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Art for Life Benefit Raises Funds for Youths
(The Root) — It turns out, the couple that doesn’t stay together actually plays together very well. Russell Simmons — along with his former wife, and honorary chair of the event, Kimora Lee and the music honcho’s brother Danny — presented a star-studded Art for Life fundraiser on Saturday, July 28, to support the Rush…
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4 Questions With Common
Common gives a breakout performance in Luv, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, last week. The film is a coming-of-age story about a very impressionable 11-year-old boy. Common plays his uncle, who has just gotten out of prison and takes charge of the boy for the day. The entertainer had…
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Black Films Reign at Sundance
By now, the word is out that Spike Lee went off Brooklyn-style at his Sundance screening of Red Hook Summer. But did you know that later that night, he partied at Tao with Chris Rock, Cuba Gooding Jr., Nate Parker, Common and Drake (at separate tables, of course)? Welcome to the black side of the…
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4 Questions With 'Red Tails' Breakout Star at Sundance
You may not immediately recognize David Oyelowo’s name as you might Terrence Howard’s or Cuba Gooding Jr.’s, but he plays the lead in the hit Red Tails, which opened at No. 2 at the box office this past weekend. Oyelowo also stars in Ava DuVernay‘s upcoming Middle of Nowhere, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance…
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4 Questions With Spike Lee at Sundance
For those waiting for Spike Lee to make another feature film, your time has come. After four years he’s back with Red Hook Summer, about a middle-class boy from Atlanta who is sent to Red Hook in Brooklyn, N.Y., to spend the summer with his minister grandfather in a housing project. It premiered at the…
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Black Movies on Display at Sundance
This year’s Sundance Film Festival offers fewer black films and filmmakers than last year, but the star power is in the house. Spike Lee, Chris Rock, Common, Rashida Jones and Ice-T all have movies showing there. The festival begins Jan. 19 and runs through the end of the month. The Root takes a look at…
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Challenges Ahead for UN Slavery Memorial
One day, a memorial to the millions of slaves wrenched from their homes in Africa and transported to the Americas will stand on the plaza at the United Nations in New York. That is the goal of an ambitious ambassador to the United Nations from Jamaica. However, the project does face some challenges. The design…
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Hot Black Artists, Hotter Scene at Art Basel
By any standard, four sales for one gallery in the opening hour of an art show is impressive, but when all four artists are black, it’s just short of amazing. The Tilton Gallery chose to show more than half a dozen black artists during the Art Basel Miami Beach show, something gallery associate Ryan McKenna…
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Black Artists: Art Basel Miami Beach 2011
Thomas is a visual artist and photographer whose work often merges race, history and popular culture. And One looks at labor within the basketball world. Thomas was most recently a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University (headed by The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr.), where he completed a project on…
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Occupy Wall Street Marks 2-Month Anniversary
More than 200 arrests, hours of protest and one trip to Harlem marked the two-month anniversary since the Occupy Wall Street movement took over Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan and sparked worldwide demonstrations in solidarity. The day began with a morning march on Wall Street, billed by participants as a way to “shut down Wall…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
