culture
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Tupac Musical Holler if Ya Hear Me Silenced on Broadway After 6 Weeks
In the end it may have been too much for Holler if Ya Hear Me to carry. The Tupac musical was supposed to be a bridge between the gritty streets of hip-hop and the highbrow Broadway scene. Holler opened to lukewarm reviews, struggled to find an audience, and after some 38 performances and 17 previews…
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Tracy Morgan Speaks for the 1st Time Since Accident: ‘I’m OK. I Feel Strong’
Looks like Tracy Morgan will be back to his old tricks in no time. Morgan spoke out for the first time since a Wal-Mart truck crashed into his limousine, killing his good friend and mentor, James “Uncle Jimmy Mack” McNair, and leaving him hospitalized with a broken nose, broken femur, cracked ribs and a broken…
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Get on Up: The Pain of Playing James Brown
“You’re seeing a movie about a genius,” Chadwick Boseman says of Get on Up: The James Brown Story. He’d know this better than anyone, as the man tasked to bring the icon to life—and that feat requires a genius quality all its own. Boseman sits down with The Root’s social media editor, Terron Moore, to explain all the fear,…
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Va. Target Security Guard Fired for Turning in Shoplifter?
It was a matter of routine … at least that’s what 29-year-old Dallas Northington, a former Target security guard, thought. The young father, who worked at a Leesburg, Va., Target, allegedly caught the same man on surveillance shoplifting on two separate occasions. So he called in the local police, filed a report and gave them…
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Va. Man Claims ‘Kingdom of North Sudan’ to Make Daughter Princess
When Jeremiah Heaton’s daughter asked last winter if she could be a real princess, he said yes. As it turns out, Heaton, who isn’t big on false promises, wasn’t just saying that to appease his daughter. He set out to make his daughter’s dream come true by laying claim to an unclaimed 800-square-mile section of…
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Anti-Apartheid Novelist Nadine Gordimer Dead at 90
South African author Nadine Gordimer, known for her unflinching look at apartheid in her works, died Monday in Johannesburg at the age of 90, the New York Times reports. The 1991 Nobel laureate reportedly did not have her sights set on the heavy oppression that ruled her country in her youth, but she soon realized…
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Family of Man Fatally Shot by Undercover NYPD Cop Settles for $2M
The family of Shem Walker, an unarmed Army veteran who was killed by a New York City undercover detective in 2009, has settled with the city for $2.25 million, according to the New York Daily News. The 49-year-old man was killed in a July 11, 2009, altercation with the detective, who appeared to be loitering…
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Boko Haram: ‘Bring Back Our Army’
Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group that has been in the spotlight since abducting more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok, Nigeria, in April, is once again drawing attention to itself, releasing a video mocking the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, NBC News reports. In the video the radical group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, can be seen…
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8th-Grade Metal Band Signs $1.7M Record Deal
They may not be old enough to see an R-rated movie without a parent, but that doesn’t mean they can’t rock out. With gigs at this year’s Coachella Festival in California and opening for metal heavyweights Guns N’ Roses, three black eighth-graders—guitarist Malcolm Brickhouse and bassist Alec Atkins, both 13, and drummer Jarad Dawkins, 12—who…
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Florida Cops Linked to KKK Are Off the Force
Two members of a Florida town’s police department are off the force after an FBI report allegedly linked them to the Ku Klux Klan, the Orlando Sentinel reports. According to the Sentinel, Fruitland Park Deputy Chief David Borst offered his immediate resignation once the FBI released the report to police Chief Terry Isaacs. Isaacs dismissed…