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The Teddy Riley Jokes Were Fun but Let's Remember to Put Some Respect on His Name, Please
A few years back, I wrote an article about Raphael Saadiq being the most underappreciated R&B artist of all time. I still believe this to be true. We’ve been stuck in the house for weeks now watching IG Live battles of artists going back and forth with their catalogs, and when people are proposing matchups,…
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10 Pieces of Unsolicited Advice for Teddy Riley for His Rematch With Babyface (Using Songs He Produced)
I can’t lie, Teddy Riley keeps pissing me off. Some of it may not even be his fault but he keeps fucking up my vibe in a way that is grating on me so I’m laying my burdens down at his Uptowns. I do, however, want to be clear here: Teddy Riley is a legend.…
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The Root Jams Weekly Playlist (4/17/2020): 'A Lovely Day'
One thing we have a lot of here at The Root is music enthusiasts. We even have a Grammy-nominated artist (The Glow Up Managing Editor Maisyha Kai) amongst our ranks. The musical appreciation runs deep. Once upon a time not long ago, The Root created weekly music playlists, curated by the staff and upped onto…
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I Told My Child That Batman and Black Panther Wouldn't Hang Out. There Were Tears
In retrospect, I realize I was being kind of petty. Not on purpose, but being a stickler for contrived rules can make you petty, it turns out. Hell, I don’t even like it when I see my kids wearing Adidas shoes with Nike sweatshirts or sweatpants. It happens, and nobody is in the wrong, but…
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The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel Movie on Lifetime Brought the Sunshine. You Should Watch It. Amen.
The Lifetime network doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to black biopics. My life has never quite recovered from their attempt at the Aaliyah story. That particular movie was so bad in casting, thought, mind and deed that while watching the movie with all of social media, when Aaliyah showed up dating…
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My 3-Year-Old Tried to Set Me Up. He Is Clearly Cracking Under the Pressure of This Global Pandemic
I love my kids. I really do. They’re a riot when they’re not trying to end me. Or when they’re not forcing me to listen to songs I’ve learned to hate over and over again. They’re a complete hoot when I don’t step on their shit in the middle of the night. This global pandemic…
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5 More 'Verzuz' Music Battles I'd Love to See Happen
While the promise of a Teddy Riley versus Babyface song-off battle royale may really just be a pipe dream—I’m still working on my own thoughts regarding Teddy Riley’s reasoning for wanting to hold off— on the heels of last weekend’s epic Lil Jon vs T-Pain joyfest, we did get news of a hip-hop lover’s dream…
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The Coronavirus Has Turned Me Into a Handyman. Temporarily, at Least
You know what sound you don’t want to hear when you’re holed up in your house and you’re trying to avoid close contact with friends (humanity, really—and don’t even mention a whole-ass stranger in your house to fix shit because that’s entirely off the table)? No idea? Cool, I’ll tell you. You don’t want to…
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9 Reasons The T-Pain Versus Lil Jon 'Verzuz' Battle Was the Saturday Night Show We Didn't Even Know We Needed
For every melanated individual over the age of 35, Sunday night was slated to be the music version of boxing’s “Rumble In The Jungle,” the spectacular fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali in Kinshasha, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), in October 1974—arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century. (Ali…
