About this Event
About the books:
I'M YOUR BABY TONIGHT
Whitney Houston's first two albums, Whitney Houston (1985) and Whitney (1987), propelled her to international fame and produced a record-setting run of seven consecutive No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Yet those triumphs were accompanied by criticism that she had diluted her racial identity to appeal to white audiences. With her third album, 1990's I'm Your Baby Tonight, she confronted those charges by more fully embracing a Black musical lineage.
At a moment when Houston's cultural presence is enjoying a resurgence and critics are reexamining U.S. media's treatment of women celebrities, this book positions I'm Your Baby Tonight as a vital act of self-assertion. The album revealed the racialized pressures often placed on Black crossover artists--and demonstrated how Houston, the superstar beloved as "The Voice," charted her own path while redefining the terms of pop success.
HOLDING LIGHTNING: THE LIFE, LOVES, AND ART OF WHITNEY HOUSTON
A showstopping portrait of Whitney Houston as we've never seen her before--a woman in her full power, a musician who knew the impact of her gift, and a fulcrum of Black celebrity--in this first major biography of the artist who became an icon.
We remember Whitney Houston for her soaring voice on songs that defined a generation and kicked open the door to Black women in pop music. Her trademark stance was a picture of elegance and power: head thrown back, arms flung straight out. Then there was her sound. One producer recalled Whitney's otherworldly ability to hold notes, comparing it to "holding lightning in your hand, holding lightning in your throat." She tried to hold the lightning as she bathed us all in the glow.
But since her death in 2012, the woman known as "The Voice" has been reduced to just that. Whitney's critics have slotted her memory into a tired genre of famous doomed women whose success owed more to their labels and their producers than to any agency of their own. Yet a closer look reveals a serious artist and woman of conviction striving to be who she was. She said it best: "There would be no 'Whitney Houston' without Whitney Houston."
In Holding Lightning, leading cultural critic and professor Emily Lordi has gained unique access to Houston's innermost circle to show us the Whitney we've been unwilling to see--her fluid sexuality, her unapologetic love of her own talent, her insistence that she be the architect of her own career. And, crucially, Lordi positions Houston's pivotal life in the long history of Black celebrity. Before "rooting for everybody Black" became the norm, Whitney worked as a relentless advocate for Black female talent across the entertainment industry.
Now, finally, in Holding Lightning, we have the essential, up-close portrait of the icon we thought we knew.
About the authors:
Brandon Tensley is an award-winning politics reporter at Capital B, a Black-focused nonprofit newsroom. His culture writing has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Smithsonian, among other outlets. He has won a number of professional fellowships, including from the National Press Foundation, the Luce Scholars Program, and the Fulbright Program. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area.
Emily Lordi is a writer, cultural critic, and professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of three books on Black literature and popular music, a writer-at-large for T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and a contributor to NewYorker.com, The Washington Post, and others. She lives in Nashville, TN.
Accessibility note: This event is up two flights of stairs and Lost City Books does not have an elevator. Please contact [email protected] with questions.
Dato de accesibilidad: Este evento toma lugar en el segundo piso y Lost City Books no tiene ascensor. Favor de contactar [email protected] con cualquiera duda.
Event venue & nearby stays
Lost City Books, 2467 18th Street Northwest, Washington, United States
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