I reread the Elisabeth Withers post I wrote last year. While I was doing so it reminded me of a project I was working on before I moved to Louisville in 2001. During the 1999 Texas Lobby Day, as a token of appreciation to all the participants one of the organizing team members put together a compilation cassette tape of transgender themed music called T-Tunes. When I received mine I looked at the songs listed and noted that it was devoid of African-American music.
I pointed out to the person that compiled it that there were songs that you could definitely interpret in the R&B end of the music spectrum as having a transgender theme, even if it wasn't specifically written that way like Elisabeth Withers' 'The World Ain't Ready'.
Well, without further ado I decided to start compiling my own list of what is going to become an ongoing project of TransGriot, the T-Tunes with Soul
'The World Ain't Ready' Elisabeth Withers
'Transformation' Nona Hendryx
'Skeletons' Stevie Wonder
'You're Not The Man' Sade
''Unpretty' TLC
'Imagine' Earth, Wind and Fire
'I Can Only Be Me' Keith John (from the School Daze soundtrack)
So R&B fans.. any other songs you can think of that could be considered transgender themed?
TransGriot Note: person in photo is singer Nona Hendryx in her home studio
