culture
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Modern Renaissance Man: Hyundai’s Newest Executive, Erwin Raphael
Erwin Raphael, the new U.S. general manager for Hyundai’s luxury brand, Genesis, specializes in challenges, whether in manufacturing, sales, math—or handling lions. “It’s a lot easier to train a lion than give life to a lamb,” Raphael says, quoting one of his many mentors. He’s talking about dealing with an employee he describes as being “on…
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Why Underground’s Rosalee and Noah Have the Best Black Relationship on TV
After Wednesday night’s episode of WGN’s new hit show Underground, I am obsessed with TV’s hottest new pairing, Rosalee (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and Noah (Aldis Hodge), two enslaved Americans from the fictional Macon Plantation in Georgia who have escaped bondage and are currently on a North-bound run. They have the best relationship on TV, even if,…
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4 Things I Learned as a Man on a New Natural-Hair Journey
Late last year I wrote a piece (“The Nappyheaded Black Male Revolution Is On”) about changing my hair for the first time in over a decade, connecting my decision to get a fade and allow it to grow out to the creative hair decisions being made by black males (young and old) around the country.…
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15 Truly Underrated Hip-Hop Albums
Since I had to conceal the “Parental Advisory” sticker to convince my mama to purchase my very first compact disc—Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s E. 1999 Eternal—from Blockbuster Music back in 1995, I’ve accumulated somewhere just south of 1,000 CDs. After 21 years of collecting so much music, I’ve forgotten about certain albums that were significant to me…
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On Saartjie Baartman and the Ownership of Black Women’s Bodies
The perceived ownership of a black woman’s body is an issue deeply woven into the fabric of the ugliest pieces of history. This poisonous thinking has not been quarantined to one section of the globe. In the United States, it was this idea of “ownership” that dominated the thinking of plantation owners and allowed them…
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Meet Tracy Oliver, Who Will Make You Laugh at Barbershop: The Next Cut
Barbershop: The Next Cut, starring Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer as barbers on the South Side of Chicago (the third installment of the franchise), is probably a lot funnier than most people expect, thanks in part to Tracy Oliver. The Stanford-educated, South Carolina native first got our attention as Nina, the work nemesis of…
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105 Real Black Women More Deserving of Book Deals Than Fake Black Woman Rachel Dolezal
On Wednesday, various news outlets confirmed what post-racial turducken Rachel Dolezal alluded to in her recent interview on the Today show. She did indeed receive a deal to pen a book about race. From The Guardian: Rachel Dolezal, the civil-rights activist who was accused of misrepresenting herself as black last year, has been signed to…
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Empire Recap: A Daddy With Mommy Issues
All together now: The pieces are falling into place on Empire. It’s been observed that Empire’s sophomore season has been off-key. In last night’s episode, “The Tameness of a Wolf,” the writers remembered their own history, and the plot points started to come together. Last week Jamal, who was angry with his dad, announced publicly…
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5 Things We Learned at the Hip Hop 4 Human Rights Concert
On Tuesday, April 12, The Root joined sister network Fusion and Univision’s new music vertical, TrackRecord, in Albany, N.Y., for a Hip Hop 4 Human Rights concert to help end solitary confinement. The show brought out hip-hop artists Chi Ali, Ahmen, Peter Gunz, Mysonne and DJ Kay Slay, as well as activists such as Ricky…