcha, by Golly. Wow.” Sammy Davis Junior’s “The Candyman” and B.J. Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” In memory, these teachers are soft. They smell like themselves. I can’t recall their race at all.
Maiysha Kai [00:03:57] You know, in approaching a project like this. I mean, it almost feels like a little silly to ask, but I have to because it feels a little chicken or egg in a way, in a weird way. How did this begin? Was it always intended to be both memoir and biography, or did that kind of evolve as you were? Approaching this process. I know this was a labor, as you said.
Danyel Smith [00:04:18] Did not start that way in any way, shape or form. I was very committed to writing a history of Black women in pop. I had been maybe since right after I left Billboard. The book was actually purchased by another publisher.
Maiysha Kai [00:04:39] Okay.
Danyel Smith [00:04:41] And I cannot get the book done with that publisher or that editor or that agent. So it was a struggle. The first two years, I couldn’t pull it together because I think I didn’t know really what I wanted to say. I think my point of view was not intact. I was doing my best to be super objective and to include everybody, but I wanted to include everybody. I would still be working on it as we speak. It would not be done. So one of the great things about I did a fellowship at Stanford, the John Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford. You mentioned hard cover right before we jumped on the air, which was a hard cover magazine I put together when I was a part of this fellowship. But the other great thing that came out of my time as a JFK fellow is time to just think about what I was trying to do with this book. I always advise people in our business. Do the fellowships. Apply. Apply. Apply. Give you time to think about your next move, your next plans. I remember when I told my God, brother, who I’m very close to, Bobby Carter. I can’t tell him. I got I got the fellowship of Stanford. I got it, I got it. And he said, Good. Is that’s how white people in your field have been remaining sane by doing these types of things. And so I had time at Stanford to really think. Then what I thought about was I wanted to have a new agent, a new editor, and I wanted to be back with Chris Jackson, who the great, you know, the legendary Chris Jackson at One World. Let Chris publish my first two novels. He and I were both both kind of puppies in the game. New agent, new editor. Conversations about the possibilities. And then all of a sudden we’re talking about a hybrid memoir. So that emerges biography, cultural history and an autobiography. I didn’t think I could do it. And then I said, Yes, I can, though.
Maiysha Kai [00:07:03] And you did. And you did. Yeah. I mean, I think I think to me, what is so brilliant about this book is you are I mean, it’s just the parallel, the parallels that are there between and even what you were just saying right now in terms of thinking about who deserves to have their story told. Right. Who’s who’s journey is worth documenting, whose trajectory is aspirational. Right. And so, like, obviously for those of us looking from a distance that your trajectory and you know, the places that you’ve been, the things that you see, the people you’ve talked to, the influence that you’ve had, you know, nobody understands all the little, you know, mechanics it takes to get there. And I think, you know, and all the and all the like minutia and the tiny moves that can advance or set you back years, you know, when you’re on these creative paths. And as a Black woman, I was a Black woman in pop. So, you know, I understood what you were saying here very intimately. And I was so grateful that you actually were very strategic and who you chose to highlight and and how it didn’t feel exclusionary to me. It felt very pointed as you illustrated your own path. I also thought that you talk there about the process. It’s very few people talk about that, the process of actually getting a book done and all the people that it takes to make that happen and get that out there. And I’m sure they think you could just pick up the phone and call whoever you want, make it happen, and maybe to some extent you can. But I think there’s something very telling about that as well. When we think about Black women in pop music, when we think about mobility and I mean women on both sides, you know, both in front of the camera and on the mic and behind it. That whole gatekeeping, being managed thing. What were you trying to say, I guess, about that in this book?
Danyel Smith [00:09:05] One of the things that I really wanted to do was make it a book about the details. So often Black women, Black people, but particularly Black women. Our stories are told in terms of being first. She was the first Black woman that She was the first Black woman that. And these are wonderful accomplishments. Honestly necessary and needs to be documented. But they can be flattening stories told through that kind of prism. Everything is just about, you know, the rise and the things and. No. What did you wear? Is my question. How did you wake up that morning that you did the thing? Were we wearing our hair braided? Were we wearing a sew in? Like, what were we doing? Did we feel confident? Had we just gotten married? Had we just broken up with a partner? Had we just had a baby? Had we just lost a baby? I wanted to talk about also was very important to me to talk about the mothers of stars of these women. So often the fathers that talked about and I do talk about some of the fathers, but I wanted very specifically to talk about the mothers and not just because, oh, this is the book about women, but also because so often we define people by the day, the month, the area in which they are born. And I think we always just take for granted, like somebody was born on this day and died on that day.
