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In The Water: Rhiannon Giddens Pays Musical Tribute to the Painful Legacy of Wilmington, N.C.
Rhiannon Giddens is nothing if not prolific; the Grammy award-winner and Macarthur Genius Award recipient may have initially made her mark as co-founder and lead vocalist of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but her musical acumen spans genres. From the roots music of her banjo-based all-female super-quartet Our Native Daughters (earning her one of two Grammy…
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Akhnaten: A Revolutionary King Gets an Equally Innovative Opera
It’s strangely fitting that one of history’s earliest renegades has been immortalized with an opera that also defies convention—and indeed, for those unfamiliar with the music of Philip Glass, the operative word some may use to describe his opera Akhnaten might be “strange.” For the genre’s purists, the Metropolitan Opera’s production of his now 35-year-old…
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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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Optical Illusions: At Balmain and Off-White’s Spring/Summer 2020 Shows, Things Aren’t Always What They Seem
As Fashion Week traveled from New York City to London to Milan to Paris, we’ve been waiting patiently to see what the fashion industry’s top two black designers would be offering for Spring/Summer 2020. And while they presented very different aesthetics, Off-White’s Virgil Abloh and Balmain Creative Director Olivier Rousteing are both taking an illusory…
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From Jackie Aina to the CROWN Coalition, Black Women Lead Glamour’s List of Women Changing the Beauty Industry
It’s our turn. That’s the message Glamour magazine is giving black women, with the release of its “Women of the Year All Year” list honoring the biggest influencers in beauty. Of the 12 women the magazine profiled for 2019, eight are black, indicating that our influence is finally moving beyond being fodder for appropriation to…
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The Bitter, the Sweet, and the Book: Beyoncé’s Seminal Work Enters the Literary Canon With The Lemonade Reader
In the three years since Beyoncé seamlessly merged black feminism and pop culture with the release of Lemonade, much has been said—and written—about the impact of her semi-autobiographical visual album, which traced a direct lineage from ancient African religion and folklore to Gullah culture to New Orleans’ “bounce” and the black female backbones of movements…
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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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Behind Picket Fences: In Sam Kebede’s EthiopianAmerica, the American Dream Masks a Common Nightmare
There is palpable energy prior to a theatrical production; a current of excitement that buzzes through an audience anticipating new work on the stage. At the press night for EthiopianAmerica, the newest production from the Chicago-based Definition Theatre Company staged at Victory Gardens, there was also a profound feeling of family, as several members of…
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LeBron James’ I Promise School Receives a $1 Million Boost from Dick’s Sporting Goods
The good news keeps coming for LeBron James’ groundbreaking I Promise School in his native Akron, Ohio. Following April reports that the school was already yielding incredible results in its first year, the NBA star surprised I Promise students by announcing that they’d be receiving a brand new gym, thanks to a $1 million grant…
