us to listen to secular music, but they did let us watch television. They knew that by the time a movie appeared on TV several years after it had been released in the theaters, the cursing and other offensive material had usually been edited out. Yet once I had a TV in my room, I managed to sneak in some programs that my parents considered too worldly.
Like Solid Gold —a TV series that debuted in 1980. Every Saturday, I sat in awe of the show’s dancers, who pranced around in flashy costumes as the week’s top hits played. The first season was hosted by Dionne Warwick, and in the premiere episode, Irene Cara belted out her hit “Fame.” I was hooked from the first note. I also loved American Bandstand . The DeBarges, a family singing group, once performed on that show. The whole time I watched, I thought, Maybe the family-singing-group thing is okay . Maybe I could be cool after all.
My all-time favorite show was Soul Train . Every week, I saw black artists who looked like me—and watching them perform on TV was very different from just hearing them on the radio. All the big stars were on there: the Jacksons, Luther Vandross, Rick James, Johnny Gill, Stacy Lattisaw. Janet Jackson once came on the show to sing “Don’t Stand Another Chance.” With every tilt of her head, her hair bounced like Tootie’s on The Facts of Life . I paid attention to those kinds of details, especially when it came to the young singers. And I never missed an episode. Every Saturday, my parents took a forty-five-minute drive to Baltimore so they could go to the farmers’ market—and I knew that gave me two to three hours to watch Soul Train in peace.
By the early eighties, stars like Donna Summer and Diana Ross were on all of the music shows I watched. I wanted large eyeballs like Diana’s. I also imagined what I’d look like in the gaucho pants that Donna often strutted around in onstage. The big hair, the double-knit jersey fabrics, the cute sandals with the toes out—I longed for the glamour of the big stars. I also dreamed of becoming a famous soloist, but that didn’t seem possible because I was always singing with my family. In the African-American community, a certain idea has persisted for generations: If one gets, we all get. We’re all in the boat together, so we must all get out together. In my family, it was taboo to separate from the group. But secretly, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I didn’t simply want to be an extension of my parents and siblings. I wanted to be an individual. I wanted to be like Donna and Diana.
AS I TRIED to leave my “Homey Toni Braxton” days behind, I studied fashion. One of my aunts kept a stack of Ebony magazines in her living room, and I often leafed through the issues. In those days, Ebony was known for an event called Fashion Fair—a traveling runway show that featured black models wearing vibrant outfits, flawless makeup, and chocolate-colored lipstick; when the magazine’s editors included coverage of Fashion Fair in their pages, I cut out my favorite looks. All the teasing I got from my classmates had left me with something to prove—that I could be stylish. I’m not really a vengeful person, but in the back of my head, I was always thinking, I’ll show them .
And yet the change in my image happened veeeeery slowly—which means the cruelty from my classmates continued. “I ain’t sayin’ no names,” one girl would spout off to another in the hallway, “but somebody was talkin’ ’bout you.”
“You’d better tell me who it was,” the other kid would shout, “or I’m gonna beat you up!”
Somehow, the finger of blame would always end up pointed directly at me; the irony was that I wasn’t talking to anyone about anything, because I’d always been in the out crowd. Even still, girls would randomly come up to me and hit me in the head or push me down and say, “I heard you was talkin’ ’bout me!” I might’ve been under five feet and scrawny, but I
Like Solid Gold —a TV series that debuted in 1980. Every Saturday, I sat in awe of the show’s dancers, who pranced around in flashy costumes as the week’s top hits played. The first season was hosted by Dionne Warwick, and in the premiere episode, Irene Cara belted out her hit “Fame.” I was hooked from the first note. I also loved American Bandstand . The DeBarges, a family singing group, once performed on that show. The whole time I watched, I thought, Maybe the family-singing-group thing is okay . Maybe I could be cool after all.
My all-time favorite show was Soul Train . Every week, I saw black artists who looked like me—and watching them perform on TV was very different from just hearing them on the radio. All the big stars were on there: the Jacksons, Luther Vandross, Rick James, Johnny Gill, Stacy Lattisaw. Janet Jackson once came on the show to sing “Don’t Stand Another Chance.” With every tilt of her head, her hair bounced like Tootie’s on The Facts of Life . I paid attention to those kinds of details, especially when it came to the young singers. And I never missed an episode. Every Saturday, my parents took a forty-five-minute drive to Baltimore so they could go to the farmers’ market—and I knew that gave me two to three hours to watch Soul Train in peace.
By the early eighties, stars like Donna Summer and Diana Ross were on all of the music shows I watched. I wanted large eyeballs like Diana’s. I also imagined what I’d look like in the gaucho pants that Donna often strutted around in onstage. The big hair, the double-knit jersey fabrics, the cute sandals with the toes out—I longed for the glamour of the big stars. I also dreamed of becoming a famous soloist, but that didn’t seem possible because I was always singing with my family. In the African-American community, a certain idea has persisted for generations: If one gets, we all get. We’re all in the boat together, so we must all get out together. In my family, it was taboo to separate from the group. But secretly, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I didn’t simply want to be an extension of my parents and siblings. I wanted to be an individual. I wanted to be like Donna and Diana.
AS I TRIED to leave my “Homey Toni Braxton” days behind, I studied fashion. One of my aunts kept a stack of Ebony magazines in her living room, and I often leafed through the issues. In those days, Ebony was known for an event called Fashion Fair—a traveling runway show that featured black models wearing vibrant outfits, flawless makeup, and chocolate-colored lipstick; when the magazine’s editors included coverage of Fashion Fair in their pages, I cut out my favorite looks. All the teasing I got from my classmates had left me with something to prove—that I could be stylish. I’m not really a vengeful person, but in the back of my head, I was always thinking, I’ll show them .
And yet the change in my image happened veeeeery slowly—which means the cruelty from my classmates continued. “I ain’t sayin’ no names,” one girl would spout off to another in the hallway, “but somebody was talkin’ ’bout you.”
“You’d better tell me who it was,” the other kid would shout, “or I’m gonna beat you up!”
Somehow, the finger of blame would always end up pointed directly at me; the irony was that I wasn’t talking to anyone about anything, because I’d always been in the out crowd. Even still, girls would randomly come up to me and hit me in the head or push me down and say, “I heard you was talkin’ ’bout me!” I might’ve been under five feet and scrawny, but I
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