Danyel Smith [00:10:42] But see if you were born a woman is a part of that story. That mother’s life. Born is like a woman’s barb. And I’m like, What were the moms doing? How were the moms influencing the women to become who they were going to be? Or not influencing. It was a talk about their lives. Let’s talk about Marilyn McCoo. I always tell this story because it’s crazy to me that I could not figure out why. Marilyn McCoo, whose family is from Georgia, was not born this morning in New Jersey. And it’s like she was born in Jersey, but she was a toddler in in in in Georgia. Something wasn’t adding up for me. And I finally found out that her mother, who was a gynecologist back in those days in the forties, did not trust the hospitals in Georgia. And so she would get on the train and go all the way to Jersey to have her all of her children, not just Marilyn McCoo, delivered by a Black woman OB-GYNs. Stay there until the baby was, you know, grown enough to handle the train trip back to Georgia. But that’s what she did. So then that just put Marilyn that places Marilyn McCoo’s birth and life into a whole perspective. Yeah. And so I wanted to make sure that I talked about the details of the women’s lives. Details. Hair, makeup. These things make up a woman performer’s life. But I also wanted to push back a little bit, honestly, on the idea of Black girl magic. I think that, yes, we are magical beings. I don’t know how we would have survived without having some of that magic in us. The ability to to cast bells and even to cast people. The ability to float through things that would that would kill others. But pushing back on that a little bit. I wanted to get into the idea of Black women creativity in Black woman work.
Maiysha Kai [00:12:59] Yes, but to say, as you said earlier, it was a labor. We’re going to return to that because I do want to talk more about this whole Black, Black girl magic thing in just a moment when we return with Danyel Smith and more Writing Black. All right. We are back with Danyel Smith and this week’s episode of Writing Black. You’re talking about Shine Bright, which is Danyel’s deeply personal and very comprehensive ode to Black women in Pop. We were just talking about the whole concept of Black girl magic, which, you know, may not be as buzzy as it was a few years ago, but is still, I think, you know, this trope that to your point has both been a incredibly inspiring, but also it can be a little damaging. You know, as you said, flattening, I think is a is a great word. Flattening is a great word for that. Tell me more about about your take on that.
Danyel Smith [00:13:57] We couldn’t get through it if we were somewhat magical. We could not. Because the odds are stacked against us just like stacked. Like stacks on stacks on stacks against us. But I wanted in Shine Bright for attention to be paid to the actual work of creativity. Because we’re doing it. So I want to talk about. Ideation. I want to talk about execution. I want to talk about managing people in your creative circle, people on your creative team.
Maiysha Kai [00:14:37] Mmhmm.
Danyel Smith [00:14:38] I want to talk about, as I’ve mentioned, the minutia and the detail, because it matters in this world so much how what a woman looks like and how she presents. For Black women in particular, it’s just deep and fraught. Let’s discuss that also, like it’s work. It’s work that men do not have to do, even Black men.
Maiysha Kai [00:15:02] It’s true. You have this incredible passage in the book. This is you telling your own story and talking about a woman who seems to be to have been a bit of a mentor for you at Vibe and how she sat you down one day and like, ran through this like a laundry list of, like, pitfalls for women in the industry. And you run through a few of them as well in terms of, you know, another beautiful passage. You write and I’m going to be paraphrasing here, but you know, you talk about being everything from this, you know, this this focal point of like lust and adulation, but also this like, you know, low value targets, you know, And as a woman who survived years in the industry, like and as a woman who got out for a reason, mmmm, yes. Like I felt that in my soul, you know, how much is riding on this? And there’s also this thing, you know, we I referred to that woman as something of a mentor because I thought that was a very mentoring thing to do. But we also know that Black women don’t get a ton of mentorship. In general, we are typically learning on our feet. You know, I’m like you, I did not get to journalism through a conventional route that a lot of my colleagues have. I didn’t have a lot. You know, I had to kind of get in and learn at my feet and do that whole thing. But we don’t typically have the guidance. Is that something that you were trying to maybe also I mean, I don’t know if it was intentional or not. I felt there was lot of guidance in this, but was that was that intentional? I guess is the question.
