TD3 said:

smoothcriminal12 said:

i'm not gonna even touch that.

Me too. Just backing away....slowly...

duccichucka said:

smoothcriminal12 said:

Yeah, you're right.

Hehehe...

BUT!

The problem is: (white) men are telling these stories.

If women were the keepers of time and space (history), maybe

shit would be told, explained and chronicled differently.

For example: when my wife is explaining how her day went (her history),

she tells her story in a different manner than I do. I give facts and I have

a point to my story. She gives feelings, emotions, glosses over facts,

has 48 points to her story and expects me to support her 48 points or my black

ass is sleeping on the couch.

On second thought, let's not give women the right to tell history, the crazy fucks.

MickyDolenz said:

duccichucka said:

men tell the story

You mean white men.

I heart you

Getting kinda hot all of a sudden in here...

norah jones

nikka

[Edited 2/2/12 9:58am]

And not one mention of Amel Larrieux and Janelle Monae?

Amel may not be a musician, but her writing is out of this world, along with her vocals and vocal improvisation. These days her improvisation is kinda too out there to me, but okay. She's definitely in a class of her own. Miss Janelle, creatively put together tracks, written or co-written by her, that were telling a story that freakily yet geniously was code for how we humans act and where we are leading to if we keep up. i mean rest your dancing shoes with "Locked Inside" and instead read the lyrics to get a sense of what i'm talking about. She has a lot of metaphors to androids and cyborgs and destruction to explain the condition of this Earth we're living in and dumb human behavior, and IMO, i think she does it in an incredibly genius way.



Now everyone has different opinions, but i think what was meant by "musical genius" are those legendary artists who managed to create and write THEIR OWN music that is mind-blowing in musical AND lyrical AND/OR and vocal content. Stevie and Marvin and Prince were completely there in that regard.



You know who was the first woman that came to my head? Real talk, Miss Georgia Anne Muldrow. If you don't know, look her up.
Produces, plays keys, writes, sings, and raps. Her aura and her style is so effin unique.



Aside from her, I truly think Erykah. i personally love how Erykah annoys people's minds w/ her music when she could be talking about something simple (drug addiction, death of Dilla, knowledge of self/staying "woke", addressing "groupthink" through video, theory of love vs fear, her firstborn, letting go of "baggage"). She's crazy to so many people, but i get her.


So far these artists listed aren't like some of our favorite lady legends who had majority of their famous songs written by someone else (i.e. "Respect", "At Last", "If Only You Knew", etc.) There's more artists i would like to mention, but later!

Aretha Franklin

Ella Fitzgerald

Sarah Vaughn

Sister Rosetta Thorpe

Dorothy Donnegan

Shirley Scott

Nina Simone

Patrice Rushen

Carole King

The people naming Angela Winbush, I don't get that at all.

Cinnamon234 said:

I've noticed on this site and many other sites as well that when people refer to music geniuses, they often point to male artists or groups such as Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, Prince (of course), Stevie Wonder,etc. but never mention women.

What about Female artists? Is it a case of sexism or do you really feel that female musical geniuses are few and far in between?

Are there any women in the industry any of you consider to be musical geniuses?

RnBAmbassador said:

Aretha Franklin

Ella Fitzgerald

Sarah Vaughn

Sister Rosetta Thorpe

Dorothy Donnegan

Shirley Scott

Nina Simone

Patrice Rushen

Carole King

There's a case for Amel but Janelle is still a new artist so I won't go that far yet.

rtoriq said:

Now everyone has different opinions, but i think what was meant by "musical genius" are those legendary artists who managed to create and write THEIR OWN music that is mind-blowing in musical AND lyrical AND/OR and vocal content. Stevie and Marvin and Prince were completely there in that regard.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sade and Angela Winbush remains UNBOTHERED!!! You can STAY PRESSED!!

Patrice Rushen

ok, here's an attempt at a definition for the sake of dialogue.

a musical genius is someone who plays at LEAST one instrument EXTREMELY well and pushes (or has pushed) the envelope musically as in breaking new ground in sonic experimentation, content exploration, diverse stylings, defies genre categories, or does their genre of music SO WELL, for a long time (a decade minimum) with consistent qualtiy output (not necessarily commercial success) that their niche is clearly their own. they write their own material and their VOICE can also be considered an instrument. they may have produced music for others or are highly sought out live musicians.

with that said, the female list is very short to me.

