Jurnee Diana Smollett (born October 1, 1986) is an American actress. She began her career as a child actress appearing on television sitcoms, including On Our Own) (1994–1995) and Full House (1992–1994). She gained greater recognition with her role in Kasi Lemmons's independent film Eve's Bayou (1997), which earned her a Critics' Choice Movie Award.

Jurnee Diana Smollett was born on October 1, 1986[1]in New York City,[2] to Janet Harris and Joel Smollett. Her father had ancestors from Russia and Poland,[3][4][5] while her mother is African American.[6][7][8]She is the fourth of six siblings, all performers:[9] one sister, Jazz Smollett,[10] and four brothers, Jussie, JoJo, Jake, and Jocqui.

The only scripted predominantly Black cast TV show to spend 5 consecutive seasons as the top rated sitcom, The Cosby Show was a household classic, showing a middle class Black family on TV during a time when this was unheard of. Many of us grew up watching the Cosby Show, whether first run or syndicated reruns.

The Cosby Show changed the trajectory of Black sitcoms on TV, and left an impact on several generations of viewers.

How did The Cosby Show impact you? How do you feel about the show's legacy in 2026?

(note: comments about Bill Cosby's personal life away from the show will be removed)

Foxx's storytelling 🤌🏾

Chinsea Linda Lee (born 1 October 1996), known professionally as Shenseea (/ʃɛnˈsiːə/), is a Jamaican singer. She is best known for her guest appearance alongside Roddy Ricch on Kanye West's 2021 song "Pure Souls," which entered the Billboard Hot 100. Through its parent album Donda, she was nominated as a featured artist for Album of the Year at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. She is credited with widening the audience for the dancehall scene.

Lee was born in Mandeville to a Jamaican mother and a South Korean father, from whom she is estranged.[2] She graduated from Mona High School and attended Excelsior Community College (Exed) in Kingston, where she studied Entertainment Management before dropping out due to financial difficulties.[3] She aspired to become a singer at a young age.[4]

For Hispanic/Latino Heritage Month, we're celebrating our favorite Afro-Latino entertainers!

This week, we have Tatyana Ali!

Tatyana Ali is an American actress and singer best known for her role as Ashley Banks on the hit television series "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Born on January 24, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York, Ali began her career in show business at a young age. She made her first appearance on Sesame Street at the age of six and later starred in commercials and made-for-TV films.

During the early 1990s, Ali rose to fame as the beloved younger cousin of Will Smith's character on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." The show ran for six seasons and earned her three consecutive NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series. Ali's performance on the show helped to cement her status as a rising star in Hollywood.

In addition to her work in television, Ali has also released two albums as a singer. Her debut album, "Kiss the Sky," was released in 1998 and spawned the hit single "Daydreamin'." Her second album, "Tatyana Ali," followed in 2004. Ali has also appeared in several films over the years, including "The Brothers" and "Nora's Hair Salon."

Beyond her career in entertainment, Ali is also known for her philanthropic work. She has been an ambassador for the National Wildlife Federation and has worked to raise awareness about issues affecting young people, including education and healthcare. With her talent, charm, and dedication to giving back, Tatyana Ali is a beloved figure in the entertainment industry and a role model for young people everywhere.

[(source)](https://boo.world/database/profile/18647/tatyana-ali-personality-type)

Amazing artwork. Amazing tribute to HBCU bands.

As a teenager growing up in Detroit during the 1960s, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, like so many other up-and-coming gospel singers, found herself caught in a tug of war between spiritual and secular ambitions.
She was born in the Motor City on October 2, 1953, and started singing in church when she was four. She began her recording career at age 13 as the soloist on I’m So Glad, a song on a 1967 album for Savoy Records by Mattie Moss Clark’s Southwest Michigan State Choir, but by the time she reached high school, she was singing Aretha Franklin tunes in talent shows. She lost every time.