Danyel Smith [00:16:33] And yes, I wanted to make that everybody that helped me and I’m mad I’m mad for whomever I, I forgot or left out because it just wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I was grasping for it. I didn’t even have, as I outlined in the book, I didn’t even have my bachelor’s degree until I was in my mid thirties. And then, you know, typical cancerian. You had to overcompensate and get both at the same time. But I didn’t know I didn’t have those those sort of college or J school connections or networks. And I think also very much I also just didn’t quite know how to act in corporate spaces. I didn’t have training. My family is not like a corporate family. I mentioned my godfather. He was that. First generation. My Aunt Victoria was that. First generation. But my mom didn’t go to four year college. My sister also didn’t have her degree and my younger sister throughout Shine Bright, my sister Raquel Dion Smith, newly wed, last name being. She’s so excited. My newlywed sister. At our big age. Second husband. But. You know, we didn’t come from that. I didn’t know how to act. A lot of times I’ve failed miserably because I didn’t understand the codes. I didn’t understand the lingo. And so Terri Rossi is who you mentioned. Yes. Who was the charts editor at Billboard when I got there, which was my first corporate job. Okay, man, if I didn’t have Terrr Rossi and people like her but now have Sylvia Rhone in my life now and for the last 20 years, and Sylvia and I have been friends for so long, I mean, the mentor mentee thing as faded as if you lucky, will happen and you just begin to be girlfriends and sisters.
Maiysha Kai [00:18:38] Mm hmm.
Danyel Smith [00:18:40] And so I’m blessed to have her. But I also had a lot of white males in my life early in my career. And I’m not going lie I forged those relationships. Because I needed something. And there weren’t even that many women in journalism. Like if I’m at the San Francisco Weekly in the nineties, I was literally like, the only Black woman on staff. Wow. Wow. I’m trying to think if there was a Black male in editorial. Don’t think so. So it’s like. How are you? What’s going on with you? Where ya’ll going? Y’all going out for a beer? I don’t drink beer. Don’t get go now. You guys are going out for a beer. Oh, here. Here I go. And so, you know, I had to. I had to get in where I fit in. Yeah.
Maiysha Kai [00:19:35] Yeah. We are going to talk a little bit more about fitting in in this crazy industry we call music and. And journalism. When we come back with more Writing Black and more Danyel Smith. We’re back with more Writing Black. Danyel, you were just talking about and I think we can I could totally relate to this, this like the cronyism that you kind of have to like build up to have a successful career. People act like it’s a bad thing, is a necessity. It is what you have to do. You know, people work with people that they like, and we know that. And when you talk about being a Black woman, I think it in an industry, that whole likability factor feels so fragile and it feels so tenuous at all times. You know, you talk a lot about and I love this because you know what’s so great about shame, right, too, is that we’re really seeing you’re really giving this intimate look at. How the sausage is made in terms of like how you’re getting these interviews, how you’re having these conversations, how you’re building these relationships and doing so not even as somebody who’s naturally like a networker. Hi, I’m same like so and as well. But but you know just this the maneuvers that everyone is having to do to like get in the door the facade that that people, you know, have to build, whether it’s, you know, Whitney Houston talking about how they had a they had a man for her picked out, you know, that I mean, that obviously wasn’t Bobby, but, you know, they had an idea of who this was or it’s Mariah who has very fully and I think with both hands, grasped her whole diva persona. I mean, to the point where she uses the word all the time, you know, But.
Danyel Smith [00:21:28] Quite honestly.
Maiysha Kai [00:21:31] One of the hardest working women in the business, quite as kept, you know, very intense about her craft and very, you know, I mean, prolific songwriter like ridiculously prolific. How do you feel? You know, if we if we look at Shine Bright as a you know, it’s both about God. It’s it’s both a celebration and a cautionary tale in many ways. What do you hope that I mean, when you look at the pop stars of the day or the Black women who are trying to navigate in these spaces, when you’re talking about like a Doja Cat or Lizzo or whatever. What do you feel they get from a book like this? Wow. I ask because this is a book I could have used.
