I remember when I was a teenager in the ’70s. It was 1978 and I was a self-conscious 14-year-old. Who wasn’t at that age? My mother tried to get me out of my shell. “Just be you,” my mom would say.

Over the past few years for Black History Month, World Cafe has dug into different genres and their importance in the Black music canon over the decades. "What I'm talking about when I say dance music ...