The Sexy, Multi-Dimensional Genius of Roberta Flack

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Cannonball with Wesley Morris
Host: Wesley Morris (The New York Times)
Episode: The Sexy, Multi-Dimensional Genius of Roberta Flack
Date: January 1, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Wesley Morris sits down with Yale professor and cultural critic Daphne Brooks to remember and celebrate the life and artistry of Roberta Flack, who passed away in 2025 at the age of 88. Morris and Brooks explore Flack’s quiet power, her musical influence across generations, and the intricacies that make her work enduringly relevant. Through personal memories, song analysis, and cultural critique, they unpack the dimensions of Flack’s musicianship and legacy, showcasing how she shaped the sound, sentiment, and social landscape of Black music and beyond.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Roberta Flack’s Quiet Power and Musical “Rest”

• Wesley reflects on his year-end ritual of honoring departed cultural icons and explains why he chose Roberta Flack (04:53):
  • “There are a dozen ways of appreciating the music she made. But I want to think about the quiet she kept. You could set up a home in that quiet. You could plot revolution by it…”
• Definition of “rest” in Flack’s music:
  • Wesley highlights how Flack’s unique use of silence—musical rests—became a signature ingredient of her sound, especially in “Killing Me Softly” (05:39):
    • “The rest is the secret ingredient of one of her signature hits.”
• Flack’s ability to create atmosphere is discussed as central to her impact—her music as a space in which listeners live and feel.

2. Flack’s Early Impressions and Cultural Context

• Daphne’s personal history with Flack:
  • Daphne describes growing up in the Bay Area (08:12):
    • “She was just always there, like the sun and the moon in the sky… the atmosphere of my San Francisco Bay Area, early 70s childhood, along with Sesame Street and our Black Power Folk Choir.”
  • The uniqueness of hearing a Black woman voice pain and use words like “killing” in the pop mainstream (09:11):
    • “Killing Me Softly wasn’t scary, but it was such a rupture in the kind of pop music fabric of top 40... distinctly affective and lyrical.”
• Wesley notes how Flack was omnipresent, even for younger generations post-1975, via songs like “Killing Me Softly” and its ubiquity (10:14).

3. Flack’s Place in 'Grown Ass Woman's Music’

• Distinction in a rapidly changing R&B landscape:
  • Flack stayed “earthbound” as other Black artists explored Afrofuturism and dance (11:45):
    • “She wasn’t contemplating life beyond this planet… She’s like, I can’t. Y'all can leave if you want to. I understand why you’re going... But I’m gonna stay here in this little oasis that I have built…”
• Citing Mark Anthony Neal, Daphne names Flack as a quintessential purveyor of mature, sophisticated Black womanhood in music (12:35):
  • “Making grown ass woman’s music.”

4. Song-by-Song Deep Dives

A. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (13:17–20:07)

• Why it matters:
  • Daphne: “Black love rendered as a thing of the cosmos… to get [even] the unknowing to understand that black love… is synonymous with the universe.” (16:37)
• Role in pop culture:
  • Gained mainstream success after use in Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me (18:02–19:22).
  • Discussion of how Black voices are used to “lubricate” expressions of white sexuality in mainstream media.
• Comparing versions:
  • Flack’s version is cosmic and emotional, in stark contrast to the original Peggy Seeger folk version.

B. “To Love Somebody”—Roberta Flack’s Bee Gees Cover (20:31–22:01)

• Wesley’s pick: Flack’s take transforms and repossesses the song; her timing and sensuality emphasized (21:24):
  • “In taking her time, she is thinking about how to repossess a song.”
  • “She could do anything… Just sexy. It’s sexy.”

C. “Gone Away” (22:44–24:36)

• Daphne’s pick:
  • A Donny Hathaway song, symbolizing collaboration and transcending words through pure musical feeling, especially after the 4:01 mark (24:11).
  • Emphasizes Flack’s choral, collective approach and affinity with Hathaway.