Danyel Smith [00:22:15] I hope they get some sustenance. Yeah. Yeah. I also hope in the best case that they would see that they’re part of a long and glorious tradition her, which I think is important to feel a part of. Like to feel like a legacy. To feel like at least someone else was here before me. For the machete kind down the sugar cane in China to to make up. You know, I interviewed SZA recently for the New York Times magazine and. First of all, that was an it’s a I’ve been blessed to speak to so many women, Black women at the in their careers. And I’m speaking to SZA, whose name is Solana. And I say. This or I see that. And some of her answers. We’re so similar to answers that I receive from women born. 20, 30 years before I heard that they were the same. And I said to her, I said, you know, I would get frustrated when I look at the transcript. It’s crazy, too. I feel like, why am I talking to Solana so wild? But I am like, I remember being, we’re so great. We’re at her home in Malibu, you know, a place that she worked so hard to get very specific, intentional about wanting to be by the water. She got that. She made that happen for herself. But she’s saying things whether it’s about work or brand or the industry or her hopes for herself or her hopes for her work. And she’s saying things that like. I thought we did this so y’all didn’t have to do this. Like, I literally said this to her. I said, I’ve interviewed Whitney Houston. I’ve interviewed Beyonce. I thought folks did this so you didn’t have to do this. And have these answers that are like, well, you know, it is what it is because of the way the industry is. I’m paraphrasing.
Maiysha Kai [00:24:21] Yeah.
Danyel Smith [00:24:22] And it’s so I want to say it’s frustrating, but it’s more than that. It’s heartbreaking. So I hope that someone like a Lizzo, like a SZA, like an Ella Mai, who I love, Jhene Aiko, like so many amazing women, are creating music right now and just on their first and second big projects. I hope it would give them some sustenance to say I’m a part of a sorority.
Maiysha Kai [00:24:51] Mm hmm.
Danyel Smith [00:24:52] Women who make things and get things done.
Maiysha Kai [00:24:57] I like that. I like that. Get things part. We’re going to be right back in a second with more Danyel Smith. All right, Danyel. We are back. And, you know, I want to get into this generational thing that you and I share. I was born in 75. I’m a very proud Gen Xer. Not the least of which I think lots of reasons. I really think we’re the cornerstone of culture as we know it. So it’s always hilarious to me that Gen X gets forgotten so often because I’m like, so much of the stuff you loved was us. But you know, particular when it comes to music, I always think we were actually, you know, not start an generational war, ya’ll. I do think we were an incredible, I mean, musical generation in terms of just exposure. You know, like a lot of us had this encyclopedic knowledge of music just because we were like the first MTV generation, like when they actually played music where the you know, we grew up on our parents Motown. We grew up on yacht rock on the radio. Yeah. Like we have all this breadth of knowledge there. Tell me what being Gen X means to you in that context, because I was just living for, like all of these references. Like, this is my childhood right here. Like, this is my whole childhood. I was so here for the whole thing. But you’re giving a musical education. So tell me, what does being Gen X mean to you?
Danyel Smith [00:26:18] I think you articulated it so beautifully. I mean, so much. We have such a rich sort of musical area. Just stuff all around us. But and then you add to that that we created hip hop.
Maiysha Kai [00:26:32] That’s right.
Danyel Smith [00:26:33] And it’s like I just I’m not here for any arguments. I’m just not. I’m not here.
Maiysha Kai [00:26:40] There is no argument. No.
Danyel Smith [00:26:42] And that’s and that’s how we created Hip-Hop, though. All those things that you mentioned, the rock, the Motown, the disco, everything that we were listening to and coming up. But I think for me, what Gen-X means. Of. As much as, if not even more than. It’s like the musical stuff or even the cultural stuff. I mean, because I had Thelma from good time, so I write about a library. Robert Nightstand in Sunshine, right? Yeah. I’m such an influence on so many of us. Gen-X girls, Black girls in particular. But for me, the Gen-X was for better and oftentimes for worse. We had a lot of freedom.
Maiysha Kai [00:27:27] Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm.
