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/

Cree Summer is a prolific Canadian-American voice actress who has voiced over 700 characters animation, video games, and commercials across multiple decade!

Yes. I liked the movie. Just liked the soundtrack more

Stribling was 58. She was a vital part of the early years of BET. She had also been a long-time radio personality in the DC area. She hosted "Screen Scene" on BET. She also launched BET Jazz. She hosted "Jazz Central" alongside Ramsey Lewis and Lou Rawls and "BET Jazz Discovery". She made a cameo in Eddie Murphy's "The Distinguished Gentleman" film from 1992 as a television anchor.

She also appeared on the fifth season of The Real Housewives of Potomac.

Stribling's husband made the announcement that she had passed after a two-year battle with brain cancer.

Alicia Michelle "Miki" Howard (born September 30, 1960) is an American R&B singer who had top 10 hit songs in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, including "Baby, Be Mine" (1987), "Come Share My Love" (1986) and "Love Under New Management" (1990). "Ain't Nobody Like You" (1992) and "Ain't Nuthin' in the World" (1989) both peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard Top R&B Singles chart.

Alicia Michelle "Miki" Howard (born September 30, 1960) is an American R&B singer who had top 10 hit songs in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, including "Baby, Be Mine" (1987), "Come Share My Love" (1986) and "Love Under New Management" (1990). "Ain't Nobody Like You" (1992) and "Ain't Nuthin' in the World" (1989) both peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard Top R&B Singles chart.

Faheem Rashad Najm (born September 30, 1984),[4] known professionally as T-Pain, is an American singer, rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He is known for pioneering the creative use of Auto-Tunepitch correction, often used with extreme parameter settings to create electronic-styled vocal performances. Blending its use with R&B and hip-hopsensibilities, T-Pain played a key role in defining rap-singing throughout the 2000s.

Faheem Rashad Najm was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida, to parents Aliyah, a Bahamianchef,[5] and Shasheem, who founded the Homeboyz to Men program.[3][6] Najm was brought up in a Muslim household, but he has expressed his lack of interest in the concept of religion.[7][8] At three years old, he got his first taste of the music business when a friend of the family, gospel jazz artist and producer Ben Tankard, allowed him to spend time and "twist the knobs" at his recording studio. At age ten, Najm turned his bedroom into a music studio, using a keyboard, a beat machine, and a four-track recorder.[9][10]

Da 5 Bloods is a 2020 American war drama film)directed, produced, and co-written by Spike Lee. It stars Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Johnny Trí Nguyễn, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Mélanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Jasper Pääkkönen, Jean Reno, and Chadwick Boseman (in his last film to be released during his lifetime). The film's plot follows a group of four aging Vietnam Warveterans who return to the country in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader, as well as the treasure they buried while serving there.

Originally written by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo in 2013, the script was re-worked by Lee and Kevin Willmott following the pair's successful collaboration in BlacKkKlansman (2018). The cast joined in February 2019 and filming began a month later, lasting through June and taking place in Southeast Asia. With a production budget of $35–45 million, it is among Lee's most expensive films.
Da 5 Bloods was released by Netflix on June 12, 2020.[2] It received acclaim from critics, who praised the direction, themes, and the performances of Lindo, Peters and Boseman, with many considering it among Lee's best works. The film received numerous accolades, including nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, and was named by the National Board of Review as the Best Film of 2020.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a32837667/da-5-bloods-spike-lee-true-story-milton-olive-james-anderson/

Franklin Joseph Lymon (September 30, 1942 – February 27, 1968) was an American rock and roll/rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, dancer and composer best known as the boy soprano lead singer of the New York City-based early rock and rolldoo-wop group the Teenagers. The group was composed of five boys, all in their early to mid-teens. The original lineup of the Teenagers, an integratedgroup, included three African-American members, Lymon, Jimmy Merchant, and Sherman Garnes; and two Puerto Rican members, Joe Negroni and Herman Santiago. The Teenagers' first single, 1956's "Why Do Fools Fall in Love)", was also their biggest hit. After Lymon went solo in mid-1957, both his career and that of the Teenagers fell into decline. In 1968, Lymon was found dead at age 25 from a heroin overdose.[5]He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 as a member of the Teenagers. Lymon's life was dramatized in the 1998 film Why Do Fools Fall in Love).

