This week’s answer is: Jodeci
Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” is an interpolation of Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise,” and Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West” is built around a sample of “I Wish.” George Michael (with Mary J. Blige) covered “As.”
Jodeci did score a hit with their cover of Wonder’s “Lately,” but the track appeared on Hotter Than July, not Songs in the Key of Life.
Last week’s answer: Dorothy Pitman Hughes
As her biographer Laura L. Lovett told Ms. magazine, “[Hughes’] style was to call out the racism she saw in the white women’s movement. She frequently took to the stage to articulate the way in which white women’s privilege oppressed Black women but also offered her friendship with Gloria as proof this obstacle could be overcome.”
Hughes is also credited with organizing New York City’s first shelter for battered women. She co-founded the New York City Agency for Child Development, and served as a co-founder of the National Black Feminist Organization. Hughes died in 2022 at age 84.