I love the album cover for multi-hyphenate Dee Dee Bridgewater’s debut album, 1974's Afro Blue. Dee Dee is a Grammy-award winning singer, actor, philanthropist, etc. She’s bad bad. Just like this album cover. It is art. I’d hang this album up in if I owned a physical copy of it.
The photo, credited to Abe (I wasn’t able to find more information on who Abe is or was), speaks volumes. The look on her face, the design of it. The haircut. This is pure Black excellence and beauty. At the time of this album’s release, Dee Dee was 24, and I wonder if she had any idea of how amazing her career was about to be ahead of her.
Also, I’d highly recommend listening to this album. It’s available wherever you stream music and her voice is amazing, and the music is the kind of jazz that folks who pretend to be deep and cultured listen to when people come over to imply that they’re deep and cultured. Basically, all HBCU graduates should have this album in their repertoire to play when folks come over to play, I don’t know, Culture Tags, or have a book club meeting or a vision board party. At least one person is guaranteed to ask you what it is that you’re playing which is akin to being a sneakerhead and one person out of the million you see on any given day saying to you, “nice kicks.” And then you might become the person with good music taste. So yes, go on ahead and add Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Afro Blue to your arsenal. I might have to do a whole article on this now that I think about it. Don’t you love it when writers think out loud in articles?
You’re welcome. But don’t thank me, thank Dee Dee.