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Unsigned Hype: 8 Up-and-Coming Acts to Look Out For
Getting a record deal used to be the marker of success for any up-and-coming rapper—but there’s a new crop of experimental artists who are bending the rules of hip-hop. Without the help of major record labels, these up-and-coming rappers and producers are forging their own path into the limelight. Many of today’s biggest stars have…
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When It Comes to Voting, Freedom Summer Wasn’t a One-Time Event
In January my father retraced steps he took 50 years ago in Hattiesburg, Miss. As a teenager in 1964, he had locked arms with men and women of goodwill seeking the most sacred and elusive right of citizenship: the vote. Later that year, Mississippi would become the site of the extraordinary Freedom Summer, when students…
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Trump Knocks $40,000,000 Central Park 5 Settlement
Calling it “the heist of the century,” Donald Trump sharply criticized the city for agreeing to a $40 million settlement with the five men wrongfully convicted in the notorious Central Park jogger assault of the 1980s, according to the Daily News. “The recipients must be laughing out loud at the stupidity of the city,” Donald…
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Death of Mom Shot by Toddler Ruled Accidental
The fatal shooting of a 33-year-old Florida woman by her 2-year-old son in 2011 was a tragic accident, prosecutors said, according to the Sun Sentinel. In April 2011, Julia Bennett reportedly was struck in the left side of the back after her son found a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun wedged between sofa cushions in their…
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Obama Expands Benefits for Same-Sex Couples
President Barack Obama on Friday granted a number of new federal benefits, including Social Security, to same-sex couples, nearly a year after the Supreme Court struck down a measure prohibiting federal recognition of gay marriage, the Associated Press reports. The provision extends even to couples living in states where same-sex marriage is not legal, the…
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Sex-Abuse Lawsuit Against Ex-Elmo Puppeteer Is Dismissed
A federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit against former Sesame Street puppeteer Kevin Clash on Thursday, saying it had not been filed before the statute of limitations expired, Reuters reports. U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner in Harrisburg, Pa., dismissed the suit filed last year by a man “who accused Clash, 53, of engaging in…
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15 Fun World Cup Facts About Team USA
It is impossible to deny soccer’s growing popularity among U.S. fans. An ESPN Sports Poll Annual Report revealed that Major League Soccer is now as popular with American children as Major League Baseball. And according to FIFA, U.S. fans are second to Brazil in the purchase of tickets to this year’s World Cup. As the…
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Blitz the Ambassador Chronicles Hip-Hop’s ‘Mobile Diaspora’ in Afropolitan Dreams
It’s telling that Samuel Bazawule—aka Blitz the Ambassador—was introduced to hip-hop as a child in Ghana via the music of Public Enemy. While “Niggas in Paris” like Kanye West and Jay Z are most often recalled in fantasies and nightmares of hip-hop’s global expansion, rappers have been in the vanguard of a black cosmopolitan identity…
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My Brother’s Keeper: Stop Writing Letters, Just Do the Work
Over the past few days my Twitter feed has buzzed about the letter signed by 1,000 women and girls urging President Barack Obama to broaden his My Brother’s Keeper initiative. The letter and subsequent commentaries attack the president, accusing him of any number of sins for not including women and girls in this program. Yes,…
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Exonerated Central Park Five Reach $40 Million Settlement
Five men, four black and one Hispanic, widely known as the Central Park Five whose charges—in the 1989 ruthless beating and sexual assault of 28-year-old investment banker Trisha Meili during her routine jog through Central Park—were later overturned, have reached a $40 million settlement with New York City, reports the New York Times. The proposed deal…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
