Last week, dancer and DJ Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss died from suicide at age 40. Like many, I was incredibly shocked and saddened by the news.
As a scholar of Black entertainment history, I also reflected on the longer history of Black male entertainers dancing or telling jokes to their deaths despite cultivating a public image as “pure love and light,” which is how tWitch’s former co-producer, Ellen DeGeneres described him on her Instagram upon hearing of his death.