Esperanza Spalding comes close.

Looking at her entire catalog, I think it's safe to assume Patrice "Babyfingers" Rushen has the other female musical geniuses beat especially with instrumentation and compositions. Plus wasn't she a child prodigy? I think she was like 2 or 3 when she entered Julliard.

The reason why women don't get much credit for being musical geniuses because the music industry from the very beginning has always been predominately male and therefore they get better opportunites and exposure to experiment with music.

The only way women can break out in that business was being performers. There are women are just as intelluctally gifted as men in writing and composting music but let's look at this like how African Americans were treated in the music business. When you are held back it is difficul to be given full credit.

There was this all female multiracial band in the 1940's.....way before their time called the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.

Musical geniuses

Ella Fitzgearld

Maria Callas

Aretha Franklin

Edith Piaf

Mina (she's not really known in the US, but in Europe she's a legend and amazing singer)

Elizabeth Fraser

PJ Harvey

Kate Bush

[img:$uid]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y60/jonwolslau/chrissie_hynde_01.jpg[/img:$uid]

[img:$uid]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x261/Sheeea/8-Debbie-Harry.jpg[/img:$uid]

rtoriq said:

And not one mention of Amel Larrieux and Janelle Monae?

Amel may not be a musician, but her writing is out of this world, along with her vocals and vocal improvisation. These days her improvisation is kinda too out there to me, but okay. She's definitely in a class of her own. Miss Janelle, creatively put together tracks, written or co-written by her, that were telling a story that freakily yet geniously was code for how we humans act and where we are leading to if we keep up. i mean rest your dancing shoes with "Locked Inside" and instead read the lyrics to get a sense of what i'm talking about. She has a lot of metaphors to androids and cyborgs and destruction to explain the condition of this Earth we're living in and dumb human behavior, and IMO, i think she does it in an incredibly genius way.



Now everyone has different opinions, but i think what was meant by "musical genius" are those legendary artists who managed to create and write THEIR OWN music that is mind-blowing in musical AND lyrical AND/OR and vocal content. Stevie and Marvin and Prince were completely there in that regard.



You know who was the first woman that came to my head? Real talk, Miss Georgia Anne Muldrow. If you don't know, look her up.
Produces, plays keys, writes, sings, and raps. Her aura and her style is so effin unique.



Aside from her, I truly think Erykah. i personally love how Erykah annoys people's minds w/ her music when she could be talking about something simple (drug addiction, death of Dilla, knowledge of self/staying "woke", addressing "groupthink" through video, theory of love vs fear, her firstborn, letting go of "baggage"). She's crazy to so many people, but i get her.


So far these artists listed aren't like some of our favorite lady legends who had majority of their famous songs written by someone else (i.e. "Respect", "At Last", "If Only You Knew", etc.) There's more artists i would like to mention, but later!

Yea Georgia and Janelle are good... I think Monae is spetacular very talented across the board..

Women aren't encouraged enough in the music industry creatively per se. And women instrumentalists (especially guitarists) are still seen by some men as a joke (especially those with a small dick). Speaking as a man, I'm sure that every man would have more respect for women if they had to go through 1/100th of the pain of childbirth.

[Edited 2/5/12 14:20pm]

TD3 said:

smoothcriminal12 said:

Well THAT'S rare to see around here.

yeah, i know i've taken a lil' bit of grief but dammit i'm standing my ground. Harle says she praying for me, calling on all faiths and deities.

Girl, you're from Chicago. I'd say the ones ganging up on you are the folks who need a prayer,,,,and a ready to use first aid kit

I saw someone already mention her on the first page, but I want to cosign on Twinkie Clark. She is THE TRUTH. I wish she would have gotten more props outside of the gospel community, because not too many could do what she could, or still can. She plays, writes, produces, arranges and can sing from bass to soprano. She was adding rappers on tracks long before the world heard of a Kirk Franklin. She's in her mid-late 50's and lost a lot of her vocal power, but she can still put most of these young girls to shame. I don't know how to post videos, but here's a tribute video someone put up of her. She's a true female musical genius.

http://www.youtube.com/wa...6r8s_sqjPg

I think Jane Child is pretty close as well but the truth is in her non-single tracks. Mona Lisa Smiles, Heavy Smile and Sarasvati are nothing short of brilliant.

