The spark for Genius: Aretha was a result of a confluence of events, according to Brian Grazer, who serves as executive producer on the Nat Geo series.
During the SXSW panel for Genius: Aretha, Grazer said that they had a long list people for the next installment of the series that spotlighted cultural icons like Einstein and Picasso.
This list included scientists, Nobel laureates — but they never contemplated a musical artist, but when Aretha Franklin passed, he realized that the next installment was obvious.Franklin grew up in a time that was filled with cultural divisiveness (in other words, it was a very racist time in history — but nothing much has changed if we are being perfectly honest) and her home life was difficult to navigate
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