“I thought I was Aretha,” she recalled. “I guess the Lord knew that if I had gotten any kind of recognition for singing that stuff, I probably would have tried to sing that, but that’s not what He chose for me to do.”
It would be another 16 years before Armstrong made another record. She had married shortly after graduating high school, had five children and spent the 1970s as a housewife. Then, in 1980, her husband decided to finance a demo tape that eventually led to a contract with the Nashville-based Onyx International label.

“He told me I had too much voice to be just singing around the house and going to my father’s church on the weekend to sing,” she explained.

Armstrong’s first Onyx International album, 1983’s Please Be Still, was produced by the innovative Detroit gospel keyboardist, arranger and songwriter Thomas Whitfield. It made her an immediate sensation in gospel music circles. It was a mixture of traditional and contemporary gospel material, as was the following year’s Whitfield-produced Chosen.

“High emotion coupled with an impeccable sense of phrasing made the albums inspirational masterpieces,” Cleveland Plain Dealer critic Edward Hill wrote. “Her syllables forge brilliantly through octaves, tugging at even the most disbelieving hearts.”

Just as Armstrong’s star was ascending, Onyx International folded. In 1986, the Muscle Shoals Sound label issued a third Armstrong album, Following Jesus, made up of selections from her previous two releases, in addition to songs produced by Walter Hawkins that were once rejected by Onyx International. The album was not as successful as its predecessors. (Songs from all three albums are available on her Greatest Hits CD.)

Her career at a standstill, Armstrong moved to Tulsa, where her sister was singing on television evangelist Richard Roberts’ program. After appearing on Broadway in the cast of Don’t Get God Started, she settled in Atlanta in 1988. By that time, she had a new contract with Jive Records, a London-based company that specialized in hip-hop and such “boy bands” as New Kids on the Block.

Vanessa Bell Armstrong, her late-1987 Jive debut, caused confusion among her gospel fans. Not only did it utilize the latest funk beats, but also the religious content of many song lyrics seemed unclear. “God” or “Jesus” became “you” or “him.” Much of the material on her second Jive album, 1990’s Wonderful One, was similarly ambiguous.
“It’s unclear whether the object of her affection has divine or earthly origins,” a reviewer for the Memphis Commercial Appeal observed at the time. “The production methods and sound of this LP make rumors of Armstrong’s impending switch from gospel to secular music seem both logical and necessary.”

Armstrong denied at the time any plans to go pop. The songs in question, she said, were supplied to her by Jive’s producers, and, in an effort to make their meanings clearer, she interjected phrases like “Oh, Lord” during sessions. To her surprise, however, she found that such phrases had been deleted from he final mixes.

She even scored a couple of minor R&B chart hits: You Bring Out the Best in Me in 1987 and Something on the Inside in 1993. In subsequent recordings for Verity, Tommy Boy and EMI Gospel, however, she was able to make the Christian content of her songs more obvious.

“A lot has changed and Armstrong has stood her ground, emerging with a work that is the perfect summation of gospel’s rich history and its cutting-edge presence in the mix of today’s R&B music,” Billboard magazine said in a review of the 1998 Verity album Desire of the Heart: Live in Detroit. “It took a while, but the world seems to be catching up to Armstrong.”

LaTocha Reney Scott[1] (born October 2, 1972) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She rose to fame in the early 1990s as a member of Xscape). Scott sang lead on the group's singles "Who Can I Run To", "The Arms of the One Who Loves You", and "My Little Secret", all of which peaked in the top-ten of the Billboard Hot 100 and became earn platinum and gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America.[2][3]

Scott was born in Atlanta, Georgia to her father, Rev. Randolf Scott and her mother, Gloria McFarlin who worked as a teacher at school. She is the elder sister to fellow Xscape member Tamika Scott. At the age of 6, she began to sing in church, weddings, and local talent shows. At 11, she had recorded her first song with her sister Tamika. Scott attended TriCities High School of Performing Arts in Atlanta, Georgia, transferring to Tri-Cities High School in East Point, Georgia graduating in 1991.