Danyel Smith [00:27:30] When I. I grew up in. I was born in Oakland. We moved to Los Angeles when I was about ten. And then I moved back to the Bay Area when I was 17, 18. And then I moved to New York for decades until I recently moved back to California to Los Angeles right before the pandemic. I live in a neighborhood that I used to ride my bike through. As a kid. And my sister and I. And. Whenever I’m with anyone. Especially someone younger than me. I call them my baby girlfriends, my girlfriends, you know, in their twenties and thirties. Beautiful, brilliant women to a one. And they say, Oh, you grew up around here. And I said, No, I didn’t grow up around here. I said, I used to ride my bike through here. And they say, Well. So you and the family. When I say, No. Me and my sister and I was 11 and she was nine, and we would ride all the way to the beach, okay. Nine miles from where we go. And back. And it would be like me, my sister would be my sister and I and our little group of friends on the block. I remember when I would go to Oakland for the summers with my great grandparents and stay with them. They would give us $5 and I would go to the mall or we would walk up to Mills College and walk around like, What were we doing?
Maiysha Kai [00:29:05] I know, I know.
Danyel Smith [00:29:07] But I don’t know how any of us survived it.
Maiysha Kai [00:29:11] I think about this often, and we didn’t have cell phones.
Danyel Smith [00:29:16] No cell phones. No cell phones. But listen, it made me so fearless, though.
Maiysha Kai [00:29:25] Mm hmm.
Danyel Smith [00:29:27] No fear about so many things like. The thing about being a journalist is if you’re blessed you go places. Then, you know, if you read Shine Bright you know my child with tumultuous at the very least.
Maiysha Kai [00:29:46] Yeah.
Danyel Smith [00:29:48] So I was always looking for like an escape route. Be someplace other than where I was. And sometimes I wonder if that didn’t ease me towards journalism, too. Aside from the fact that I just love to write and still do. Yeah. But. When hip hop was new. People would say, where are you going? I would say, Well, I’m going to see Run-D.M.C. They would say you will get killed up there. I would say I’m going to see Gang Star or I’m going to see N.W.A. And they will say who you going with? And I’m like that meme, I’ll say I don’t know. We will see. Who want to go. But if don’t nobody want to go. Ongoing. And this was even before I was a working journalist. I would just go. Wasn’t scared to go.
Maiysha Kai [00:30:38] Uh huh.
Danyel Smith [00:30:38] Because of that man. I’ve been places you look up maturity espeon as I was many, you know, decades later. I never been to a gymnastics meet. I’d never been to the Middle East. And I was blessed that ESPN said, Hey, do you want to go to Doha? Do you want to go to Qatar and see Simone Biles?
Maiysha Kai [00:31:03] Yes, please..
Danyel Smith [00:31:07] You know I didn’t hesitate.
Maiysha Kai [00:31:08] Of course.
Danyel Smith [00:31:10] I said, What time does the plane take off go? And it’s like, that comes from riding my bike to the beach.
Maiysha Kai [00:31:18] Uh huh.
Danyel Smith [00:31:20] I don’t. I don’t. I don’t blink at it. And it’s a blessing. I say I’m lucky to have lived through it. Uh, but that. Wildness.
Maiysha Kai [00:31:31] Yeah.
Danyel Smith [00:31:31] It stays in you.
Maiysha Kai [00:31:32] Well, we’re going to take just a minute, and then we’ll be back with more Writing Black. Danyel, I’m enjoying this conversation so much. I knew I would because I see. I just see so much of myself and you and I. And I love how you love Black people, Black music, Black women just love us. And that is always so fun to engage with, you know? As much as like, you know, listen, I think anybody who loves music or claims love music should engage with Shine Bright. But there’s also obviously this other incredible excavation going here and all this research and detail, which is your story and. This idea of the hybrid memoir, I think, which I think, you know, we are seeing more of, you know, which is very cool, is is fascinating. But you are the core here. You know, this this journey that this improbable journey in some ways that you took and then in other ways, inevitable. And you write that this was a story you had tried to write, that there are aspects of the story that you tried to write many times. How did this version come about for you? I guess I don’t want to say how harrowing, but how how was that process of of getting to the core of something that was obviously deeply formative but also deeply painful.
Danyel Smith [00:32:56] Oh, it’s deeply painful. Deeply formative.In ways that still show up today. I don’t have to be in the middle of writing about them for them to be showing up. Very emotional. When I think about getting through the Gladys Knight chapter in particular, it’s just the amount of thinking about deeply. Painful things for a long time. Then writing it.
