Ma Rainey
Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939) recorded over 100 records in the mid-1920s, and performed with prominent jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins. Her songs were about Blackness, sexuality, and agency—with many of them chronicling relationships with men, but not all. The cover art for her song “Prove It On Me Blues” featured her in a suit and fedora flirting with women on the street while a policeman watches over them. The song discussed lesbian self-affirmation and enjoying women-only spaces, with the lyrics “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends / It must've been women, 'cause I don't like no men / Wear my clothes just like a fan / Talk to the gals just like any old man.” “Ma” Rainey was the subject of Pittsburgh native August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which chronicled how Black artists navigated a white-centered and white-owned music industry.
