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Ericka Blount Danois, an award-winning journalist, writer, editor, and professor began her career as a stringer at the Philadelphia Tribune with a cover story on the king of Philadelphia International Records, Kenny Gamble. Ericka graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and has worked as a staff writer, editor, freelancer, and stringer for a number of publications including: Spin, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN The Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Heart and Soul, Uptown, The City Sun, City Paper, Vibe, Wax Poetics, The Source, and online publications such as AOL and Newsone.com. She teaches at the Philip Merrill School of Journalism at the University of Maryland. |
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She has interviewed cultural figures such as Cuban President Fidel Castro, Andy Rooney, Ed Koch, Andre Harrell, Zane, and Johnnie Cochran and film and television provocateurs such as David Simon, Ed Burns, and Ernest Dickerson. She’s interviewed reformed criminals like “Little Melvin Williams,” celebrity athletes like Patrick Ewing, Bernard Hopkins, Ryan Howard, Oscar De La Hoya, Dominique Wilkins, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Caron Butler, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things, like Jason Pipoly, who swam the English Channel as a paraplegic adult, after failing to cross it as a swimmer as an able-bodied child.
She has covered
race, culture,
politics, and
music producing
feature and
cover stories on
musical
luminaries such
as The Roots, Tricky,
Damien Marley, Nas, Olu Dara,
Jay-Z, Quincy
Jones, LL Cool
J, Rakim, Tupac,
Earth, Wind &
Fire, Anthony
Hamilton, R.
Kelly, Run DMC,
Horace Silver,
De La Soul, The
Fugees, Talib
Kweli, Jennifer
Hudson, Sweet
Honey in the
Rock, Ann Nesby,
Jackie McLean,
and James Mtume,
among others. Her cover story on Earth, Wind and Fire was selected to appear in the annual series, the book, “Best Music Writing of 2012,” with guest editor Questlove. She has contributed essays to books, such as the “The Regional Guide to Hip Hop,” where she focused on regional style, fashion, and lyrics of Queens born hip hop artists. Her first book, “Love, Peace and Soooooouul!” The Behind the Scenes Story of America’s Favorite Dance Show, will be published in 2013 by Backbeat Books.
As a journalist,
she’s examined
public and
private school
education, the
crime beat in
Atlantic City
and Brooklyn,
covered rape
trials of
celebrities, the
plight of black
farmers, health
disparities in
the black
community, world
renowned
architects,
women in porn,
boxing matches,
restaurant food
in exotic
locales, and
birthday parties
for DeShawn
Stevenson and
Gilbert Arenas.
She has won
awards from the
Society of
Professional
Journalists, New
Jersey
newspapers, and
Deadline
Scholarship club
from Columbia
University. To
view her CV
click
here.
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