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Chris Brown’s New Album Is a Trip Inside the Mind of an Abuser
Why are my hands bleeding? I think I know why/ I’ve been holding on/To the words from your every lie. The fact that Chris Brown happens to release a brand-new album with graphic lyrics like this during what might be the world’s worst week for famous black men and domestic violence has got to be…
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What Makes a TV Show ‘Black’?
Earlier this year I called Orange Is the New Black the best black show currently on TV. The point was that even though the show’s lead character was white, the series unearthed both powerful stories of black characters and a shining showcase of black talent. Laverne Cox, Danielle Brooks, Samira Wiley and Uzo Aduba, in…
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Get on Up: The Pain of Playing James Brown
“You’re seeing a movie about a genius,” Chadwick Boseman says of Get on Up: The James Brown Story. He’d know this better than anyone, as the man tasked to bring the icon to life—and that feat requires a genius quality all its own. Boseman sits down with The Root’s social media editor, Terron Moore, to explain all the fear,…
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Think Like a Man Too Pushes Back on the ‘Black Movie’ Label, Again
Before 12 Years a Slave turned Chiwetel and Lupita into household names and became a blockbuster “black movie”—whatever that means—it was 2012’s Think Like a Man that was an unlikely hit. The loose adaptation of Steve Harvey’s self-help book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man earned nearly $100 million and forced the film industry…
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OITNB: Today’s Best Black Show Has a White Star
Orange Is the New Black premieres all episodes of its second season on Friday, June 6. Plot specifics aside, if the message of the next iteration of the critically acclaimed Netflix drama is anything like the first, there’s one takeaway we can look forward to, and it’s this: Criminals are people, too. Sometimes they’re white…
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Being Mary Jane: Why We Watch Her Man-Stealing Mess
I used to argue that the worst thing about Being Mary Jane was, in fact, Mary Jane. Don’t get me wrong—BET’s newest scripted drama is a hit for all the right reasons: compelling and complex characters, gossipy twists and addictive cliffhangers. But its center is so unlikely. A character more easily characterized as a villainous,…
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Ride Along and the 12 Best Black Buddy Comedies
If you haven’t felt the surge of black creativity in film and TV, you’re seriously missing something. The revolution is being televised, downloaded, recorded and streamed on screens big and small, and two of our biggest stars are happy to be a part of it. We chatted with Ride Along partners Ice Cube and Kevin Hart at the…
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Great R&B Albums You Missed While Grooving to ‘Blurred Lines’
Terron Moore is social media editor at The Root. The overwhelming effect of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” in 2013 was cemented in Friday’s announcement of Grammy nominees: The ubiquitous Pharrell-produced tune finds itself in the running for record of the year after topping the charts in 14 different countries and holding atop the Billboard Hot…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
