In a recent conversation with Gary Hines, longtime producer and director of the three-time, Grammywinning group Sounds of Blackness, I mentioned I can still remember where I was the first time I heard their infectious, booming, positively-charged anthem, “Optimistic.” A happy, young Temple University student traipsing along 52nd Street, West Philadelphia’s famous strip fondly remembered for its then bustling cluster of Black-owned businesses that lit that commercial corridor with “everything Black” from fashion to food to music. Out on that street at a jewelry table purchasing a pair of dangling, electric blue, beaded earrings from a Black street vendor, my ears were accosted by the Sounds of Blackness, and their Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis “Optimistic” collaboration. Oh, that pulsating intro: “The Blackness/Keep, keep on/Never say die!”