D. “Be Real Black For Me” (25:07–26:46)

• Wesley’s pick: The power of her duets with Donny Hathaway; sensuality intertwined with black identity and politics (27:29, 28:14):
  • “You don’t have to be afraid to be your full black self with me.”
  • “To simultaneously possess sensuality—to sing about sex—while also understanding the politics of what it means to be singing that way in the first place…”

5. Canonization, Neglect, and Changing Legacies

• Neglect in mainstream music canons:
  • Roberta Flack omitted from the 2004 Rolling Stone Album Guide and never nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (31:41, 32:03):
    • Wesley: “One of my favorite canonical experiences does not have an entry for our deity, our Priestess of Quiet.”
  • Despite this, her New York Times obituary was front page—signaling cultural reassessment (32:46).
• Daphne’s analysis:
  • Flack’s legacy was overlooked due to historical biases in criticism and is only now reevaluated amid movements like Black Lives Matter.
  • She aligns Flack with towering Black intellectuals and activists—Nina Simone, James Baldwin (33:58):
    • “She’s very much a part of this cultural phenomenon … of Black quiet, you know, turning within. And this is another form of resistance.”

6. Lauryn Hill’s Memorial Eulogy (34:35–35:33)

• A moving testament to Flack’s dignified representation and “quiet fire”:
  • Lauryn Hill (read by Wesley): “She wrote and played and manifested verses for our dignified representation… a voice that was clear as a bell… so rare and unique that the listener is pulled in to acknowledge its quiet power.”

7. The Personal Resonance

• Daphne's closing memory:
  • Reminisces about the safety and self-affirmation she felt as a child within a Black folk choir, linking that feeling directly to Flack’s music (35:33):
    • “We were together in this space feeling just really safe. And that’s how I feel and how I felt when I listened to Roberta Flack and this music…”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On atmosphere and "rest":
  • Wesley Morris [04:53]: “You could set up a home in that quiet. You could plot revolution by it. You could hear yourself think. You could feel her thinking. This is a woman who knew what to do with a rest.”
• On Flack’s cosmic love songs:
  • Daphne Brooks [16:37]: “Black love rendered as a thing of the cosmos… is both equal to the scale of the universe and inextricably tied to the light of the universe.”
• On canonic neglect:
  • Wesley Morris [32:03]: “One of my favorite canonical experiences does not have an entry for our deity, our Priestess of Quiet.”
• On sensuality and politics in Flack’s music:
  • Wesley Morris [28:05]: “To simultaneously possess sensuality—to sing about sex—while also understanding the politics of what it means to be singing that way in the first place.”
• On quiet as resistance:
  • Daphne Brooks [33:59]: “She’s very much a part of this cultural phenomenon that often goes unrecognized with regards to black quiet, you know, turning within. And this is another form of resistance.”
• Lauryn Hill’s eulogy read by Wesley Morris [34:35]:
  • “She wrote and played and manifested verses for our dignified representation on behalf of our dignified collective existence… the listener is pulled in to acknowledge its quiet power.”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction and approach to the episode theme: 00:40–04:49
• Opening discussion: meaning of Roberta Flack’s "quiet": 04:49–07:34
• Daphne Brooks on first encounters with Flack: 07:59–09:59
• Flack’s influence across generations: 09:59–12:35
• Song picks and deep analyses: 13:08–28:35
  • “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” 13:17–20:07
  • “To Love Somebody” 20:31–22:01
  • “Gone Away” 22:44–24:36
  • “Be Real Black For Me” 25:07–28:35
• Break and transition to discussion of legacy: 28:35–30:24
• Discussion of canon, legacy, and cultural reassessment: 30:24–34:16
• Lauryn Hill eulogy and personal resonances: 34:28–36:28
• Goodbyes: 36:28–36:50

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Conclusion

This episode is a richly reflective celebration of Roberta Flack’s artistry and revolutionary presence. Through analysis, cultural context, and emotional resonance, Morris and Brooks contend that Flack’s “quiet fire,” mature sensuality, and unique musicianship place her at the heart of Black sound and cultural history, despite her absence from many mainstream canons. The episode moves seamlessly from musicological detail to personal testimony to a call for continued reclamation of undervalued Black genius.

