Chemtrails uses a more minimal and nuanced palette than earlier albums, Lana Del Rey distancing herself throughout from her familiar persona and stylistics.
The characters in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, distinct as they are, besiege the viewer's mind as metaphors, mythic exemplars of a disturbing legacy America seems unable or unwilling to address.
Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green's The River Speaks of Thirst is at once a political statement, cultural commentary, and an aesthetic milestone, a skillful commingling of galvanic activism and evocative poetry.
