The Friday Mixtape–Remembering Donna Summer & Chuck Brown [Voices]

However, the union between Hip-Hop and Go-Go was not just about sampling (Go-go bands also famously sample Hip-Hop). Brown’s 2007 song, “Block Party” featured DJ Kool.

In 2010, his single “Love” featuring Jill Scott and Marcus Miller, earned him his first Grammy Award nomination (for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals).

An impromptu vigil was held in Washington, DC Wednesday night on a street recently renamed “Chuck Brown Way.”

- Sia Barnes, The Source

Summer remained a force on the Billboard Dance/Club Play Songs chart all through her career, fitting, for the Queen of Disco. She notched 14 No. 1s on the chart – all the way up through her most recent hit, 2010′s “To Paris With Love.” Her last studio album, 2008′s “Crayons,” spun off three No. 1 Dance/Club hits with “I’m a Fire,” “Stamp Your Feet” and “Fame (The Game).”

On the Billboard 200 albums chart, she claimed three back-to-back No. 1 albums between 1978 and 1980 with “Live and More,” “Bad Girls” and “One the Radio – Greatest Hits Volumes I & II.” She collected further top 20 albums with 1980′s “The Wanderer” (No. 13), 1982′s self-titled set (No. 20), 1983′s “She Works Hard for the Money” (No. 9) and “Crayons” (No. 17).

Summer won five Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards and was the first African American woman to be nominated for an MTV Video Music Award, for “She Works Hard for the Money.”

“I don’t know if I could say I’d forseen how long this music would last,” she told Billboard. “I think all performers would love to see there’s no generation gap in music. People still listen to my songs on the radio. DJs still spin them in the club. You just hope that the music you make will still be around and have a second life, a third life, a fourth life. I mean, look at the Beatles. Come on!”

- Billboard Magazine

Page 3 of 3 | Previous page