The culture continues to mourn the loss of music legend Robert Flack. But the internet can’t stop talking about her relationship with another icon, Luther Vandross, and here’s why.
Before becoming a star in his own right, Vandross was a backup singer for Flack. Sometimes she was so busy with interviews that she missed soundchecks, so Vandross stepped in. Flack thought he wasn’t making the best use of his talent, so she switched things up on him.
Flack fired Vandross. “She came over to me and said, ‘You know, you’re getting a little too comfortable sitting on this stool in the background singing oohs and ahhs. I really want you to make your own statement and make your record, you know?’ And she in effect fired me,” Vandross once recalled. But it’s not what you’re thinking.
Flack “fired” Luther Vandross because she believed in his talent. “Luther Vandross likes to say that I fired him, but I never really fired him. What I did was to encourage him to believe in his own ability to produce his first album,” she later said. They parted ways, and Vandross dropped his hit debut album, “Never Too Much,” in 1981. Their story gives us a beautiful reminder.
Black love and liberation go hand in hand. We must care for one another and move in love, committed to keeping other’s best interests at heart. We all we got.