Memorable final gratitude:

• Wesley Morris [36:50]: “Thank you, Ms. Roberta Flack, for everything.”

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Gannonball. Today, strumming my pain with his fingers. I have a kind of practice around this time of year, of past paying my respects to the people in my life who will not be coming with us into the next year. Some of those people I knew. Some of those people did work that I knew. And part of paying my respects to those people, the artists I love, part of mourning them, is to celebrate what they made this year. I could have easily devoted entire episodes to giants in their field. It would have been cool, for instance, to do a whole Frank Gehry episode where we just tour the buildings he designed and talk about what was so cool and controversial about them. I'm an architect. I'm not an artist. But I don't know. There's no line, in my opinion, so I don't know where that is. I mean, the artists are architects, and architects are artists. David Lynch's movies probably each need their own individual episode.

[C]

You know, I always say, film is the thing. The film is the thing.

[B]

Diane Keaton, What.

[C]

What a life.

[B]

I mean, what a career. I think it would have been really fun to try to balance the meaning of that career on. I'm gonna say it. Baby boom.

[D]

What?

[A]

I.

[E]

Are you telling me that I inherited.

[B]

A baby from a cousin I haven't seen since 1954?

[C]

No.

[D]

I know.

[E]

No way.

[B]

Rob Reiner. Oh, my God. I mean, look, he may not have made the best movies, but he certainly made some of your favorite ones. But you know what? I would have liked to have talked. I would like to just spend a whole episode just talking about him on all in the Family, just playing Mike Meathead. All right, let's see if we can really talk this thing through. It's the heart that pumps the blood, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, does your heart ask you who gave you the blood? No, it's just like the water pump in a car. The water pump in a car. I would have loved to have talked about how Gene Hackman might have been the coolest movie star that we don't talk about as being one of the coolest movie stars. And maybe the way to do that would have just been to talk about the French Connection. Pick it up. Come on, move. What are you looking at? Get your hands out of your pockets. What's my name? Doyle.

[A]

What?

[B]

Mr. Doyle, come here, you. Pick your feet. I had a fantasy doing a double Brian Wilson and Sly Stone episode. Because actually, those two guys have a lot in common, both musically and professionally. And then there were all the artists who weren't household names. But loom large, at least for me, Folks like Malcolm. Jamal Warner, who played Theo on the Cosby Show.

[D]

Denise, is this my shirt?

[B]

Is this the shirt I paid $30 for? Is this the shirt they're supposed to think is important?

[A]

Bartram.

[C]

Ask me the question again.

[B]

Edmund White. He died in January, and I spent the year rereading and reappraising his writing because so many other writers I like loved him. I mean, one of the things that I wanted to try to do was to write about gay experience from the.

[A]

Inside, without any hint of apology, and.

[B]

Yet in a way that would be totally accessible to people who weren't gay. I did the same thing for Jack DeJeanette, but for all time. Great jazz drumming. But of all the people we lost in 2025, all the artists, I went with Roberta Flack.

[D]

The closer I get to you.

[B]

Because. Well, I went with Roberta Flack because I find her musicianship powerful. She was 88 when she died in February. And there are a dozen ways of appreciating the music she made. But I want to think about the quiet she kept. You could set up a home in that quiet. You could plot revolution by it. You could hear yourself think. You could feel her thinking. This is a woman who knew what to do with a rest. Now, in music, a rest is just a silent pause between notes. Lots of pop songs use them, but in the 1970s, Roberta Flacks were newly compelling. The rest is the secret ingredient of one of her signature hits.

[D]

Strumming my bed with his fingers, Killing.

