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The BET Awards: A Much-Needed Break From All the Drama
Last night’s 15th annual BET Awards, held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, gave black folks just what they wanted and needed: one another and a good time. The past fortnight has existed as a surreal melodrama for people of color. We persevered through terrorism in Charleston, S.C.—a tragedy that offered yet another shock…
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15 Under-the-Radar Music Artists You Need to Hear Right Now
Aaron Randle is a Howard-bred writer living in Kansas City, Mo.
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I Never Felt More Proud to Be Black Than the Night President Obama Was Elected
Editor’s note: During Black History Month, the focus is usually on historical figures who loomed larger than life, paving the way for the progress we experience today. But black history isn’t just about telling stories of our past. History is being made every day and has been made throughout our lives; it’s not just in books.…
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Dear Grammys: This Year, It’s Time to Recognize Some of the New Faces of R&B
Over time, as hip-hop’s influence has grown, it has developed—just go with me on the metaphor—this sort of hot, sexy relationship with pop. They’re the power couple in the music conversation. Which would be nice enough, I suppose, if, along the way, hip-hop hadn’t broken R&B’s heart, chucking it the deuces as it ran off…
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If Q-Tip Can Co-Sign Migos, Then It’s Time for Hip-Hop Purists to Quit Hating
Joke: “A hip-hop purist and his friend walk into a bar for a good time.” The end. It’s funny, right? Because hip-hop purists don’t have a good time—they’d rather spend their meanwhiles masquerading as tastemakers, directing traffic in and out of the “respectable” rap lane. They’re the cultural-gatekeeping equivalent of Otis the security guard from…
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10 Random Thoughts About Last Night’s Very Entertaining BET Hip Hop Awards
Lions and tigers and flex zones. Oh my. The BET Hip Hop Awards, aka “the one with the cyphers,” aired Tuesday night in all their budgeted glory. And for the unimaginative among us, this was that coveted time of the year to hop on the Innanets to self-importantly side-eye BET’s shortcomings. But I do it for…
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ABC’s New Black-ish Strives to Keep It Real While Keeping It Funny
If 2013 was all about “cultural appropriation”—the Grammys, Baauer’s “Harlem Shake,” Billboard’s color vacancy, that damn twerk—then 2014 might just be all about “policing” bodies, respectability … and blackness. Everywhere you look, there are guidelines being open-source administered by all but unfortunately adhered to only by few. So maybe it makes sense that this would be…
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Dear Men: It’s Not Hip-Hop’s Body, It’s Nicki Minaj’s Body
There was a time, not long ago when I—shrouded in groupthink and male privilege—would have reacted to the promo cover art for Nicki Minaj’s latest single, “Anaconda,” in pretty much the same vein as AllHipHop.com’s founder and CEO, Chuck Creekmur. His response to Minaj—who poses for her cover photo with legs agape, backside to the…
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Kanye Is Boring Now
Something strange happened to me while reading GQ’s August cover story on Kanye West: I realized I didn’t care and couldn’t wait for it to be over. I’m not sure when this wave of can’t-be-bothered-ness happened, but suddenly, whenever I hear Kanye talk about how awesome he is, I find myself wanting to do other,…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
