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Underneath It All: Rihanna Reveals Her ‘Shy’ Side, Says She Wants to Be a Mother ‘More Than Anything’
No, she hasn’t given a release date on that new album; yes, she still gets nervous going to award shows; and the first thing she does every morning is pray, with the help of a daily devotional. But if you even casually hang out on social media, all of that was likely eclipsed yesterday by…
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Figures of Speech: With His 1st Museum Exhibition, Virgil Abloh Says ‘I Was Speaking About Race the Whole Time’
“QUESTION EVERYTHING” reads the black and white flag waving in front of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, coyly relabeled “City Hall” for the duration of Virgil Abloh’s new exhibition, Figures of Speech, which opens Monday. Abloh has certainly faced his share of questions, starting with how a first-gen Ghanaian-American from Rockford, Ill., rose to the…
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Stage Presence: The Stars Show Out for the 2019 Tony Awards
Feathers, tulle, velvet, yards of train and even more star power; the theatrical community celebrated its biggest honors Sunday night at the 73rd Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. While black talent didn’t take home all the Tonys we’d hoped, we nevertheless made a major showing on the red…
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‘I Can’t Stop’: With Ms. Blakk for President, Moonlight Writer Tarell Alvin McCraney Campaigns as an Unlikely Candidate
“The most transparent way is the truth.” Tarell Alvin McCraney is telling me about the circuitous journey that led him and longtime collaborator Tina Landau to the real-life character of Ms. Joan Jett Blakk. That’s “two t’s, two k’s,” as she reminds us during her run for president at Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theatre, where McCraney…
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Tarana Burke Says Ava DuVernay Was ‘The Only One’ of Many Prominent Black Women Who Would Go on Record Against R. Kelly
As I write this, there is still a debate waging in one of our comments sections over whether filmmaker Ava DuVernay is obligated to embrace the term “auntie” or not (for the record, we think everyone should embrace whatever term they want). But as #MeToo creator Tarana Burke revealed on Tuesday night, DuVernay took an…
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‘The People Are the Real Power’: Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage Wins the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction
There is grace, and then, there is the kind of grace that unconditional, enduring love requires; the kind of love Tayari Jones’ Celestial and Roy are struggling to keep alive in her celebrated novel, An American Marriage. Already published in several countries and on pretty much every recommended reading list of 2018 (including Oprah’s, the…
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'Life Is a Carnival': The World According to Angélique Kidjo
Angélique Kidjo is an African icon. A musical masterclass. A woman of the world. She speaks and sings in five languages—no, six, if you count her recent foray into the native Spanish of the late Celia Cruz for her 17th album, released in April and simply titled Celia. Kidjo’s Wikipedia page alone is a dizzying…
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This Is Not a Drill: Beyoncé’s Teasing New Merch—and Will Still Check the Hell Out of You for Invading Her Space
Yes, life comes at you fast … but not as fast as a celebrity drop. The Hive caught some new buzz yesterday, as the @ShopBeyoncé account suddenly appeared on Twitter, cryptically beckoning her legions of fans with a hypnotic graphic (did she just implant a microscopic shopping device in my brain?) and drop date: June…
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Luxury Comes Home: At My City, 4 Ways, Law Roach Helped Celebrate the Undefeatable Style of Chicago
With the sometimes troubling narratives spun about Chicago, it can be easy to forget that America’s third largest city is also deeply rich with culture, beauty, style and great taste. But in all its complexity, Chicagoans intimately know how beautiful our city is, which is why even the expats always manage to come home, one…
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But Will It Make Me Look Like Beyoncé? Bey’s Makeup Artist Sir John Collabs on Lion King-Themed Beauty
I knew The Lion King was going to find a way to get in my pocket. Real talk? I’ve never been the biggest fan of The Lion King—apparently, I’m one of a handful of people who were deeply traumatized by seeing it at the ripe old age of 19, and I’ve never quite gotten over…
