Banned But We Sang Anyway: The Hidden History of Black Women’s Erotic Music

Why they were called "too much"

Let's make it for SEO and for truth: Banned Black Women's songs, early dirty blues, Black Women's sexuality in music, history of erotic blues, Black queer blues. These songs were sidelined because:

1. They centered female pleasure. Not "I please him" - "He pleased me."
2. They were explicit about bodies. Even when it was metaphor, everybody knew.
3. Some were queer. "B.D. Women's Blues," is a whole receipt that queer Black women were here in 1935.
4. They were Black. A white woman being suggestive was "naughty." A Black Woman being sexual was "indecent."

So when people come online in 2025 saying, "Music is so nasty now"...I laugh. Ummm NO. We just have receipts now.

So where does Sweet·Raw·Sticky come in? 

Because what those women were doing is exactly what I'm doing. And what I know what you want to do.

• Sweet is the softness they tried to strip away. Black women weren't allowed to be tender and sensual. We were either sainted or shamed.
• Raw is the truth that still made it to the mic. Even with bans, even with the church watching, even with America policing Black bodies, the truth still came through.
• Sticky is the part that lingers, the legacy. You hear "Shave 'Em Dry" and you can draw a straight line to Khia, Trina, City Girls, Sexxy Redd, Doja. That's stickiness.

This is why I keep saying we are not doing something brand new. We are picking up where they had to whisper.

Why this matters right now

Because a lot of us were raised in church/ respectability / "don't be fast" households...and we internalized the shame without ever seeing that we actually come from a line of women who were not ashamed. The shame was taught. The pleasure was inherited.

And because I'm introducing Sweet·Raw·Sticky to y'all. I wanted to start here. With the women who got banned. So you know this isn't just a cute name. It's a cultural throughline:

from Lucille Bogan to Trina

from Ma Rainey to Janelle Monae

from Bessie Smith to Jazmine x Ari "On It"

from Dinah Washington to Ari Lennox / Teyana /Beyonce" Partition" era

Same desire. New volume.

Gratitude moment

I'm grateful for the banned Black Women who sang anyway.

I'm grateful for every artist who put pleasure on wax so we could put pleasure on live.

I'm grateful for the queer pioneers who told the truth before the world could handle it.

I'm grateful for the songs that never made radio because the world didn't want to see empowered Black Women.

Because every time you post something sensual and somebody says "you don't have to do all that"...just know we've been 'doing all that" since 1935.

What was your first "nasty" song? The one you learned all the words to. And did you realize it had roots in Black Women's Blues?

Drop it below so I can connect it to the "then vs now" list in the next post.

And catch the live about what you're reading on November 14th, 2025, to learn much, much more- TikTok @velvetlenaelive