[B]

Me softly with his song begins with her performing the entire chorus joined hauntingly by herself. She's up close to the microphone at first, and then in come the other Robertas from a chamber. But the rest, uh, the rest. To have that tiny break follow such a celestial opening, you almost Gotta stop and ask did God take her? Did her heart actually break? But then, then comes the lilting and some triangle and a bass while Roberta Flack backs up and explains what happened with her and the song that almost killed her. And as far as I'm concerned, all of that beauty and sympathy that's set up by a rest. And so if I was going to spend some time thinking about Roberta Flack, I knew my friend Daphne Brooks was the person to pull up a chair with me and talk about the meaning of Roberta's music. Daphne's a professor at Yale University. She teaches a blockbuster class on Beyonce. She's also a writer and a soulful critic and the author of the invaluable liner notes for the the Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound. Daphne.

[C]

Thanks for coming, Wesley. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

[B]

Well, thanks for coming.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

I'm curious, Daphne. It just feels important to, like, establish this. When did Roberta Flack's music come into your life? Do you remember? Is that something you can pinpoint?

[C]

I don't have a memory of when I first heard Roberta Flack. She was just always there, like the sun and the moon in the sky.

[B]

Atmosphere, atmosphere.

[C]

It was all about it. She was the atmosphere of my San Francisco Bay Area, early 70s childhood, along with Sesame street and our Black Power Folk Choir. I mean, I feel like I'm in a therapy session because I'm piecing together a lot of stuff here. I had the good fortune of being able to go to an experimental multicultural school run by my Black Jewish godparents. And everybody wore dashikis and everybody had Roberta's hair. And so Roberta Flack is being played especially by my teenage sister. We're also hearing her on the beloved Bay Area radio station, ksol. We're hearing her on Soul Train. But for me, my memories of my first encounter with her, not only her voice, but especially Killing Me Softly, which is, you know, my first Roberta Flack experience, like many, many people's. And the thing that was arresting about it as a 6, 7 year old child was that I was hearing a black woman using words like killing and pain. Killing Me Softly wasn't scary, but it was such a rupture in the kind of pop music fabric of top 40. So it's just. It was a distinctiveness in terms of affect. It was a distinctiveness in terms of lyricism. So those are my early memories of Roberta Flack.

[B]

Well, I mean, I will just say that if you're born after 1975. And you don't experience her as part of your popular music diet. She's still in there anyway.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Everybody knows Killing Me Softly even before the Fugees cover it.

[C]

Right.

[D]

Drumming my pain with his finger.

[B]

It is just a song that you could not escape because it was just everywhere. But she was still making music when I was a kid, and this was at an interesting time for music television because all they did was play music videos. Unlike today.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And BET and VH1 had immense love for Oasis. Not the band.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Roberta flack's album from 1988.

[D]

In the morning when I see the sun, I think about you.

[B]

And I was just like, oh, well, that's what she looks like. Huh? There she is. The face on. On album covers that I can kind of see, but I just remember being taken by the strength of her voice.

[E]

Yes.

[D]

I saw it in a single glance. My oldest friend, your new romance.

[B]

And, you know, the other thing about her that was fascinating to me is that she wasn't cool. Is kind of not right. But by the time 1987, 1988, roll around, there's a, like, large window of black of just R and B that has gone to outer space.

[C]

Yeah, right. Yes. Yeah.

[B]

She wasn't contemplating life beyond this planet. She wasn't trying to shake your ass. And she was concerned with matters of the earth. She's like, I can't. Y' all can leave if you want to. I understand why you're going. Earth and wind and fire, Mr. Clinton. George. But I'm gonna stay here in this little oasis that I have built and enjoy what this is.

[D]

All caught up in love.

[B]

And I just really kind of responded to that. It's not like the music she was making that my parents were listening to was not little kids music.

[C]

This is what the scholar Mark Anthony Neal wrote beautifully about Roberta Flack being one of those figures we think of as making grown ass woman's music.

[B]

Oh, sure. You know, grown and sexy. Mm. All right. I gave us both a little homework assignment. I asked you to pick two Roberta Flack songs, and I asked myself to pick two Roberta Flack songs. And we're basically just gonna talk about what we love about them, what they're doing, what they mean, and I am gonna ask you to go first.

[C]

Oh, okay.

[B]

What is the first of your two songs? Cause I, you know, I don't know what you brought, so this is gonna be news to me.

