culture

There is little doubt that Barack Obama’s election presents not only a historic moment for black America, but one filled with enormous potential for change. As outlined in the State of AIDS in Black America section of this report, the new administration and Congress face grave challenges, but also great opportunities to revive black America’s…

The 2009 edition of the Black AIDS Institute’s annual State of AIDS in Black America report lays out both the promise and the peril of the unique moment at which we’ve arrived in this epidemic. On one hand, the historic election of Barack Obama and a congressional majority that has been more supportive of the…

Who will ever forget the first moment Barack and Michelle Obama took to the dance floor on the evening of the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball? Our president, dashing in his tuxedo, and our first lady, a vision of loveliness in white, were serenaded by Beyoncé to Etta James’ famous “At Last.” The rest of us reveled…

The Buzz gets no satisfaction player hating those who regularly spark the leaf. But we’re in favor of a just application of the law when it comes to marijuana. As Stanton Peele writes in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Arrest Michael Phelps!”—unless the kid glove, superstar treatment is going to be applied equally to African Americans…

This morning’s lead story in The New York Times addresses President Obama’s efforts to change corporate culture by caping executive salaries to $500,000. Now, as much as The Buzz loves the Big O, we can’t help but say, “Whatchu talkin’ bout, Bama?” They’re even astounded Down Under, where the online newspaper The Australian makes note…

R&B albums rarely combine the multiple musical legacies of one given city and catch the zeitgeist of its time as masterfully as PPP’s sophomore disc, Abundance (Ubiquity). As the title suggests, producer Waajeed and multi-instrumentalist Saadiq—the group’s two brainiacs—pack so much historical reference, so much modern perspective, so much deft musicality, so much lyrical ingenuity,…

“You may not think I’m French, but I am,” said a latte-colored man with frizzy hair over a loud speaker hidden in a sculpture garden on the Mall in Washington, D.C.  At the performance last fall, there were no signs leading to the concert where French harmonica player Frédéric Yonnet performed. The only giveaway was…

Modern medicine never ceases to amaze The Buzz. The latest shocker? A recent kidney transplant, detailed by William Saletan in Slate’s “Human Nature” blog, in which a 48-year-old woman had the organ removed through her vagina. Yes, you read correctly! Vagina. And if BBC News reported the story, then you know that it’s more than the setup for a…

Sporting a business ‘fro and a pronounced beard that gave him the look of an ‘80s Marvin Gaye or a ‘70s Orson Welles, Tuesday, while his one time paramour Christine Beatty still serves out her 120-day sentence, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was released from jail and headed directly to his family’s new home in…