Maiysha Kai [00:33:38] Yeah.
Danyel Smith [00:33:39] Then rewriting it. Then someone’s reading it and asking you questions about it and the editing process and the fact checking process. Because I have my own fact checker shout out to Sabrina Ford and who is a hidden figure in so much of this. Sabrina is so series. If I said there was a sunny day in Los Angeles in December. She says, Well, I’m about to go to the Farmer’s Almanac and see if you’re telling the truth or lies. But you know, people are asking you about stuff that is in your nightmares.
Excerpt from Shine Bright [00:34:16] My other ways of avoiding harm included staying late at my junior high school, pretending to anyone who asked that I needed tutoring. I was always on the run from the aggression of my mother’s lawyer, but not a lawyer boyfriend, alvin and the toxic passivity of everyone else. Alvin was bitter is what I was told. That’s why he drank. My mother said that Alvin hated happiness in general, but specifically “yours.”
Maiysha Kai [00:34:47] Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of drama here. Yeah. And a lot of shame that, you know, what I love is the way that you make shame so relatable. This thing that all of us live with. Some version of love is flawed. That’s probably the wrong word. But I appreciated how you talked about shame and how you talked about trauma and how and this idea that we were supposed to get over it. Right. You know, the things that we live with that are still. You know, literally impacting our day to day lives. I just thought that that was such a nuanced and honest way of writing about that. I really appreciated that.
Danyel Smith [00:35:23] No, I appreciate you noticing it. I do, because it’s a I tell people all this. I appreciate the close attention to the text. I do. It’s it’s especially from another person that writes and creates and these things. I love it from anybody. I do. Any kind word you going to give me about something I make I’m deeply, deeply grateful for. But when you do hear from somebody else who creates, who writes, it matters even even more so just. Yeah, it was it was painful.
Maiysha Kai [00:35:52] Yeah. I mean, I think that idea of having to write about the thing that hurts you the most. Like, that’s like, you know, and like, my whole body tenses up.
Danyel Smith [00:36:00] Not getting through it quickly. See, that was the that’s what I had previously. I would say. Yes. My childhood was very traumatic. And so anyway, next paragraph. So I had sit in it. See, I had to sit in it and I had a great partner in my husband who writes himself and it a great read.
Maiysha Kai [00:36:21] Shout out to Elliott Wilson.
Danyel Smith [00:36:25] Elliot Wilson Junior, as a matter of fact. So, Elliot. And then but, you know. And I have my sister. Yeah. Who is my witness in all things to my entire life as I am in hers. And my sister was very she’s a first of all, she’s a teacher. She teaches like preschool, kindergarten, first grade, stuff like that. And she’s a dynamic and amazing teacher. And I told her that I was finally going to tell it. But I needed to know if she was cool with it because, you know, she’s a teacher. And maybe she don’t want her business in the street.
Excerpt from Shine Bright [00:37:03] Locked in the big linen closet for the crime of not having turned off its light, chased around the big apartment on Hi Point with a belt. Chased with a hunting rifle. Beat and poked at with hangers. Me and Qel crouched deep in our clothes closet, hoping to be forgotten amid the stinking alcoholic fits.
Danyel Smith [00:37:26] And she’s the only one from whom I ask or whom I asked permission. And so I told her what I was going to do. And I just it was an emotional conversation. I’m you know, I’m the emotional. My sister’s just listening.
Maiysha Kai [00:37:41] Uh huh.
Danyel Smith [00:37:42] I said. So, I mean, what do you think? Like, am I doing this by telling the details of out situation? Because my sister’s a teacher and there’s stuff in there about my sister not learning to read until way too late in life. She was ten or something like that. And she basically said, you should have been told it.
Maiysha Kai [00:38:17] Mm hmm. So it was cathartic for both of you.
Danyel Smith [00:38:22] But now I felt late. I had to get to work. And, you know, She read stuff early.
Maiysha Kai [00:38:33] Uh huh.
