Game Is Her Middle Name: The Unapologetic Life of Betty Davis, Queen of Funk

Summary

The first full biography of the funk pioneer cited as an inspiration by artists from Beyoncé to Questlove, with a foreword by Bootsy Collins.

As a girl, Betty Davis fixed her eyes on stardom and never looked back. After leaving a violent marriage to her husband Miles Davis, Betty took unprecedented control of her musical career for a Black woman working in the 1970s, performing and producing a string of defiantly feminist funk records with a screaming, sexually intense style like no one else. And then, at the crest of her powers, she fell silent.

Built on decades of interviews and told through the eyes of Danielle Maggio, Davis’s close friend in her final years, Game Is Her Middle Name reveals new aspects of Davis’s life, music, and struggles. In telling her story, Maggio gives us a nuanced portrait of what happens to a pathbreaking artist when the spotlight moves on from her, and what happens when the world finally catches up.