On August 4th, in 1901, Louis ‘Pops’ Armstrong (Louis Daniel Armstrong) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the birthplace of Jazz. Satchmo was an orphan and started playing trumpet in various bands that performed on the streets of New Orleans. He joined his mentor’s band in the 20’s-Joe ‘King’ Oliver. During the early days of Jazz, the media believed that it promoted promiscuity, immoral actions, and drug use to name a few. Therefore, Armstrong was considered a controversial figure. On one hand, he was arrested several times for marijuana possession, even made a song about smoking marijuana. On the other hand, he adopted several orphans and gave them a home, he donated plenty of money to orphanages nationally and internationally. Regardless, the singer, bandleader and purveyor of New Orleans Jazz, died on the 6th of July, 1971 in Corona, Queens, New York.
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| On August 4th, in 71, Female Emcee Yo-Yo (Yolanda Whitaker) was born in Compton, California. She got put on early in the game by Ice Cube and the Da Lench Mob. She debuted on his AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted LP, on the song: It’s a Man’s World. She came wither own solo project shortly after in 1991 on Make Way for the Motherlode. She had 3 more official releases during the 90’s: Black Pearl in 1992, You Better Ask Somebody in 1993, and Total Control in 1998. She acted in Boyz n the Hood, Menace II Society and was a regular actress on Martin. She’s 47 today. |
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On August 4th, in 1990, Janet Jackson-Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty, fainted on stage while giving a concert in St. Louis, Missouri. Doctors found she had an ear infection and she was hospitalized for a while. She was three songs into the show when she collapsed. Janet did everything from acting on TV sit-coms like Good Times, and Different Strokes, Facts of Life, to acting in movies like Poetic Justice. Janet is probably the second most recognizable Jackson family member next to Michael.
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On August 4th, in 2005, Delta born Blues Musician Little Milton (James Milton Campbell Jr.) died from a stroke in Memphis, Tennessee at age 70. Milton had a brain aneurysm on July 25th, 2005 and slipped into a coma until August 4th. He worked as a songwriter and studio musician at Sun records, and Chess records in Chicago, Illinois that housed all of the Blues greats of the time. He ended up joining Stax records during the early 70’s and had a performance appearance in the Wattstax film. He later found a permanent home at Malaco records. Little Milton has put out over 25 albums from 1965 to the early 2000s. His style of Blues that infused funk will be greatly missed.
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Honorable Mentions: August 4th, 1961 44th POTUS Barak Obama was born. That same day and a year later, Nelson Mandela was captured by South African Police in 1962. Two years later, in 1964, the 3 Civil Rights protesters responsible for brining Federal attention to the problem with racism in the Jim Crow ridden southern states-Andrew Goodman, James E. Chaney and Michael Schwerner were all discovered dead in a Mississippi dam. The movie Mississippi Burning would portray their story.
On August 4th in 1996, Al Green & Stevie Wonder took the stage during the closing ceremonies for the Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Exactly one year later, Keenan Ivory Wayans, the creator of In Living Colour, had his own show air on Fox TV: ‘The Keenan Ivory Wayans Show’.