"Billie Holiday died handcuffed to her hospital bed because her drug addiction had been criminalized. A Black FBI informant posed as a suitor, hunted her, fell in love with her even, and turned her in for heroin possession, not for hurting anyone, or violence, or for singing too beautiful and true a song but because she was self-medicating against the siege of being a famous Black woman in America, a woman who carried the weight of the nation’s entire soul in her music. For as long as Black music has been popular, crossover, coveted by white listeners and dissected by white critics, it has also been criminalized by white police at all levels of law enforcement. A micro-archive of the criminalization of Black music and police presence within the music, focused on jazz music and improvised forms, shows why we now cry and chant unapologetically for abolition. ..."
LitHub (Video)
Billie Holiday: A Complex Woman, A Jazz Legend (Video)
Independent - Billie Holiday: The wild lady of jazz who adored England (Video)
2010 April: Billie Holiday, 2014 December: "Strange Fruit" (1939), 2014 November: A Harlem Throwback to the Era of Billie Holiday, 2015 February: The Hunting of Billie Holiday, 2015 June: "Fine and Mellow" (1957), 2016 December: Banned From New York City – Live 1948 to 1957
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