Walking past a newsstand can be a sad march through homogeny. The women: thin, long-haired (often blonde or blonde-highlighted, regardless of race), dipped in jewels and runway fashions that a stylist spent hours borrowing from showrooms. Everyone looks the same (same designers, same hair extensions, same size 2 Photoshop job), leading to the assumption that to be a great singer, actress or entertainer, you should also fit into an aesthetic mold that everyone else has managed to squeeze into. It’s not about individuality but a conformity stricter than ones pushed in high schools and cliques of teen girls.

To remember that talent didn’t used to be measured by waistline or access to couture clothes, check out the Ebony Magazine Tumblr. It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll experience a giddiness that goes way deeper than a nostalgic walk down memory lane. Yes, it is nice to see Bill Cosby making funny faces in silly sweaters; and, yes, Billy Dee Williams hybrid Jheri Curl/Afro is something to behold. But the magical moments are the covers with Sister Sledge (that’s their hair! They have on striped sweaters and corduroy and no one is giving a sexy, see-my-butt pose!) and Grace Jones with her muscles and ferocious sensuality on display or, best of all, Aretha Franklin in a velvet dress with a lot of geometric shapes, her hair covered in a green headwrap. She doesn’t look like she spent 2 weeks in the gym before the shoot and she could easily have on something from her own closet. She looks happy and at ease and it is a reminder that in today’s musical landscape, we might not even have an Aretha, unless she was willing to commit to a Jenny Craig program and let us cheer her on for every pound lost.

Here’s to the talent we can nurture when we allow artists with otherworldy talent to look like real people.

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