[C]

Well, the news is that the first pick is the first time ever I saw your face.

[B]

Okay. I'm Heartened and surprised.

[C]

Mm. Oh, surprised.

[B]

Well, you know, I'm usually Captain obvious here, but I know if you picked it, you got something deep to say about it. So let's. Please, I should say this is her first big hit from 1971.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Let's listen to it first of all.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

The first time. Ever I saw you.

[B]

I mean, just the smokiness of her voice.

[C]

Oh, smokiness.

[B]

That timbre.

[D]

I thought the sun. Rose in your eyes.

[B]

I mean, it's coral and gospel.

[C]

It's also not entirely of the earth, Wesley.

[B]

All right, fine, Daphne. It's true. You're right.

[D]

You're right.

[B]

But it's not outer space either.

[C]

No, no, no, no.

[B]

But it is ethereal. It's ethereal.

[C]

It's ethereal. I mean, that is a word that's used a lot and accurately so to describe Roberta Flack's work. I mean, I'm glad that you mentioned her being earthbound. I kind of think of what she was doing a little bit differently, but certainly kind of parallel to Afrofuturism movie. You know, there's a line from Lauryn Hill's rapturous eulogy, which she delivered at Roberta Flack's memorial service, that just encapsulated one of the many crucial elements of Roberta Flack's multi dimensional genius. So she has this line, Ms. Hill does, where she says, quote, she wrote our stories in forms the established authorities of the time could not deny, compositions wrapped with graceful, flexible forms and nuances that would not nor could not be dismissed. End quote. Okay? And that, for me, is the story of the mainstream breakthrough success of the first time ever I saw your face.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Cause think of those lyrics.

[D]

I thought the sun. Rose in your eyes.

[C]

I thought the sun rose in your eyes.

[D]

And the moon and the star. Were the gifts you gave.

[C]

And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave. To the dark and the endless skies. My love.

[D]

Into the sky.

[C]

So black love rendered as a thing of the cosmos. So to convey to the unknowing, to get. Let's just be generous and say the unknowing, to convey to the unknowing that black love, that the wholeness of our being is synonymous with the universe, is both equal to the scale of the universe and inextricably tied to the light of the universe.

[B]

Yes. Right. Well, and also, this is not a song she wrote.

[C]

It is not.

[B]

This was a song written by a British person. I can't remember. But, like, what was it? Ewan McCall is the songwriter.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And this Version right here is Peggy Seger singing.

[D]

And the moon and stars were the gift you gave.

[B]

And Roberta's version, I mean, hers couldn't be more different.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

So close to mine.

[B]

This would have been a lot of people's first time hearing Roberta Flack.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And I mean, I'm glad you chose this song actually, because it gives us an opportunity to talk about what made it famous.

[C]

Oh, right, that part.

[D]

Woo.

[C]

Right, so we have Mr. Clint Eastwood. Yes.

[B]

This song appears in a movie, a big hit in 1971. Clint Eastwood's other big hit after Dirty Harry. Yep. Play Misty for me and I want you to imagine being a ticket buying moviegoer in 1971. You went to see Play Misty for me because this was your trailer for Clint Eastwood.

[A]

An invitation to terror.

[B]

You ever find yourself being completely smothered by somebody? This is a movie about Clint Eastwood being stalked by a woman who will not leave him alone. You know, people are like, I'm gonna go see this white blaxploitation movie is what I'm gonna go see.

[C]

Right, exactly.

[B]

But then they get to the movies and Mr. Clint is playing. The first time ever I saw your face in its entirety is these two build their courtship together. She is the mattress upon which this love is made. Roberta Flack. And, you know, Daphne. This is typically how black people are used in all kinds of American movies with respect to white people having sex.

[C]

Tell it, Wesley.

[B]

When white sexuality needs an expressive lubricant, it is usually the black voice or the black body. If we're talking about Ghost, that is supplying the connection. Right?

[C]

Yeah, the medium, literally and figuratively.