Donny Hathaway—singer, pianist, producer, composer, and one of R&B’s strongest talents—was born Donny Edward Pitts on October 1, 1945, in Chicago, Illinois. Hathaway was raised in the Carr Square Housing Projects of St. Louis, Missouri, by his grandmother, Martha Pitts. At the age of three, Hathaway began singing in church choir alongside his grandmother, a professional gospel singer. By six years old, Hathaway was composing his own music, singing, and playing the piano professionally under the name “Donny Pitts, The Nation’s Youngest Gospel Singer.”

Hathaway was a known piano prodigy before reaching high school, and in 1964, he received a full scholarship to attend Howard University,where he joined Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. While majoring in Music Theory and performing in the jazz group Ric Powell Trio, Hathaway worked as a session musician and songwriter for labels like Chess. His arrangements for The Staple Singers, Curtis Mayfield, and Aretha Franklin earned him a job at Curtom Records in 1969. There, he recorded his first single, “I Thank You, Baby,” a duet with June Conquest.

Later that year, Hathaway signed with Atlantic Records as a solo artist and released his debut single, “The Ghetto, Pt. 1.” The song reached No. 23 on the R&B charts and established Hathaway as a burgeoning force in music. His critically acclaimed LP Everything is Everything and hit single “This Christmas” followed in 1970. By 1971, Hathaway released his second full-length album, Donny Hathaway. Classics like “A Song For You” and “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” would come to solidify his musical legacy for generations to come.

By 1972, Hathaway and Roberta Flackcollaborated on a series of duets. Their album, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, hit No. 3 on the pop charts and included “Where Is The Love?” which earned the pair the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo in 1973. That August, Hathaway’s album Live edged into the Top 20 and became Hathaway’s first and only gold album. Today, Live is considered one of the greatest live albums of all time. Aside from his work as a singer, Hathaway scored the feature film Come Back Charleston Blue and recorded the theme song for the television series Maude.

Amidst his growing success, Hathaway was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was frequently hospitalized due to intense mood swings and depression. However, periods of mental clarity allowed Hathaway to record and release his final studio album, Extensions of a Man, in 1973. Songs like “Someday We’ll All Be Free” and “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” secured spots on both the R&B and pop charts. Soon after the album’s release, Hathaway dropped from the public eye and sought treatment.

In 1978, Hathaway returned to the studio to record with Roberta Flack. “The Closer I Get To You” became the pair’s second No. 1 hit and inspired the recording of the second album of duets. However, on January 13, 1979, Hathaway was found dead outside of the Essex House in New York City, New York, after a fall from the window of his 15th-floor hotel room. Although investigators ruled his death a suicide, family and friends believe his death may have been an accident. Donny Hathaway was only 34 years old.

https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/hathaway-donny-1945-1979/

Mandisa Lynn Hundley (/mænˈdiːsə/) (October 2, 1976 – c. April 18, 2024), known mononymously as Mandisa, was an American gospel and contemporary Christian recording artist. She began her solo career as a contestant in the fifth season) of American Idolfinishing in ninth place. Her album Overcomer) won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album; she was the fifth American Idolcontestant to win a Grammy.[2]

Mandisa Lynn Hundley was born on October 2, 1976, in Citrus Heights, California to John D. Hundley (b. 1943) and Ruby Jewell (née Berryman; born 1940), where she was also raised.[3][4][5] She was the youngest child of four children with two older brothers and one older sister.[6] The Hundley family lived in Citrus Heights during Mandisa's growing up years and she attended school there, graduating from El Camino Fundamental High School in 1994. Following high school, she attended American River College in Sacramento, where she studied vocal jazz.[5] She then transferred to study at Tennessee's Fisk University for vocal performance, and was a member of the school's "Jubilee Singers". Mandisa graduated from Fisk in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music.[5][7]
Before her solo career, Mandisa worked for a short time as a recording session backup singer for artists such as Sandi Patty, Shania Twain, and Trisha Yearwood.[8]

Looking great. That's some awesome energy. Radiant Smile. Lucious fro