And Billie Holliday? I'd have to see proof before I believed that.
It should be mentioned that African American minstrels still had to “blacken up,” meaning they had to wear burnt cork to darken their faces. This tradition continued into the 20th century in many places. Refusal could mean you wouldn’t be able to go or stage or it could have had more serious consequences. There is a story of Billie Holiday in 1936 appearing with the Count Basie Band in Detroit and Billie had to wear blackface. They were afraid that someone in the audience might have thought that Billie was white and it would have been untinkable to have a white female singer perform with an all black band. Needless to say, Billie was not very happy! *
Did you know that early hip hop pioneers sometimes performed in blackface? True story. The early hip hop phrase "yes yes y'all" actually comes from the old negro term "yassuh", which was often said on the mic at the earliest rap jams, predating even the era of Kool Herc. Yet another lost fact that has been obscured by time as miscreants continue to rewrite the halcyon history of hip hop
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Wow.
(to answer myself)
Stacy Keach in "Nice Dreams."