[B]

The medium in Ghost, of course, being Whoopi Goldberg, she plays the psychic that Patrick Swayze jumps into to have a little thing with Demi Moore. But anyway, that song, as used in Play Misty for me, an enormous hit for Clint Eastwood and Jessica Walter, who plays the stalker.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Makes that song very popular. That's the beginning of Roberta Flack's career as a popular musician.

[C]

Clint Eastwood hears that song on the radio and then contacts Roberta Flack. And it's still confounding as to why he thought that this was the song for that particular film.

[B]

I don't know.

[C]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

It does speak, though, to the everybody ness of her. Of her voice.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

All right. You chose the first time ever I saw your face. I am gonna go with we were talking about covers. I'm gonna go with a cover of the Bee Gees to love somebody. Let's listen to it.

[D]

I'm sorry, I am A woman.

[B]

We are both making a little stank face right now because. Because you forget, Roberta could do this.

[C]

Exactly what good.

[D]

I would do.

[B]

I mean, she could do anything.

[C]

I'm so glad you chose this.

[B]

What I love about this song is it's another example of her taking her time.

[C]

Mm. Yes.

[B]

And in taking her time, she is thinking about how to repossess a song.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's a march. It's processional. It is the blues. And she means it. That's the thing about Roberta singing anything is that you. What you feel is what she means you to feel.

[D]

You don't know what it's like.

[B]

And I just love how mint this song is. And just sexy. It's sexy.

[C]

Really sexy.

[B]

We both pulled our mouths down while.

[C]

We were listening to it. Yeah. I mean, I think people don't. Because of the massive impact of Killing Me Softly and first time I ever saw your face. I think that there is a way that she has sometimes been scripted as an earth mama, but she contains the multitudes and there was such an eloquence and sophistication to her sensuality that it could move in a variety of different directions.

[B]

I also should just say that's from Quiet Fire from 1971. I think that's the third album. And your turn. What you got?

[C]

Oh, I wanted to share Gone Away.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[C]

It's a cover of Donny Hathaway's Donny Hathaway.

[B]

Hathaway song.

[C]

It's a Donny Hathaway song. It sounds so much like a Donny Hathaway song.

[B]

Right. Donny Hathaway being, of course, the singer and songwriter who Roberta recorded a lot of music with and some of her most popular music. I mean, we should say she made that with him and he wrote this song.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

This has gone away. This would have been the first song on site two if you were doing that in 1970 on chapter two, Roberta Flack's second album, Gone Away.

[D]

I tried to reason the key of.

[B]

Tears, the key of tears and I.

[C]

Tell myself you return.

[D]

But you are gone.

[C]

There's a part of this song that really opens up the heavens for me. And it's around the 401 mark. It feels to me like we're just opening up the heavens.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, and I do feel like we can hear in this moment something that we also hear, you know, in the famous wordless improvisational run that carries us towards the end of Killing me softly.

[D]

La la la la la.

[C]

It's about a kind of going beyond words. Words don't go there. It's a collective reminder of, you know, how much the choir and the choral and the collective and collaboration, especially with her beloved Donny Hathaway, her great, legendary musical partner, how much that meant to her. I hear all of that in that last minute and a half have gone away.

[B]

Well, because, you know, our brains are in sync today. My second song is a Roberta Fleck Donny Hathaway duet. So many of Roberta's hits, as we kind of discussed already, were with Donny Hathaway, who died at 33. What a number to leave this earth. He left it in 1979. And who can say what these two would have done together had that not happened if he had lived? But what they did do is make some really beautiful music together before he died. And this here is one of their signature duets. Be Real Black for me.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

What I really love about the two of them together, Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, is that she lets him do whatever he wants, and there's just, like, a comfort that she has when she sings, not a complacency.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

But she knows what he can do as a singer, and she knows what she can do as a singer. And these two musicians are just in complete harmonic synergy. So this is one of their signatures. Be real black for me.

[D]

Cause I got your love at home. Be real black for me Be real black for me.

[B]

Oh, God, I'm getting chills just hearing them together, like the harmony.

[C]

They are Nina's children. They are Nina's children.

