Oscar and Grammy winner Jennifer Hudson dishes on her weight loss and offers healthy-living tips and personal life stories in her new book, I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down. Hudson, who has been the prominent spokesperson for Weight Watchers since 2010, lost more than 80 pounds throughout…

Jimi Hendrix is no stranger to biographers, but the story of the psychedelic rock legend may be best told by one of his closest confidants. Leon Hendrix is set to release Jimi Hendrix: A Brother’s Story, a biography about his late brother. In honor of Jimi’s 70th birthday, Leon unravels the singular life and career…

A lone Christmas tree on a makeshift pedestal stands prominently in the center of Howard University’s main quadrangle, which is uncharacteristically empty during the first week of December. Students rush by to make it to their exams on time, with the tree serving as a reminder of the holiday traditions that await them after their…

D.C. rapper Wale released his latest album, Ambition, more than a month ago; however, with the album’s lead single, “Lotus Flower Bomb,” which features R&B singer Miguel, climbing the Billboard charts and arguably leading this winter’s pack of hip-hop tracks, Wale’s latest venture is worth a mention.  The first album since Wale’s move to Rick…

Miles White’s From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap and the Performance of Masculinity takes a critical look at the portrayal of racialized machismo in modern America, and how hip-hop helps perpetuate stereotypical tropes about the African-American male. White also examines the white portrayal of blackness among various household names in entertainment, from Elvis to…

1990s rap sensation Naughty by Nature are back with their first studio album in more than a decade. Anthem, Inc. is the first record featuring the band’s original trio since the 1999 release of Nineteen Naughty Nine: Nature’s Fur. Marking the band’s 20th anniversary, Anthem, Inc. includes remixed versions of several Naughty by Nature hits,…

The first album released since Amy Winehouse’s untimely July 2011 death, the British songstress’ Lioness: Hidden Treasures epitomizes the raw and soulful sound that earned Winehouse five Grammy Awards and ushered in a new era of British soul music. Lioness: Hidden Treasures features remastered and remixed Amy Winehouse classics, as well as highly anticipated new…

Journalism professor and former contributor to The Root Andrew J. Skerritt’s latest book, Ashamed to Die: Silence, Denial, and the AIDS Epidemic in the South, details the haunting silence surrounding the rise of HIV/AIDS in the South. After 30 years since the discovery of AIDS, the number of Americans contracting the virus has soared, and…

Join The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr.; University College London’s David Bindman; and the Harvard University Press’ Sharmila Sen at Washington’s National Gallery of Art as they discuss the Image of the Black in Western Art book series, which investigates the presence of blacks in Western art in the 16th through 18th centuries. Launched…