The first full biography of the funk pioneer cited as an inspiration by artists from Beyoncé to Questlove.

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.

Danielle Maggio is a writer, professor, and vinyl DJ based in Pittsburgh, PA. She received her PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of Pittsburgh and is currently an adjunct professor at Duquesne University and University of Pittsburgh where she teaches courses on world music and global pop. She is the liner notes author for Light in the Attic’s 2023 rereleases of Betty Davis’s albums Betty Davis, They Say I’m Different, and Crashin’ from Passion.

"A long overlooked figure in American music comes to life thanks to Maggio’s scintillating and sympathetic biography." —David Ritz, author of Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye