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InHAIRitance: Tracee Ellis Ross, Ayanna Pressley and Color Of Change Advocate for Small Black Beauty Businesses and the CROWN Act
Can you believe it’s nearly the end of 2020—and amid everything else, in most states in America we’re still asking for permission to wear our hair as we please? While the freedom to wear naturally textured or traditional Black hairstyles may seem purely aesthetic to the willfully ignorant some, it is in fact part of…
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Got 99 Problems, but a Book Ain't One: Jay-Z's Roc Nation and Random House to Launch 'Roc Lit 101'
If the ongoing pandemic has reignited your passion for reading (or simply deepened it), say no more, Fam. Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter has already Decoded his lyrics in book form, but now, the company he founded will add to its (and his) multimedia entertainment empire, announcing a new publishing partnership with Random House, a division of…
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Retired—and Hired! Teyana Taylor Announces New Creative Director Role With PrettyLittleThing
Those of you old enough to remember Teyana Taylor’s national television debut on a 2007 episode of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16 will no doubt also remember the outspoken and already immensely talented birthday girl entering her fête posed in a Barbie-like box wearing a multicolored tulle frock by Heatherette. Thirteen years later, the singer,…
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Why Was 'Childbirth' Trending on Twitter? Because It’s Kind of a Big Deal
If you’re reading this, at some point you were born—and whether naturally, with an epidural or via cesarean section, it was indisputably a major physical event for the woman who carried you, no matter how much she may have wanted to welcome you into the world. In fact, it may have been so traumatic she…
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Proving Black Is Always the New Black, the British Fashion Awards 2020 Celebrated 'Leaders of Change'
Fashion prides itself on being one well-heeled step ahead of the moment, and setting the trends, rather than following them. But the converging moments that comprised 2020 demanded more introspection from the industry that is always looking forward; as an already raging pandemic debilitated economies and discretionary spending worldwide, many hid behind black boxes this…
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'She's So Real': The Root Presents: It's Lit! and Michaela Angela Davis Discuss The Meaning of Mariah Carey
Fun fact: we highly considered naming this week’s episode of The Root Presents: It’s Lit! “All I Want for Christmas Is [Truth].” After all, our guest this week is veteran fashion stylist, editor, activist, and now author Michaela Angela Davis, who this year helped bring the long-awaited life story of Mariah Carey to the page—and…
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Rihanna Already Told You She Was a Savage. Does It Really Matter Who She's Dating?
Somewhere out there in social media today, there is a hearty debate going on over whether Rihanna’s current beau is her longtime friend and sometime collaborator A$AP Rocky, a rumor fueled by a Monday afternoon report by People. To catch you up, the two have publicly been in each other’s orbit since the rapper opened for…
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Wrapping Paper Roll Call: Make This the Blackest Friday (to Cyber Monday) Ever
There have been few bright spots to celebrate in 2020—and even those have often been bittersweet. Take, for instance, the unprecedented uptick in interest in Black-owned businesses and creators (something we’ve always been invested in, but we digress) since non-Black America suddenly seemed to wake up to the centuries-old realities of racial inequality this spring—and…
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Wrapping Paper Roll Call: To Market, to Market
OK, kids—we’re now officially five weeks out from Christmas—and only a week from Black Friday (or, as we’ll be calling it here at The Glow Up, the Blackest Friday). But the pre-deals are already out there and in full effect as TGU rolls out our Wrapping Roll Call—our running list of our favorite Black vendors…
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'I’m a Black Person for Real. I Love Us.' The Root Presents: It’s Lit Talks Writing for the Next Generation With Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynolds famously didn’t read a novel cover-to-cover until he was nearly 18. At 36, he is one of the preeminent—and most prolific—young adult authors of this or any other generation, earning accolades and awards and carving a niche for both himself and an oft-overlooked demographic of would-be readers just like he once was by…
