In ‘Shine Bright,’ Danyel Smith tells everything about Black female pop stars, and herself 

In music journalist Danyel Smith’s 2016 ESPN essay on Whitney Houston singing the national anthem at Super Bowl XXV in 1991, she implores readers to recognize the moment: “You have to understand. You have to remember.” Houston was undeniably accomplished by then, but had not yet created the cultural behemoths of the ‘90s (“The Bodyguard,” “Waiting to Exhale”) that laid the foundation of her enduring stardom. She was 27 years old, and her very presence as a Black woman at the biggest sporting event of the year was history-making. 

It was also couched within the heady stew of political and cultural tensions surrounding the Gulf War, national surveillance and the racism lodged deep in America’s national identity. Before you see Houston through Smith’s words, you see the world she was navigating, that she was “proof of life” for Black girls growing up in the 1980s who yearned to see themselves honored in such a public way.