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Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Under Fire for Including Islamic Hadith in Soundtrack [Updated]
Rihanna’s Oct. 2 Savage X Fenty show won raves for its diversity and inclusion (including from us), but several Muslim viewers maintain one aspect shouldn’t have been included. A segment of the hourlong production was set to a musical track that reportedly included an Islamic Hadith—otherwise known as a “record of the traditions or sayings…
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'I Refuse to Be Complicit in My Silence': Gabrielle Union Brings It On in Marie Claire's October Digital Issue
“The more you are transparent and the more you speak truth to power, it creates more space for other people to claim their reality, to claim their pain, to claim their healing, and, if you want, to claim your justice.” So says Gabrielle Union in her cover story for Marie Claire’s October digital issue, which…
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Fashioning a Community: Pyer Moss Debuts Its Collaborative Open Studio 2 Campaign, 'Sister'
If there is one thing a year full of social distance coupled with global outcries in support of Black lives has made clear, it is the power and beauty of the Black community. We have shown up. We have shown out. We have continued to show the world what we have always known: that Black…
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Ananda Lewis Reveals She Has Stage 3 Breast Cancer, Urges Mammograms for Early Detection
If you are a person of a certain age, there’s a high likelihood that you once either emulated or had a full-blown obsession with one-time MTV veejay and host of BET’s Teen Summit, Ananda Lewis. Now 47, the former daytime talk show host has been laying low as of late, but on Thursday, she gave…
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'We Can't Be Afraid to Challenge Our Own People': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Gets Crunk With Brittney Cooper
“There is no Black Freedom Project if you don’t care about Black women.” If there’s one belief upon which “crunk feminist,” author, scholar and educator Brittney Cooper has based her life’s work, it’s this core tenet of Black feminism, as previously maintained by brilliant minds from the Combahee River Collective to 19th-century pioneers like Maria…
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Making Good on Its Promise to BIPOC Beauty Brands, Sephora Is Centering Them in Its 2021 Accelerate Program
Beauty emporium Sephora just took another step in fulfilling the promise it made this June when it agreed to dedicate at least 15 percent of its shelf space to Black-owned brands as part of Aurora James’ 15 Percent Pledge. In response, the retailer revamped its Accelerate incubation program for 2021, with an exclusive focus on…
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Can a Woman of Color Thrive at Any Age? Multihypenate Maven Sophia Chang Launched a Mentorship Platform to Unlock Her Potential
“I honestly believe that if you talk to me for an hour, I could change your fucking life.” It’s the kind of statement Sophia Chang tosses off without the slightest bit of hesitation or irony—and in the immortal words of Beyoncé, she “talk like this ‘cause she can back it up.” The music industry veteran…
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A Classic, Remixed: Converse Debuts a Harlem Toile-Inspired Collab With Interiors Maven Sheila Bridges and More
In the canon of interior design, Sheila Bridges is a modern icon, becoming well-known by her trademark of infusing Blackness into the Eurocentric fabric art known as “Toile de Jouy” (most often simply referred to as “toile”). Traditionally, toile depicts pastoral scenes of frolicking French nobility and peasants of the Caucasian persuasion; Bridges’ spin on…
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Reebok Names Kerby Jean-Raymond Its Global Creative Director
A legacy sportswear brand just made a major investment in Black creativity: on Wednesday morning, Reebok announced that longtime collaborator, Pyer Moss founder Kerby Jean-Raymond, is its new Vice President of Creative Direction, effectively making him the brand’s global creative director, according to the designer’s publicist. “I am thrilled to be evolving my role at…
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Citing the Unprecedented Impact of COVID-19, Essence Announces Staff Furloughs
It’s been a difficult year for all of us—and as a statement published in Essence magazine Tuesday night revealed, “Essence Communications, Inc. (“ECI”) has not been immune to it.” Framed as an update on the actions taken by the company in response to the now six-month-long impact of COVID-19, the legacy imprint, which celebrated its…
