Whitney came along in an era of American pop music when artists like Michael Jackson and Prince had only a few years earlier began to break down the segregated walls of American radio and music television. Whitney Houston’s music again brought to the fore the question of “what is black music”? Is it specifically Soul, Gospel and Hip Hop? Or is it any style of music that is sung by black artists? It seems that after Whitney’s first two or three albums, black folks deemed her music “too white.” Her songs were more Barbara Streisand than Aretha Franklin and folks wanted her to know it.
First, I remembered the night of the Soul Train Music Awards sometime in the late 80s or early 90s when Whitney was booed after being introduced to the audience.
A few things came to mind as I listened to her vocals and the music production with its searing strings and orchestral horn arrangements. When I heard the song “I Have Nothing”, I marveled at Whitney’s emotional intensity and vocal range, a voice that had become only a shadow of itself in recent years. Today, I heard some of Whitney’s greatest hits, songs I hadn’t heard in a while. With the recent passing of pop music superstar Whitney Houston, radio stations have been playing Houston’s hits around the clock, as is customary when a well-known artist dies.
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