Danyel Smith

Danyel Smith is an author, award-winning journalist, and producer. She’s the creator and host of the Spotify-exclusive Black Girl Songbook, a music and talk show that centers on Black women in music. A 2021 Yaddo Fellow, Smith was a senior producer and editor at ESPN and a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, where she cofounded HRDCVR, an innovative hardcover culture magazine. In addition to writing for NPR, The California Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker, Teen Vogue, and The New York Times, Smith has served as editor of Billboard, editor at large at Time Inc., and editor in chief of Vibe. The author of two novels, More Like Wrestling and Bliss, Smith lives in Los Angeles. Her new book, Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop, has been called “lyrical and whip-smart work” and “cause for celebration” by Publishers Weely in a starred review.