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‘I’m All Over the Place’: Is That Why We Can’t Escape You, Rihanna?
At the risk of infuriating “The Navy,” we have a confession to make: Rihanna’s starting to wear us out. Specifically, we can’t get this woman’s foot off our necks—everywhere we go, there she is. Think about it: She’s trying to be on our faces, on our backs, on our coffee tables…hell, she’s even in our…
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Proving She’s the Best Selfie-Taker in the Game, Tracee Ellis Ross Shot Her Own Magazine Cover—on Her iPhone
Is there anything Tracee Ellis Ross can’t do? She makes us laugh weekly on Black-ish, is a producer on Mixed-ish, is a regular on best-dressed lists, is a regular (and real) source of fitspo, and recently launched her own haircare line (knowing her hair sparks major envy). And apparently, her selfie game is epic enough…
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Brother’s Keeper: Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size Explores the Mythology and Painful Reality of Brotherhood
To say Tarell Alvin McCraney is masterful at articulating black male coming-of-age stories in America would be an understatement. His play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue (now better known as the 2017 Academy Award-winning screenplay Moonlight) gave us a lens onto a black boy’s reckoning with emotional abandonment and his burgeoning sexuality in the…
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Are We Ready to Have a Constructive Conversation About Slave Play? (Because We Saw It for Ourselves, and Have Thoughts)
In the months since Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play upended the theater world (and many of our moral and historical sensibilities), moving from a sold-out run at the New York Theatre Workshop to Broadway, much has been written about its controversial narrative—some factual, some distinctly disingenuous (and some from the playwright himself). In fact,…
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Royalty in Our DNA: A New Crop of Magazine Covers Make Us Majestic
A pair of ruffed pages; three queens; a member of modeling royalty…as the October and November magazine covers made their debut, we were delighted to see blackness front, center and regal, as we should be. Vogue placed Jaden and Willow Smith and supermodel Jourdan Dunn atop its Italian and British covers, respectively, while Essence paid…
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Christmas Is Coming Early! Rihanna's Releasing a 500+ Page Coffee Table Book
What do you get the girl who has everything? Rihanna is indisputably that girl (OK, woman), having not only a ridiculously successful music career (much delayed ninth album notwithstanding) but a groundbreaking beauty empire and concurrent lingerie and luxury fashion lines. And now, she can add a book to that growing list of accomplishments. On…
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I Do…Under His Eye? Is This Handmaid’s Tale-Themed Wedding Photo How the 53 Percent Get Married?
You know, when I imagine a dream wedding, visions of female subjugation, rape, and forced childbearing don’t dance through my head (nor do barns or mason jars, but I digress). But clearly, my vision of romance is lacking a certain institutionally patriarchal touch—an element a Canadian couple known simply as “Kendra and Torsten” made sure…
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'It's Getting Better All the Time': If We Can't Have Love Like Barack and Michelle Obama After 27 Years, We Don't Want It
Soul mates. Twin flames. #CouplesGoals. All of these phrases have been used to describe the most idyllic relationships, and could be used to describe Barack and Michelle Obama, who once again flagrantly waved their seemingly perfect marriage in our faces as they celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary on Thursday. Of course, we know no one’s…
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Dear White People's Ashley Blaine Featherson Is Our Best Friend in Our Heads—but She's Nobody's Sidekick
There’s a very short list of onscreen characters we wish we were besties with, let alone actual actresses—Tracee Ellis Ross and Insecure’s Natasha Rothwell immediately come to mind. But if you’re a fan of Netflix’s Dear White People, the character “Joelle Brooks,” played by Ashley Blaine Featherson, is likely another favorite. The brilliant, always loyal…
