culture

From Roseanne Barr to R. Kelly, check out the celebrities who performed the worst renditions of the national anthem. Full of pride, but short of pipes. Even Jennifer Hudson makes the list! CARL LEWIS Retired track and field man Carl Lewis may have won 10 Olympic medals, but he won’t be winning awards for his…

From Ashton Lattimore at NewsOne: “This was a day that many of us have dreamed about for our entire lives,” said Russell Simmons. On June 18, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for slavery, drawing effusive praise from high-profile figures like Simmons and President Barack Obama. But three little lines at the…

GALLERY—Losing the Vibe Vibe magazine is dead. Just like that. No wake, no second line, no funeral. Nothing. Vibe is gone like a pocket full of singles at an Atlanta strip club. Gone, but certainly not forgotten. I can remember the inaugural Vibe magazine cover like it was yesterday. Snoop Doggy Dogg—as he was known at the…

The Obama White House is evidence of the latest political strides of black Americans. Very recent history in the form of the mortgage crisis is evidence of just how far we have to go economically and financially. And the conversation about economic equality requires a fundamental change in the conversation.  “Rights imply that somebody has…

From Gawker: “Vibe Magazine—one of the biggest music magazines in America—is folding. The entire music magazine landscape is full of the dead and dying. Wikipedia sums up Vibe unexpectedly well: The magazine owes its success to having a broader range of interests than its closest competitors The Source and XXL which focus more narrowly on…

From Adam Serwer over on The Atlantic: “Ya’ll can’t get mad at me, because I haven’t done a Michael Jackson post yet. This will be my only one, barring unforseen developments. On the bus yesterday, I was reading Newsweek and found this article from David Gates on Michael Jackson: Why did he feel so deeply…

From the BBC: Khartoum University Attack Our government chastised Iran’s government for its actions following its presidential election. If these claims are true, if al-Bashir is having armed thugs attack young women in their dormitories, what will we say? Anything at all? The Buzz fears we’ll say nothing because there is no money in it.

On the red carpet at the BET Awards, as CNN’s Don Lemon interviewed him, Joe Jackson was contemptuous and put-off, willing to give only terse, perfunctory answers to complicated questions. Jackson, resembling a baked potato in a pair of cheap sunglasses, came off more as a gold miner eager to stake a claim than the…

The L.A.-based trio SA-RA Creative Partners has been in the music game for nearly a decade, producing joints for Erykah Badu, Jurassic 5 and John Legend, and releasing cult, underground hit singles such as “Glorious” and “Fish Fillet.” The group—comprised of Om’Mas Keith, Shafiq Husayn and Taz Arnold—have a knack for mixing high-end glamour with…

UPDATE: The Washington Post has a nice running timeline of Madoff’s hearing. From Twitter: @nytimes: NYT NEWS ALERT: Bernard L. Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years in Prison This just came out. We’ll have the scoop forthwith.