Brown Sugar

Abstract

The essential illustrated guide! This newly designed and updated edition of Donald Bogle's classic study and celebration of America's dark divas now takes readers up to the present. Originally published in 1980, Brown Sugar was also the basis for the four-hour, four-part, documentary that appeared on PBS as well as on German Education Television, all also written by Bogle. Lavishly illustrated, Brown Sugar is a pioneering book - for example, in Bogle's application of the operatic term diva to pop goddesses. The first edition traced America's black female superstars from the beginning of the 20th century to 1980. This new edition will have three new chapters on the 1980s, the 1990s, and the first half of the present decade. Brown Sugar is not only about music stars. It is an unexcelled examination of the lives, careers, and sometimes-contradictory images (those public poses and private anxieties!) of African American goddesses of pop culture: the movies, television, music, and theatre. An interpretive history, Brown Sugar is not only about the accomplishments but also the sometimes heart-wrenching struggles and tragedies of highly talented and ambitious women who set out to announce themselves to the world - and while doing so, surmounted extraordinary obstacles, both professionally and personally.

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