Cultural critic and poet Hanif Abdurraqib wrote, “The casual music fan may know Minnie Riperton best not by a song, but by a song within a song. In ‘Lovin’ You’…the three-minute mark of that tune, a perfect piercing note unfolds over the birdsong and the dreamlike electric piano.”1 In those few seconds, her voice became more familiar to people’s everyday grammar before Minnie the person did. “Lovin You” would go on to top the American pop songs chart for a week in 1975 and cement Riperton as a household sound of reference. Riperton displayed operatic vocal agility at a time where gospel influence reigned supreme and is situated in a genealogy of black musicians who have broadened notions of genre, sound, and technology. Hip Hop sampling, for example, engages a technological, innovative and performative measure of retrieval and recovery. Renowned hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest sampled Riperton’s...

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