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So It Turns Out ‘Electric Boogie,’ the Song Your Mama ’nem Electric Slide To, Is About a Vibrator. Life Is Different Now
If you’ve been to a black celebration of any sort, you have either done or watched other people do the Electric Slide. It’s a staple in the black community and each generation passes down the routine, ensuring its survival. Where there are black people, there are electric sliders. Real talk, I didn’t even think other…
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10 Reasons Why Coming to America Is the Best Black Movie of All Time
I’m a black-movie connoisseur and African-American-movie advocate. If a black movie exists, I’m checking it out and I don’t care what country it comes from. My Netflix queue tells me that movies like You Got Served and True to the Game are popular on Netflix. We all know that’s a lie. My Amazon Prime queue?…
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Have Fireworks All of a Sudden Gotten More Powerful or Something?
It’s almost the end of June, which means that in Washington, D.C., and, I assume, most other major metropolitan areas, fireworks, in preparation for July Fourth, have been going off for almost an entire month. It’s not uncommon to hear explosives being detonated at all times of day. Just yesterday, at roughly 5:25 a.m., the…
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14 Observations From the 2018 BET Awards Before Rain Took Out My DirecTV for the Evening
In no particular order: 1. I don’t love J. Cole as an artist; nor do I care for most of his albums. But his performance at the BET Awards on Sunday night was awesome. I’ve long contended that I enjoy Cole the person more than the artist, and his performance highlighted that for me. Luckily,…
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What Rooting for Germany in the World Cup as a Black Man in America Is Like
On Saturday afternoon, I took my son to get a haircut at a pretty well-known barbershop in Washington, D.C., near Howard University. I had on my Germany away jersey because Germany was playing Sweden, and I love that jersey. Mexico won earlier in the day, making this a must-win for Germany for them to have…
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Wendell Carter Jr.’s Black Panther-Inspired NBA Draft Outfit Is the Blackest Thing That Ever Happened This Week
For many, the annual NBA draft is the most wonderful time of the year. Young men become instant millionaires, getting the opportunity to take their talents to one of 30 outposts to play basketball for a living and do the economic version of moisturizing their situation. It’s also a time of tremendous pomp and circumstance…
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White Dudes at Morehouse Isn’t Really News. White Women at Spelman Would Be a Much Better Story
Vice dropped a video on Wednesday about a white student named Tiago who just finished his freshman year at Morehouse College, the all-male historically black college in Atlanta which boasts alumni such as Martin Luther King Jr., Spike Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Panama Jackson, Robert E. Johnson, etc. In the video, we hear from Tiago;…
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I’m Not Saying I Vote Just to Get an ‘I Voted’ Sticker, but I Really Like Getting My ‘I Voted’ Sticker
Today is Tuesday, June 19, in the year of our Lord 2018. In Washington, D.C., it’s primary voting day. That, and there’s a very hotly contested initiative (Initiative 77) on the ballot to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, which would gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped employees to the…
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How the Book of Ryan Became My Therapy and Helped Me Understand Fatherhood
When I’m in the studio, I sometimes have these visions of conversations I’d like to have with my father. It leads me to think what it would be like if he and I could communicate on a higher level because there’s always been this barrier between us. Not even just us—everybody in our family. In…
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Fela Kuti Is the Artist Who Brought My Musical Journey Home
One of my biggest regrets in life is how late I discovered so much music that became immediately influential to me. While I grew up in a house where music was constantly present, there were various artists that my parents didn’t know, didn’t show or just didn’t care about. What that means is that many…
