Yes, she was Divine, the true origins of that word. To see the future. Which is what Sassy was singing. For the diggers Sassy’s voice was an instrument expressing the exact sensuousness of our hearts. How fantastic that was, how she swooped and bent the beauty of it, ascending like our hopeful vision, the emotional touching of our would-be rationalized reflections . . . what we had picked up trying to dig the world.
Amiri Baraka, “Sassy Was Definitely Not the Avon Lady”