Knight Errant of Alder

This list definitely does not contain everything he discusses. Please read the book for yourself. I personally recommend the audiobook.

Books

Black Cool: One Thousand Streams Of Blackness by Rebecca Walker

Dreams Of Africa In Alabama by Sylviane A Diouf

Duke: A Life Of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Unseen: Unpublished Black History From the New York Times Photo Archives by Dana Canedy, Darcy Eveleigh, Damien Cave, and Rachel E. Swarns

Movies

The 40 Year Old Version

Darktown Strutters

A Great Day In Harlem (documentary)

Love Jones

Remember My Name

Sparkle

Tougher Than Leather

Songs

Ain't Nothin Wrong by KC and the Sunshine Band

Bang Bang by Stevie Wonder

Black, Brown, and Beige suite by Duke Ellington

Blame It On The Boogie by The Jacksons

Bring The Boys Home by Freda Payne

Butter by A Tribe Called Quest

Calypso by Herbie Hancock

Cool Joe by George Clinton

Do The Do by Kurtis Blow

Do You Know? by Madlib

Egyptian Song by Rufus

Eminence Front by The Who

Fighting Fire With Fire by The Bar-kays

Free Your Mind by En Vogue

Get Pepped by Skinny Boys

Glide by Pleasure

God Lives Through by A Tribe Called Quest

Hey Girl by Donnie Hathaway

High Up On The Hook by Alice Russell

History Lesson by Living Colour

Hot Stuff by The Rolling Stones

Hyperactive by Thomas Dolby

I Can't Write Left-Handed by Bill Withers

I Remember I Made You Cry by The Headhunters

I'm An Animal by Sly And The Family Stone

I'm Large by DJ Chuck Chill Out

I'm Tired Of Giving by The Spinners

I'm Your Boogie Man by KC and The Sunshine Band

If She Breaks Your Heart by The Foreign Exchange

In My Time Of Dying by Led Zeppelin

It's Alright Now by Eddie Harris

Jagger The Dagger by Eugene McDaniels

James Joint by Rihanna

Keep Him Like He Is by Sarita

Make Me Hot by Little Brother

Mango Meat by Mandrill

March To The Witch's Castle by Funkadelic

Missing You by Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie

Murder By Numbers by The Police

Never Stop Loving Me by Curtis Mayfield

Not About Love by Fiona Apple

On The Roof by Mariah Carey

Onomatopoeia by Todd Rundgren

Open Your Eyes by Pied Pipers feat Dwele

Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force

Please Listen To My Demo by EPMD

Railroad Man by Bill Withers

Rat Race by The Specials

Rebel Without A Pause by Public Enemy

Right Place, Wrong Time by Doctor John

See The Light by Earth Wind And Fire

September When I First Met You by Barry White

Shining Star by Earth Wind And Fire

Sideways by Rufus

Sister by Prince

Small Time Hustlers by The Discmasters

So Much To Say by Take 6

So You're Leaving by Al Green

Some of These Days by Sophie Tucker

Sport by Lightning Rod

Surrender A Second To Think by Saul Williams

Things Fall Apart by The Roots

Tiny Hands by Fiona Apple

What They Do by The Roots

Whirlwind Pyramid by The DOC

Wild And Loose by The Time

Workin On It by Dwele

The Worst Band in The World by 10CC

You Can't Dance by LL Cool J

You Don't See Me by Al Jarreau

You Haven't Done Nothing by Stevie Wonder

You're Gonna Need Me by Dionne Warwick

Albums

Around The World In A Day by Prince and The Revolution

Black Messiah by D'Angelo

Brown Sugar by D'Angelo

Come To My Garden by Minnie Riperton

Criminal Minded by KRS1

Hey Now Hey (The Other Side Of The Sky) by Aretha Franklin

The Id by Macy Gray

Illmatic by Nas

In Our Lifetime by Marvin Gaye

Iron Flag by Wu-Tang Clan

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back by Public Enemy

The Love Movement by A Tribe Called Quest

Nefertiti by Miles Davis

The Payback by James Brown

A Quiet Storm by Smokey Robinson

Radio by LL Cool J

The Seeds Of Love by Tears For Fears

Songs From The Big Chair by Tears For Fears

A Tribute To Uncle Ray by Stevie Wonder

Wendy and Lisa by Wendy and Lisa

Who Is Jill Scott? by Jill Scott

You Can't Change That by Raydio

Music Is History Quotes

"People say that history was written by the winners, but what if it was written by the simplifiers? Or is that too simple?"

"Are some events A sides while others are B sides? What is history's equivalent of liner notes?"