Danyel Smith [00:38:34] It’s been so while between she and I on this because. I remember stuff. She doesn’t write. She remembers stuff I have either you know, that I don’t remember or don’t remember. Well, I was places she wasn’t. She was places I wasn’t. And so it’s given us this wonderful opportunity. We’ve spent a lifetime talking around things and speaking in short, speaking in shorthand has been our way of dealing with it, and this has given us an opportunity to talk about it in longhand to. To acknowledge that, yes, it was awful, but here we are.
Maiysha Kai [00:39:20] I love that. Here you are. Yeah. This book is again. I think anybody who loves music, anybody who. You know, the loves themselves, love, girlhood, you know, said sitting gaze was shining bright. I asked this question of all of our guests, and I want to ask you before you go, because I know that you are a voracious reader as well as a prolific writer. Who do you read? Who do you read? Who is inspiring you lately? Who are you drawn to?
Danyel Smith [00:39:59] I mean, sometimes I read the same stuff all over again.
Maiysha Kai [00:40:02] Also a good answer. What are your favorites?
Danyel Smith [00:40:07] You’re not going to give me away. It’s so common to I think women like us and women in our profession, you’re not going to get me away from Their Eyes Are Watching God. You’re just not going to do it. You’re going to have to pry it from my cold little ashy hands. There’s too many biographies that I’ve read so many times. I’ve read almost I think I’ve read every biography about Billie Holiday. I think I’ve read biographies about Barbra Streisand any number of times. English major Sylvia Plath. The Unabridged diaries I go back to all the time just because she says exactly how she feels. Obviously we don’t come from the same spaces, but there’s still things you can find.
Maiysha Kai [00:40:53] Absolutely. Yeah. And I love that. I love that.
Danyel Smith [00:40:59] And then I think, you know, I also like to read the work of people that. Are working in my same space. Like Dr. Daphne Brooks like. Donnie Walton.
Maiysha Kai [00:41:16] Love Donnie Walton. She’s a fan. Love her.
Danyel Smith [00:41:19] Yeah, she could be around. Oh, man. I’m reading obviously, Justin Tinsley, who I worked with at Espeon and his great book about The Notorious B.I.G. And David Denniss and the great memoir he has about his father, David Dennis Senior. He was a civil rights hero. Just. Just. Isabelle.
Maiysha Kai [00:41:47] Yes. Yes. I’m sorry, I. For our readers. I mean, for our listeners. Scuse me. If you want to know, which is about. She’s referring to Isabel Wilkerson is one of the endorsers of this incredible book. So I don’t think for me, I was like dying, when I saw that, I was like Paula Giddings. I mean, I was like. But as she notes, as is noted here, this is as Oprah Daily says, delicious to read. And I really want people to read it. And I was so thrilled to have you on. And and I hope you’ll come back with with what you’re working on that’s new because. Absolutely. Such a pleasure. But for our Writing Black audience, this is the incredible Danyel Smith, y’all. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Danyel Smith [00:42:30] Thank you so much for having me. It was so fun.
Maiysha Kai [00:42:38] Now, when I tell you I could’ve sat and talked to Danyel all afternoon, all day. I mean it. But, you know, just. Just like she said, she had to stop on time. But we did, unfortunately, have to end our conversation. But she gave us some incredible recommendations, one of which is also one of my favorites this week, which is Donnie Walton’s the revival of the Final Revival, scuse me, of Opal and Nev. This is a book I want to say that came out in 2019, maybe 2020. And it’s not nonfiction like Danyel’s book. It is a work of fiction, but is told from the perspective of a music journalist, of which Donnie Walton used to be. It is. It is just as evocative of the lives of Black women musicians as Shine Bright is. It is wonderfully rendered, really gets into the dynamics of a lot of the industry and a lot of the politics that probably some of our biggest icons have faced over the years. And it’s just a gorgeous, gorgeous story, an award winning tale that deserves all the accolades that we see as does Shine Bright. So get into the Final Revival of Opal and Nev. And get it to Shine Bright. And we will see you next time on Writing Black. Thanks so much for joining us for this week’s episode of Writing Black. As always, you can find us on theGrio app or wherever you find your podcasts.
[00:44:16] Witty, honest, entertaining. Introducing Dear Culture with Panama Jackson on theGrio Black Podcast Network. Listen today on theGrio Mobile app. For all the Black culture debates you don’t want to miss. Also available wherever great podcasts are heard.
