23. Angie Stone - Brotha (2001)

Another female black voice, and again, to fully appreciate the record, you have to see it in the historical perspective. To at least partly understand why black men treated women like they did, we must remember that the dominant white culture always tried to spiritually emasculate the black man, and black men were always addressed in the denigrating term "boy". One of the demands made by African-American males since they started to hold their own was to be regarded as men, not "boys", and one of the ways to prove their masculinity was their domineering approach towards women. In both black music and black politics, the demand to be seen as men was accompanied by aggressive behavior towards women, which frequently reached the level of outright misogyny. What was the reaction of the black women? Well, their voice was hardly heard in black politics, but in black music, it rang out loud. From the twenties blues of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, through the gospel of Mahalia Jackson and up to the soul of Aretha Franklin, the strong female vocal is part and parcel of black pop. These singers always stood their ground against men, but they also knew how to present another side. While male singers emphasized their individual freedom, their private struggle against the world and their ravishing sexuality, the females sang in the name of love, in the name of caring for others and in the name of the communal black struggle. Black women were the glue that held the African-American community together through all the hardships, and the singers embodied that role in their songs.

In the eighties, women in general adopted a more individualistic consciousness, and that included black women. It was an important stage in the journey for women lib, but also chiefly responsible for the loss of that other dimension that women brought into pop. Many female records expressed antagonism towards men, without presenting the other side of promising to be soft on a man who would treat them right. And without the women to provide the glue and balance, men became more selfish and aggressive. The nineties are remembered as the years when the violence in black music reached its peak, causing disintegration in the African-American community, as rappers would conduct public battles that would sometimes end in bloodshed. Music, which was always the main unifying and driving force in the black community, became a dividing force.

But towards the end of the nineties came the reaction, in a wave of female singers who provided what became known as neo-soul: soulful singing combined with hip-hop beats and samples, and a message of brotherhood and a positive outlook on existence and on the world. The beginning of the wave is commonly attributed to Erykah Badu's first album in 1997, but the real breakthrough came a year later, with Lauryn Hill's first album. Everyone expected Hill to carry the style into the new millennium, but she got entangled in inner complications which she couldn't resolve. By that time, however, there were enough women (and also some men, but the complexion of the style is definitely feminine) who kept spreading the gospel, and the positive spirit of neo-soul infiltrated all the realms of pop, helping to thaw the hostility between the genders and races.

Angie Stone was one of the leaders of the wave. Here she sings a hymn to her black brothers, offering them unconditional love despite everything. This is an attitude that went missing since the seventies, and how good it was to hear it linked to contemporary sounds.