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I Miss the Old Kanye
Kanye’s latest album, The Life of Pablo, has been reviewed and discussed at length in the almost week since it was made available via Tidal, and not always for good reasons. The music is super well produced, and the featured artists all add wonderful layers to what is a pretty schizophrenic project. The music is…
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3 Lessons in Blackness at the Black Solidarity Conference
This past weekend, Damon Young and I had the pleasure of speaking at Yale University as part of its 21st annual Black Solidarity Conference. Since it was a conference dedicated to issues surrounding blackness, I’m going to share a few things that stood out to me: 1. HBCUs and PWIs, HBCUs vs. PWIs, everybody hates…
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An Ode To SWV
I grew up in Frankfurt, Germany, as a military brat in the mid-’80s and early ’90s. Those of us who grew up overseas had one channel to watch on television: AFN, which stands for the Armed Forces Network. We all watched the same cartoons, the same soap operas (General Hospital was followed by Guiding Light), and the…
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An Ode to SWV
I grew up in Frankfurt, Germany, as a military brat in the mid-’80s and early ’90s. Those of us who grew up overseas had one channel to watch on television: AFN, which stands for the Armed Forces Network. We all watched the same cartoons, the same soap operas (General Hospital was followed by Guiding Light),…
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If Beyoncé Has Gone Full Black, I'm Here For It.
Based on the events of the past weekend related to Beyoncé, it’s entirely possible that she’s trolling America, all of it. Beyoncé dropped the video for the song “Formation” on Saturday, converting (my) Facebook into a de facto Beyoncé fan site. “Formation” is an unapologetically black- and Southern-ass song and video. The words to the…
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Beyoncé Went Full Black, Apparently. I’m Here for It
Based on the events of the past weekend related to Beyoncé, it’s entirely possible that she’s trolling America, all of it. Beyoncé dropped the video for the song “Formation” on Saturday, converting my Facebook into a de facto Beyoncé fan site. “Formation” is an unapologetically black- and Southern-ass song and video. The words to the…
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How to Get Over Writer’s Block
I’m a writer. As a writer, one of my least favorite things on this planet is Comic Sans. Coming in a close second is writer’s block. If you are a writer, there’s a better than 100,000,000 percent chance that at some point you’ve experienced a case of writer’s block. What is writer’s block? I’m sure…
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The Hip-Hop Dalmatians Are the Greatest Rap Group That Never Was
As far as late-’90s and early-2000s black cinema goes, Brown Sugar is probably my favorite movie. The Wood is as close a second as you can get, much in the way that Reasonable Doubt is my favorite Jay Z album but I can listen to The Blueprint all day every day. In fact, The Wood…
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Dear Stacey Dash, You Are Fine. I Hate You.
Dear Stacey Dash, You are fine. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I just might hate you. Here’s why: the things that you say make my ass itch. I do not like it when my ass itches. Alas, as I scroll my decidedly Black-as-fuck Facebook feed, you and your recent comments about…
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How Come Nobody Cares About En Vogue Anymore?
I could talk about music incessantly. I’m like Steve Hightower (of Steve Hightower and the High Tops fame): Music is my one true love. Or, at the very least, my first love. I used to steal tapes. I remember my first CD purchase. I’ve had full-fledged arguments with friends that nearly turned into brawls over…