[B]

Great. Nina Simone. Yes.

[C]

To be young, gifted and black.

[B]

100%. I think that the beauty of a song like this, you know, this is on their first album together, and I think it's 1972, you know, near the height of black power after the demise of the Civil rights movement. Not a great time to be thinking about what the future looks like for black people. So we are very much in our present, and it just. This is such a dare in a lot of ways. I mean, it's a. It's a comfort that they're singing about. Right. Like.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

You don't have to be afraid to be your full black self with me.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

You don't have to change a thing. No one knows the love you bring.

[B]

The thing that's so great about Roberta Flack. And this is true for Donny Hathaway, too, but it's differently true for, I think, for women to express themselves in this way, which is to simultaneously possess sensuality.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

To sing about sex. While also understanding the politics of what it means to be singing that way in the first place.

[C]

In the public domain.

[B]

In the public domain, yeah. And to sound like you enjoy it.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Like you know what pleasure is.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Okay, Daphne, I think this is the place to take a break. I think we're gonna just hold on for one second. We're gonna take a break, and when we come back, I want to think canonically a little bit about Roberta Flagg, if that is a place you'd like to go.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

We'll be.

[D]

Foreign.

[A]

Guys. It's Drake May, here to help get your finances into shape. You want to feel confident about your money. You need Betterment. Their automated tools help you grow your wealth and save on taxes. You don't even have to call an audible. They handle it for you. Take it from me. When you know your money is doing what it should be, you become full of that. We got this energy. That's the Betterment effect in action. So get up, sign up, and start investing like a pro. Get started [e-mail] investing involves risk performance, not guaranteed paid client ad. Views may not be representative. See App Store and Google Play Store reviews. Learn [e-mail] pursuitbetterpartners hi, I'm Solana Pine.

[E]

I'm the director of video at the New York Times. For years, my team has made videos that bring you closer to big news moments, videos by Times journalists that have the expertise to help you understand what's going on. Now, we're bringing those videos to you in the Watch tab in the New York Times app. It's a dedicated video feed where you know you can trust what you're seeing. All the videos there are free for anyone to watch. You don't have to be a subscriber. Download the New York Times app to start watching.

[B]

Okay, Professor Daphne Brooks, we are back. And I want to talk a little bit about what it means that we had this woman in our lives for our whole lives, basically, to have had this woman's music in our lives. And I want to think about what her legacy is. I'm not crazy about that word, legacy, but I do want to present something to you, and you're gonna laugh at me because I feel like one aspect of this relationship is me being surprised by the things that you woke up knowing.

[C]

You mean me being old?

[B]

No, you being wise and a person of the world, which I always kind of think I'm a little bit wise and a little bit a person of the world. And then I get little Reality checks like the one I'm about to present to you. So I am holding in my hands my beloved Rolling Stone album Guide, which is a 2004 edition. And as I'm flipping through this book on pages 299 to 300, it starts with the five satins and it ends with the Flamingos. And between those two acts is the Flaming Lips.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Can you guess who's not on pages 299?

[C]

I just. I can't. This is what the kids would call triggering.

[B]

One of my favorite canonical experiences does not have an entry for our deity, our Priestess of Quiet.

[C]

No entry, no induction in the Rock Hall. Not even a nominee.

[B]

Was never on the ballot.

[C]

Never has been on the ballot, never.

[B]

Appeared on a ballot. But Donny Hathaway has an entry.

[C]

Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

[B]

Oh. And the only time Roberta Flack's name appears in this book is conjoined to Mr. Hathaway. So I just want to start there. This is the 2004 edition. I strongly suspect that a future edition will definitely have a page for Ms. Flack.

[C]

They've been going through. Through some ch. Ch. Changes.

[B]

I just want to think about. What is that? What does that say to you? Because I was surprised.

[C]

That's wild.

[B]

Her obituary ran on the front page of the New York Times, and I don't know. In 2004, would she have been on the front page?

[C]

No. No.

[B]

Something has happened in our re. Estimation of this person. Yeah, but nothing about her work changed.

[C]

No.