"The farther away an event gets, the more we can potentially know about it."

"There was a period of time on albums by Black artists where the hits were the songs that didn't scare middle white America, and the filler was showing off how good your report card was."

"The process of remaking the past begins the second it becomes the past."

"Whenever there's a history happening, there's more than one history happening."

"If there's an iceberg of the ways that Black people and white people interact in our society, Black cool is the tip."

"When a person sees things they haven't seen before, there is still more they aren't seeing. And more after that. And after that."

"History should be a latticework of cross references and crosscurrents."

"How you unlock history depends on which key you use."

"The technology let sampling happen. But sampling is also a more complex story about how the present enters the past."

"While rock 'n' roll and soul music depended on stars who rose into view by virtue of their own strong personalities, disco de-emphasized individual expression in favour of ruthless efficiency."

"Return to Point A for access to the entire alphabet."

"E minor is, for me, the Thelma and Louise cliff jump of keys; you can try it, but many of you are gonna end up at the bottom of the canyon."

"At a certain age, we sponge up everything around us. Then we process. Then we sift and sort. Then we re-present what remains so that it can be sponged up by a later generation."

"Often the most interesting things are not the things that everyone knows."

"Being there for history means you can claim it as your own. But should you?"

"Passing into history is a strange idea. You move on from existence to... to what? The afterlife? Non-existence? The memory of others? Or are you only a collection of the traces and artifacts that you left behind?"

"Those geniuses are beacons. Think of Picasso. Think of Einstein. Think of Prince. But they are triumphs of marketing as much as anything else."

"Is there a consensus about the importance of consensus?"

"Universal emotions handled correctly can be skeleton keys that unlock doors up and down history's corridor."

"History leaves out much more than it takes in."

"It was liberating to see the blackest of sounds filling the whitest of houses."

hey all! i've built a new ao3 fork called fanfiction.lol 🤙🏽 key differences:

🚫 no invite queue: sign up and start posting immediately. no waiting, no velvet rope.

🏳️‍🌈 expanded content warnings: added ableism, homophobia/transphobia, racism, rpf and more. plus relationship tags for aro/ace spectrum, qpr, non-binary/genderqueer focus, poly/ensemble, and more.

🏷️ all tags are canonical: everything you tag goes into the searchable record. no volunteer wrangling bottleneck.

💜 fandom-agnostic moderation: i care about the writing, not fandom politics or discourse. write whatever you want, tag it honestly.

it's a small personal project but fan communities deserve independent infrastructure.

if you enjoy fandom, i'd love for you to sign up and poke around. tell me what breaks. the source code is at source.tube/brennan/fanfiction.lol.

find me at brennan.day/accounts or email [email protected].

Hi, I wanted to add some more info about fanfic.lol based on some replies. I was trying to keep the original post short and have done write-ups elsewhere but I'll reiterate here.

The admin/webmaster: I'm Brennan! I'm a Queer Red River Métis writer and webdev and huge advocate for the IndieWeb. You can get to know to me on my site, brennan.day

I made this for fun, and it's running using a homelab server in my basement. I don't make money or anything else. I'm just doing it for the love of ball.

fanfic.lol is meant to be a small, independent alternative for fanfic and fandom that prioritizes joy and fun. No aims at trying to replace AO3!

I am anti-genAI and so is the site. You can read more about my stance on AI here.

Archive warnings, like everything else, are under construction! I do have to adhere to the laws of my country (Canada). Please be patient.

I am pushing straight to production, which is to say the entire site could explode at anytime, so please do not use it as the only place you put things! :)

I forsee only a handful of people using this site, it def isn't for everyone. If you don't like it that's okay! Whether you want to give me input or just ignore it entirely.

I was there for the start of AO3, and we really did think we were going to usher in the next age of archives a la eFiction. It took too long for AO3's code to be in that kind of shape and the internet changed radically around us. We did not mean to create a behemoth. We just wanted venture capital bros to stop disrespecting us.

As a side note, all the comments you're getting like "There already is a fanfiction website. Wtf" are exactly what people said about AO3/OTW in 2007. There was a ton of bitching about us stealing FFN's idea. (Never mind that there were older archives.) There were frequent complaints about how there was already "an archive" and we didn't need another. Most of that discussion got deleted when FFN decided to nuke all of its inactive social spaces one Thanksgiving weekend while nobody was around to object or save their data. But I was there and I remember it and it sounded exactly like these comments now.

The oldschool core of AO3 was into the age of archives. We liked there being lots of different little spaces run by different fans. It's nice to see that energy floating around in 2026. Go indieweb!