1. Nina Simone (great vocalist/composer/writer and pianist

2. Alice Coltrane (great jazz pianist, organist, harpist, and composer and wife of John Coltrane.)

3. Bonnie Raitt (great blues and country vocalist and guitarist)

4. Cindy Blackman (great/gifted drummer/carlos santana's wife)

5. Alicia Keyes (great writer/vocalist/pianist)

6. Sheila E (great-great drummer and performer)

7. Patrice Rushen (gifted jazz vocalist/composer and pianist)

Taken from an article written by Alice O'Keefe for the Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk...rts.music:

It was Albert Einstein who said that 'as an artist, or a musician, Mozart was not a man of this world'. Certainly the composer's extraordinary talents have never been in doubt: he could master a minuet and trio on the piano in half an hour when he was just four years old, and he wrote his first opera at the age of 12.

Now, as the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth approaches this month, one film-maker is setting out to prove that such astounding achievements were a product more of hard graft than genius, as has often been assumed.

'I was intrigued by this term "genius", because as far as I can see it is completely useless,' said Phil Grabsky, director of a new feature-length documentary, In Search of Mozart, which premieres on Wednesday at the Barbican Centre in the city of London before being screened on Channel Five later this month.

'What the characters we sometimes call geniuses have in common is drive and determination, often good parenting, and the fact that they are products of the social conditions of their time,' he said. 'All of this was true for Mozart. His talent wasn't simply a gift from God, it was the result of tremendously hard work.'

The film traces the composer's life and includes interviews with leading scholars and performers, including Magdelena Kozena and Renee Fleming. It is the first of the major commemorations surrounding this year's Mozart anniversary, Nicholas Kenyon, the author of A Pocket Guide to Mozart, agrees that the composer's reputation as a genius was created only after his death. 'This myth tells us a lot about the difference between the Classical and Romantic ages,' he said. 'Mozart saw himself as a practical worker. The Romantic composers who succeeded him perpetuated this idea that he composed thoughtlessly, when all the evidence is that he wrote and rewrote his work.' Grabsky's film will reignite the debate over the composer's legacy initiated by Milos Forman's Oscar-winning 1984 feature film Amadeus.

'I think many people have the misleading impression, principally from that very brilliant film, that Mozart was a bawdy, undisciplined philanderer who occasionally had flashes of genius,' said Grabsky. 'In fact, he was going to concerts every night, meeting musicians, listening to other people's work, writing and rewriting his own. He was very practical about his work, and entrepreneurial. 'Of course Amadeus was a creative reworking of Mozart's story. But it had a lasting effect on people.'

According to Charles Hazlewood, presenter of the BBC's 2004 series The Genius of Mozart, the movie Amadeus put Mozart back at the top of the musical pantheon alongside Beethoven. 'Before the film was made an awful lot of people saw his music as charming and naïve chocolate-box music, whereas in fact it's music with the most extreme depth,' he said. 'Of course Mozart's achievements were the combination of extraordinary natural gifts and dedication to his craft.'

Check this out too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...nal_method

All things considered, I still can't call any of the lovely ladies mentioned in this thread

a "genius;" especially if it is debatable whether or not Herr Mozart was.

(4got these 2) desiree bassett wendy melvoin

Dren5 said:

Nobody mentioned Fiona Apple or Patrice Rushen or Sheila E.

Editing to add Stevie Nicks.

[Edited 1/31/12 23:02pm]

Patrice Rushen was the first name that came to my mind when I was reading the thread title.

duccichucka said:

Hehehe...

BUT!

The problem is: (white) men are telling these stories.

If women were the keepers of time and space (history), maybe

shit would be told, explained and chronicled differently.

For example: when my wife is explaining how her day went (her history),

she tells her story in a different manner than I do. I give facts and I have

a point to my story. She gives feelings, emotions, glosses over facts,

has 48 points to her story and expects me to support her 48 points or my black

ass is sleeping on the couch.

On second thought, let's not give women the right to tell history, the crazy fucks.

that's why women's chronicles of the past shoud be called "herstory." then our wonderful men won't have to regress on any levels.

Dolly Parton

Patsy Cline

Loretta Lynn.

You guys arent listening to the genre where woman have more of a chance in the industry.

Carole King!!!!!!!!!!

I love all the singers mentioned, but Fiona Apple is...