[B]

So it's us.

[C]

I mean.

[B]

Well, not us.

[C]

Thank God.

[B]

Put her in the book.

[C]

Right, right. The pop public changed, obviously. You know, the move to identify the biases that are historically inherent in rock music criticism and what gets valued and devalued, all of that. But also, I think, you know, our 21st century, deeply contested era of Black Lives Matter and an unprecedented cultural wave of reclaiming our formidable black intellectuals and grassroots activists who were absolutely uncompromising. And I'm thinking, of course, of Nina and also James Baldwin. And so you would put Roberta in the room with them, right?

[B]

100%.

[C]

But I mean, also to bring it back full circle. She's very much a part of this cultural phenomenon that often goes unrecognized with regards to black quiet, you know, turning within. And this is another form of resistance.

[B]

It's also another form of rests.

[C]

This is, if I may, a point that Lauryn Hill makes so beautifully, so stirringly at the memorial service.

[B]

I mean, I think we should just listen to Lauryn Hill deliver her eulogy.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

She wrote and played and manifested verses for our dignified representation on behalf of our dignified collective existence. This is not even to mention the voice that was clear as a bell with a resonance of the beauty and clarity of tone so rare and unique that the listener is pulled in to acknowledge its quiet power. Roberta Flack's quiet fire, the fire of her messages, of her political intent, of her love songs that raised a generation.

[C]

I'm still little Daphne Brooks in 1972, 1973, 1974 and really feeling the freedom of what my parents generation gave to us and bequeathed to us through this music and what it was like to wear dashikis and go to our folk choir with Mr. Finn Layson who changed his name to Brother Larry Love and to find I, God bless him. But you know, we were together in this space feeling just really safe. And that's how I feel and how I felt when I listened to Roberta Flack and this music that we have been gifted with and had the privilege to fall in love with.

[B]

Oh my God.

[C]

That's, that's, that's where I am.

[B]

Daphne Brooks, thanks for coming to do this.

[C]

Wesley Morris. Thank you for having me and thank.

[B]

You, Ms. Roberta Flack, for everything.

[E]

Foreign.

[A]

Listen up, guys, it's Drake May here to help get your finances into shape. You want to feel confident about your money. You need Betterment. Their automated tools help you grow your wealth and save on taxes. You don't even have to call an audible. They handle it for you. Take it from me, when you know your money is doing what it should be, you become full of that. We got this energy. That's the Betterment effect in action. So get up, sign up and start investing like a pro. Get started [e-mail] investing involves risk performance, not guaranteed. Paid client ad views may not be representative. See App Store and Google Play store reviews. Learn [e-mail] PursuitBetterPartners hi, this is Lori.

[E]

Liebovich, editor of well at the New York Times. There's a lot of misinformation in the health and wellness space. But at the New York Times, no matter what the topic, we apply the same same journalistic standards to everything we write about, whether it's the gut microbiome or how to get a good night's sleep. Even if we're talking about something like is it bad for me to drink coffee on an empty stomach? Everything that our readers get when they dig into a well article has been vetted. Our reporters are consulting experts, calling dozens of people doing the research it can go on for months so that you can make great decisions about your physical health and your mental health. We take our reporting extra seriously because we know New York Times subscribers are counting on us. If you already subscribe, thank you. If you'd like to subscribe, go to nytimes.com subscribe.

[B]

This episode of Cannonball was produced by Elissa Dudley, Janelle Anderson, John White and Austin Mitchell. It was edited by Wendy Dore and Lisa Tobin. Daniel Ramirez engineered this episode. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo and Nick Pittman. Dan Powell and Diane Wong did the original music. They always do. Our theme music, as always, is by Justin Ellington. Bobby Doherty took the photo for our show art. Our video team is Bright, Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Chiarapa and Dave Meyers. It was edited by Jamie Heffitts and Jeremy Rocklin. And if you haven't figured out that we're on YouTube, I am telling you we are there. Thank you for listening. We love making this show and we will be back next week with you got the look. You got the look. You're strong enough to be cooking in my book.