culture
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In Memoriam: 2016 Nearly Broke Us by Taking Some of Our Biggest Stars
The year 2016 was brutal. Remembering all of the lives we lost and putting them in a list was heavy. From Prince to Tommy Ford, Maurice White, Afeni Shakur, Phife Dawg, Gwen Ifill, Muhammad Ali and too many other names to mention, the black community took countless L’s this year. We had to say goodbye…
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If You’re a Black Man Mad About Serena Williams’ Engagement, I Have Questions
Pardon me. I need to preface what you are about to read with a … not so much an explanation, but a statement of awareness of how it may be received. If you are a person, male or female, who ascribes to Hotep and ankh-right beliefs, you will probably be pissed before the end of…
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Unique Views Podcast, Episode 24: It’s a Funkdafied Year With Da Brat
Da Brat joined Unique Views to brag about how no one ever forced her into a sexy image to be successful in hip-hop, how she and Jermaine Dupri formed their own dynamic duo (they are still making beautiful music together) and why she’s on reality TV (Rickey Smiley for Real, Dish Nation, The Rap Game, Growing…
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#2016TaughtMe: What Were the Biggest Lessons You Learned This Year?
2016 has been a very difficult year for many of us. There have been a number of high-profile deaths, destruction all around the world, and we’re losing the Obamas in the White House and gaining President-elect Donald Trump. What a bummer! But in the prolific words of India.Arie, “There’s a blessing in every lesson,” and…
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Ring in the New Year With These Flavors of the Diaspora
Here we are, at the last installment of the series bringing the African Diaspora to your holiday table. Where we started and where we end is a celebration of who we are as individuals and as a collective. I’ve learned a lot about my personal food history and how it is connected to other Pan-African cultures.…
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Watch: #Bye2016: A Hilarious Look at the Best and Worst Moments of the Year
What a year 2016 has been! It felt as if we were hearing about the death of some unarmed black person or a beloved celebrity every second. This was also the year that we begrudgingly voted in a new president, reluctantly saying goodbye to President Barack Obama and his lovely family. Despite the death and…
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Hotep Hoedown: How Umar Johnson Lost His Hotep Mind
It was a Hotep hoedown, or a Hotep smackdown—straight WWE-style—when Dr. Umar Johnson, aka the Prince of Pan-Africanism, waded deep in the petty waters and posted a full 45-minute video rant against former conscious comrade General Seti. Who knows how it all started? And truthfully, who cares, because Hotep logic and philosophy live outside the…
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Yasiin Bey, Formerly Known as Mos Def, Says Goodbye at the Apollo
He came onstage dropping rose petals and left it dropping tears. The artist yasiin bey (yes, all lowercase), formerly known as Mos Def, spent two evenings in December at the world-famous Apollo Theater in Harlem saying goodbye. After his final U.S. performances (he has three upcoming dates at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.), he…
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Gentrification and Food Deserts Got You Down? There’s an App for That
There are a number of social-justice movements, but urban-planning movements are starting to catch up. With that comes the next generation of “new urbanists” and creative designers of public spaces who are falling in love with big social terms like “equity” while scrambling to create technology that can visualize it. And if neighborhoods are the…
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The 2016 List of People We Don’t Mess With Anymore
Last year we debuted the list of people to whom black America gave the collective side eye. As 2016 winds to a close, once again we document the people we’ve disinvited from the cookout. Since the apostles got together to talk to Judas in December of the year 1, black people have used this month…