culture

I don’t have any tattoos. It’s not for lack of want, either. For the longest, I’ve wanted to get a sleeve. I feel like I would look cool with my entire left arm tatted up. I have ideas of tats that I want and where I’d place them. I’m a tat dreamer. There’s the “inshallah”…

It’s tough being a hip-hop fan in your mid-30s. Your formative years took place entirely during the genre’s “renaissance”–roughly 1992 to 2000—when classics dropped weekly and before ringtone rap, singles-driven albums and J-Kwon came in and stunk up the whole joint. You know what quality and effort sound like. Some hip-hop heads—the portly dudes rocking…

First things first. This column is not about how beautiful my daughter Emmy is. This is not about oh-my-goodness-please-stop-noticing-my-daughter’s-model-like-breathtaking-beauty. Emmy’s cute. Like every other 8-year-old girl in her class—and beyond. My concern is this. Often, when we are out and we see my friends, neighbors or co-workers, and they meet Emmy for the first time,…

They say money talks, which is a good thing because apparently we don’t like talking about money. According to a 2014 study completed by Wells Fargo, almost 44 percent of Americans consider personal finance to be one of the most difficult topics to discuss, outranking death, politics, religion and taxes.  We talk about everything from…

The movie Concussion, starring Will Smith and his odd African accent, opens on Christmas Day this year. It’s a movie about a forensic pathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, who became at odds with the NFL over his research and study into chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which can be the end result of one too many hits…

Let’s get the album title out of the way first. T-Pain indeed started out as a rapper. His hip-hop cover of Akon’s hit single “Locked Up” led to a record deal. But T-Pain decided to transition to singing in lieu of rapping, hence the name of the album, which was released a decade ago on…

The holidays are upon us, and the coquito-infused ugly-sweater parties are in full effect. This is the time of year when we are all a little “extra.” We eat, drink and even spend more than we typically do. But this year might be a little different. In support of the call for “justice or else,”…

Harriette Cole is the author of the book of meditations 108 Stitches: Words We Live By and a contributing editor at The Root. Follow her on Twitter.