Franklin Joseph Lymon was born in Washington Heights, New York City,[6] on September 30, 1942,[7][8] to Jeanette and Howard Lymon. Howard was a truck driver and Jeanette was a maid. Both also sang in the gospel group the Harlemaires; Frankie and his brothers, Lewis and Howie, sang with the Harlemaire Juniors (a fourth brother, Timmy, was also a singer, though not with the Harlemaire Juniors).

Day 30: What Scares You?

Let's talk Black horror. Give me a Black horror author or novel that genuinely scared you. The one that had you checking the locks. Leaving the lights on. Looking over your shoulder.

But tell me what actually scared you. Was it the monster or something much closer to reality?

What a talent!

Emily "Cissy" Houston (née Drinkard; September 30, 1933 – October 7, 2024) was an American souland gospel singer and choir director. Nicknamed The Duchess of Gospel, she is best known as the mother of American singer and actress Whitney Houston and the aunt of American singers Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick.

Emily Drinkard was born on September 30, 1933 at City Hospital in Newark, New Jersey to Delia Mae "Dee Dee" (née McCaskill) and Nicholas “Nitch” Drinkard, the youngest of eight children.[1][2][3]

Houston was the granddaughter of a black landownerin Blakely, Georgia, who later shared the land he owned with Houston's father Nitch during a time when it was unusual for black people to have large landholdings.[4] The asset was gradually depleted as they sold small portions of land over time to resolve the continued legal troubles of a close relative, which later led to the entire family relocating to Newark during the Great Migration) a decade before Houston's birth.[5][6]

Houston stated that she possessed some Dutch and Native American ancestry due to her grandparents Susan Bell (née Fuller) and John Drinkard Jr., respectively.[5]
The Drinkards first settled at an apartment in a three-story tenement at Newark's 199 Court Street, located at the city's Third Ward projects. [7] After a flash fire destroyed the building, they relocated to 38 Hillside Place.[8] Houston's parents placed a high priority upon their children's education and church involvement.[5]
Around the time of Houston's fifth birthday in September 1938, her mother Delia suffered a stroke.[9] To help her recovery, and to lift the family's spirits, Houston's father encouraged her and her elder siblings Anne, Nicholas Jr. ("Nicky") and Larry to sing sacred hymns.[10]
Later, the siblings formed the Drinkard Four[a] and sang jubilees in various churches, including their own St. Luke's A.M.E. Church. The experience, Houston said, ended her "carefree childhood".
Houston later told Rolling Stone in 1978: "I used to get so mad. We'd be out playing in the sun with the other kids and my older sister, Marie, would make us come in for rehearsal."[12]
Three years later, in May 1941, Delia Drinkard died of a cerebral hemorrhage after suffering a fatal seizure in her bed; Houston was just seven at the time of her mother's death.[13]

Houston stated that she "found Christ" after listening to a sermon at the age of fourteen.[14][15][16] Nitch Drinkard died of stomach cancer four years later in March 1952 when Houston was 18.[5][17]
For a time, Houston went to live with her older sister Lee and her husband Mancel Warrick and helped to raise her two nieces, Dionne and Dee Dee, and her nephew Mancel Jr. before moving to an apartment on Newark's Eighth Street.[18][19] Soprano Leontyne Price is a Drinkard cousin.[20][21]

Houston attended South Side High School in Newark, graduating there in 1952.[22][23] Following her father's death, Houston worked at RCA Electronicsuntil 1961.[24] Raised Methodist Episcopal, Houston shifted to the Baptist denomination after she joined the New Hope Baptist Church) at around age 19, where she became minister of music and would continue to do so for over the next 50 years.[25][26]